Flying with Tete, Reposting on news of his passing, originally posted 7/28/08

Seattle Summer TangoMagic is just winding down, with one more milonga tonight, and some teachers staying around for a few days. I only took one workshop from Tete. Tete does this thing. He spreads out his arms, and leads his partner with only his center, (in his case, from his important looking belly), and it looks a little crazy. I have seen this on video, and now in person. I have heard people express some opinions about it. And some say it is just a way of showing how the lead ought to be done without the arms.

The workshop was brilliant, not so much in any way related to content, but in a way that he conveys his passion. That is how I experienced it.

I realize that there is no "summing up" that can be made when so many people and communities overlap. Each person is having a different festival experience. People looked happy though, and things were well organized. I know I enjoyed the rewards of making the effort to meet and to be welcoming to dancers from out of town. I danced with people from Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, and the usual suspects. The whole point is to mix it up a little, or a lot, and to share and to get out of our milonga routines.

It was a marathon. We were very selective, and did not do everything. Still, it was a challenge. I tried to catch up with some out of towners, especially Modern Tanguera, but we missed it this time.

The performances always tend to mess with my mind, and maybe with my emotions. No matter what, I won't be doing what those artists are doing, in this lifetime. And still, I let them inspire me. They are unearthly in beauty and accomplishment. But tango, you know, it is really on the inside. The elegance is a feeling, a way of being that is available to everyone who can hear the music, and who will make the inspiration real, through work, through carrying forward the fantasy into the life of dance. Flying like an old eagle, around the floor, to the drum beat of ages, and I knew...it isn't a gimmick. Old Tete, he is flying.

The Gazelles

Monday, January 4, 2010
The Gazelles

Sometimes I have a general dark cloud about the dancing. Why does it sometimes just feel...sort of sad? Maybe partly because I have had a headache for about a week, off and on. A really horrible headache. Other reasons:

1) In Seattle, and I suppose in other places, there is always a group of elite dancers, who seem to be elegant gazelles, mostly unaware of the "rest of us". They are there to let us know how schlumpy and imperfect we are, how late we came to the game, and how....less we are. Often they are teachers, who suddenly do notice us if they are having a workshop soon, or other saleable service or item.

2) I know I have limitations, and that my dance is just average, but I know the feeling, the depth, the power of connection and it drives me to work on the body, and the headspace of the dance. But in any case, I know I am late, and I just have to grieve a little for that.

The upside: I am in pretty good shape, I have energy, I dance a lot and love it, without complacency. I have a partner who loves tango and gets it. One of the gazelle people was very good at teaching a technique class which changed my body. It was only for a brief time, once a week but it got me to have the aha moment which compels one to get it together (even at a late date). This phase had a profound effect on me and I am grateful for the way it put my mind into my body and has given me a pathway back to a measure of strength and knolwdege of my abilities. (I see how the gazelles could be sort of cynical about the people who just won't make the effort to be strong enough to even walk with power and balance.) Teachers who require technique classes are right to do so.

I am aware of where to spend the time and money...no more lessons with performers who have little or no social dance skills. If I haven't seen them on the pista, dancing like humans, then I may admire them for strength and beauty, but they ain't getting a cent from me for lessons. The local instructors love it when these people show up. They probably yearn for some high level dance and some lessons for themselves. It's fine. Whatever. But think about it. What are your expectations? Are they foolish pipe dreams or leftover childhood dreams of dance stardom? Romance, like in the movies? Do you even know?

All I know is this: When I am in the moment (him, me, music) it is one of those moments of non-thought-- of pure living....inside I know that this is what life is and I that am living it. Everything else, including gazelles leaping around, is just a distraction. And tango cures my headache....

Update

For this New Year, I am manifesting: lots of long delicious days in the garden, and in the studio. Meals and dances with friends and family, and good paying gigs for the art. An organized and peaceful house, happy grown offspring, (hopefully employed in work they love.) I want to be a better dancer and to do that I have some fixing to do.

Between the trip, the holidays, and a loss of a family member... and just life, I have not been out dancing much, and not at all locally. I am getting messages and emails from friends and partners (how flattering!) about when they might expect to see me. I hope I get out once or twice in the next two weeks.
But then...
Some of you may recall that I recognized a foot problem a year or so ago, and dancing seemed to cause it to flare up. I learned to compensate for it a little, but the compensations have caused me to have some alignment issues etc. which do not make for lovely dancing. So after much gathering of information, second opinions, and continuing to "adjust" I have decided to take control of the situation and to get my foot fixed.
Thus I will be out of the dancing business for about three months if all goes well. When I am back I will have increased range of motion, no favoring (sickeling) of the right foot, and hopefully, the ability to become a better dancer, walker, runner, yogi, gardener, and to do all the things that I love for another few decades. I trust the doctor, who has done the same surgery on professional dancers and athletes, and has done this surgery every other Friday for thirty years. I am not in the least bit worried about it.
Dear tango friends: I do want to stay in touch, and hopefully I will have a few DJ gigs so that I can be a part of the happiness that we all experience together in this wonderful tango life.

Rome and Me

Being in Rome:  The whole world is violent as seen in the artworks and stories left there. Bloodshed and martyrdom, domination, rule through fear, darkness.  That's what the world seems to be. Confirmed today in the news, and yesterday in the evidence.
The best and most meaningful artwork for me:  The private, decorative, and domestic work of the houses of ancient Rome.  No blood, nobody crucified, upside down or right side up, no one burned at the stake or roasted on a spit.  Just orange trees, birds, plant life, and the sky.  Eternal, and there whether you suffer or not.  Perfect.  And comissioned by women.  Go figure. The frescoes of the private rooms of the wives of the emperors.  The best, and most vibrant and enduring art in Rome.  For me.  About me, and about what I am about.

In recent conversations about my own work and the future of my place in the art world, I have been challenged by the proponents of angst.  The dark side is very very popular in art. You can make a lot of money making people sad, or making them appear to be sophisticated.  It is much cooler to have a tortured painting on your wall.  Sunshine is not in.  There is value in knowing just who you are...even in knowing how simple you are.

Well, I have nothing to contribute to darkness.  So much of it is already available, that I hate to add to the whole stinking pile of it.  In fact I am unable, and disinterested in adding to the constant barrage of blood and war, of hatred and violence. Easy to get that on the news, in the paper.  All over the place.

Time for something else.  I only started making art when I was very young, to express my own delight in nature, in life, in pattern, color, scent, sex, love, the sky, the starlings over the river at twilight.  Why not? Why change now?  It might not be so cool, but it is as old as the House of Livia.  And that is my house.

Home From Rome

Back here again, on a sunny Christmas day, waiting for the prime rib roast to come out of the oven.  Four family members are in the other room looking at their laptops so I may as well....
Being back in the house, here in suburbia...what can I say, I love it.  Went to the Central Market yesterday, a food wonderland.  Bought everything.  The house is strange.  Did the door handle wiggle like that?  Does the heater sound that way all the time? Are my cats really that adorable?  Do I know where my things are?  All jet lagged and have to make another small trip tomorrow.

Want to tell you about tango in Rome.   Four milongas.  I am not interested in reviewing them at all.  Everyone dances for their own reasons in and their own way.  The people there are musical beyond belief.  At two of the milongas I had lovely tandas with Roman men, and lovely tandas with my man.  But being in Rome was work, to a certain extent, because you have to see the place.  There is a reason no one ever describes Rome.  It is not possible to describe the feeling, the sights.  You are walking over the visible layers of time.  Nothing is as clear as you thought it would be, and all the while it just bowls you over.  How can I think about tango there? The milongas were stronger in salon style (slightly open), generally a forty-ish demographic give or take the few straglers on both ends.  Saw some good dancing and some sort of "look at me!" dancing.  Loved that they serve food, are friendly, down to earth.  Music was different.  Less beat, more orchestra.  Drama.


Fanatics that we are, we did want to dance, and to dance on that ground.  And I/we did.  But more than that, I just looked and looked hard and long at Rome.  And ate, walked (my god we walked) and looked and looked some more.

I drew some, and have some resources to work from at home.  But even that just had to take a back seat to the job of looking at Rome.  Big old ruins, driving by in the Taxi at night, lights raking across the bricks of the house of Augustus, the Colosseum, the Palatine, the Vatican, around the circle, moon rising.  Cold sunny days on the floor of the forum, up to the Aventine.   The lovely evidence of a brutal and beautiful world.

But right now, I never want to leave home again.  Just right now.  Next time, a country trip, or the beach!  Or the back yard! And for sure some tango.  We have our own empire to build, and it is built on art, dance, love, and peace.

Merry Christmas everyone.  The rib roast is calling.

Turtle Farm

In the first days of our life in Kirkland, I discovered the urban wilderness around Lake Washington. Within sight of the Seattle skyline the Juanita wetlands have provided a daily journey into the heart of nature. Beaver, heron, many types of duck and fish, and the occaisional surprise visit from a coyote or even a cougar, and eagles...on and on. The favorite animal for us has been the turtle.We named it the "Turtle Farm".  On a sunny day they come up from the mud and muck below, and climb like babies onto the logs to soak up some rays. We love them. They go away for long periods in the winter and the seasons are clocked by their arrival in the spring in great numbers.
One of the small things (and the small things are the best) in Rome was to make it over to the Turtles at Piaza Mattei. It is a small piazza. Not a wilderness, just small fountain, but one of the sweetest. The turtles there are just like ours, and they bring us over on a walk to a place of rest and refreshment.
At home our turtles are about six blocks from home, and these Roman turtles who look exactly like ours, are a short walk too. It will be spring before I see our locals out sunning I suppose, and I look forward to it.

Dear tango friends: I think I can bring the turtle image in here too. I dance slower than the Romans, and with less talking, and no ornamental footwork to speak of. Rome is such a big discovery. No one who comes here leaves with the same idea of life..if they do then they haven't really been here. Tango seems a smaller thing, a real and permanent thing for me still, but some change a gonna come.
Mostly I can hardly wait to see my kitchen and my studio. Lots to bring to both!

What Remains?

When a great adventure ends, what remains? A souvenier is for a tour, but what do you keep for an experience that goes beyond the holiday, the trip, the guidebook?
Only the memory, and the quick sketch of light on the Tiber. on the burnt orange and sanded ochres of the houses? It will be something more in the mind. Rome is an education in distruction and endurance of western civilization. You can barely go out for pizza without tripping over some broken ruins, or vice versa. Right now I hear voices in the street, always voices. The same as it ever was.

Yesterday we had the delight of being with a beautiful friend from Perugia, one we know from our tango community at home, where she used to live. We also met a new friend through her, and they took us to a most Roman eatery for a delectable lunch. (Although our new friend says the spaghetti carbonera is not up to the standard he is accustomed to with his mother's version.) I have learned that there is an effect of pleasant sedation in the meals here, bordering on buzz. More later, going out for one of our last bright days in Rome.

At Home in Rome

We will be going back to Seattle in less than a week. The weather here has been sunny for the most part with a few partial days of rain.
We loved having rain on the day we went to the Pantheon, where rain falls through the dome's oculus in seeming slow motion, a soft wet blessing.

Today I saw my absolute favorite artwork in Rome, the frescoes of the House of Livia. Livia was married to Augustus and they had by all accounts a happy union. They sought to show their power, and knowledge, and to influence people through the meaning and details of the paintings and decorations. This is a nice place for us to visit on the day after our anniversary, as by all accounts we have a happy union as well.

Rooms painted with all forms of plant and bird life in delicious and cool colors can be enjoyed at the Museo Nationale Romano in Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, in a beautiful modern and protected setting. The frescoes line a room and an effort has been made to create a light situation which changes in the way that the daylight changes. It is stunning, sublime. It fills out the experience of the visits to the ruins, from which many frescoes have been removed. (To leave them there would mean distruction.) The same very airy and light filled museum has many fine examples of decorative arts of ancient Rome. I wonder how changed the colors are?

The Trastevere neighborhood and the house here has been delightful. A report on the tango here may have to come later. I came with the goal to just be open and to absorb. So, the processing is the thing that takes time, and that is the next thing. As with my last trip to Italy, it can take decades to understand it all.

Sort of looking towards home, and to all sorts of way to continue the adventure there.