swiss club practica, cairo, egypt

This is the (empty) bar at the Swiss Club in Cairo.  Looks very Swiss, no?  And so very NOT Cairo.  If you're ever in Egypt any time soon and want to dance some tango, "The Swiss Club Practica" is held every Tuesday night at 19h00 in the "bowling room" by the back garden.  When I was there, you could dance a bit, the room is very small, and then go outside to chat or watch, sitting on wicker chairs and surrounded by tiny palm trees.  Like a little oasis.

There aren't many dancers, but some are wonderfully good, and all of them are very nice people.  Egyptians (and there aren't just Egyptians dancing, some expats and foreign people like me who stop by) are excellent conversationalists, so the energy is pretty positive.

(not) to do today

I'm sick.  With a cold.  I coughed on the sidewalk today and then cracked up laughing at myself, because when I cough I become a sad and pathetic being, and everyone looked at me like I was insane.  I've been coughing, laughing, coughing, sneezing, laughing all day.  I tried to put on make-up to go outside (at 3pm, to meet a professor) - I sneezed, my eyes started to water, and then I started laughing.  Repeat 4 times.  Qu'y faire??


As you can see, my "to do" list is pretty ambitious for someone in my state.  Take notes on the psychology of volcanoes (I have to psychoanalyze a volcano, like volcanoes were people, within 10 days, and make it seem like I know what I'm talking about - a note about this, I designed this project, yea, I got myself into this mess), learn the Coptic language, don't spill coffee everywhere (which I DID - EVERYWHERE, in the middle of a café, on my jeans, my face, my food, the table, my sweater), and update tango blog.  On something, yet again, that has nothing to do with tango.  Please bear with me.  Buy some tango shoes (nueva epoca, the ad on this blog below twitter, actually has AMAZING tango shoes), keep yourself occupied, and keep dancing!

j.a. 

is it true?

...  Is it true that there is a human being attached to these shoes?

...  Do you ever wonder...?

j.a.

two favourites

YES.

j.a.

stylish...

... but not tango.

Use your imagination and pretend this is me, standing on the street in NYC, outside of a dance studio in Manhattan on 8th Ave.  I've just come from a workshop and I'm furious.  Other tango dancers are standing around outside, talking to each other about getting a coffee (not wine??) before the milonga (it was 6.30pm, why not wine??).  They are speaking Spanish.  I just hung up the phone, speaking in French with my friend, because I was talking about how awful the workshop was.  I figured with French I was safe from being detected - this is probably a stupid thought in NYC and also among tango dancers, but whatever. 

Now before I alienate myself from the New York tango scene (not that anyone knows me anyway), let me explain.

It was boring.  Yes, boring!  Why??  Why was it boring??  I still can't wrap my head around it.  Two great tango instructors, a lot of good tango dancers (kind of obsessed with themselves), but the vibe was so low energy, and even though it was an advanced class there was nothing challenging about it, apart from controlling my neuroses and the raging ridiculousness I felt at having taken the train all the way down to 8th Ave. when I was about to take a nap.  But the scene was so familiar - tango workshop, studio, people putting on shoes, taking off shoes, talking to friends, using the same words, blah blah blah.  Half the time I wanted to scream, DO SOMETHING INTERESTING!  I was probably in a bad mood, yea ok I was in a bad mood, but why is tango putting me in a bad mood lately?

Then again, I DID come to NYC in part to get a feel for the "cosmopolitango"(can I copyright that? or do people already use this?) that a big city like New York might offer.  Instead, I left the workshop with the wrath of God inside of me, put on my sunglasses, turned up some Turkish dance remixes on my iPod, and what did I do?  I went shopping.  Because the night before someone had approached me and said, "Hey, are you a model?"  In NYC that's pretty impressive.  Or it was just a creepy guy hitting on me (but everyone needs self-esteem boosters, and often!).  So thanks, creepy guy.  

Didn't buy anything - whew.  Instead I drank wine and ate flourless chocolate cake with a friend at Wine & Roses.  Lots of wine, lots of chocolate.  Trying to forget that there are so many amazing tango shoes out there, if ever I am worthy of them...  And ultimately just deciding, "Hey, yea! I'm a model!" and pretending for awhile that I get paid to look fabulous and drink wine with my friends...  

j.a.

volcano, i love you

I follow the Global Volcanism Blog (and also follow them on Twitter!).  And these photos are infinitely more exciting than whatever I experienced at this tango workshop in NYC this weekend.  To tell you the truth the workshop left me a little cold, even though I took a great video of the performance at the Friday night milonga.  But the video looks like every other tango performance everywhere, and sometimes what is truly sublime occurs where we least expect it, on a lonely night in Iceland, on top of a volcano called "Eyafallajökul."

And although all of Europe has been shut down, and everyone's facebook updates say "stupid volcano, I'm stuck in Milano," (heaven forbid!), I saw these photos and nearly cried over their beauty.  They come from Stromboli Online, a Swiss channel.  "I want your love, and I want your revenge..."

j.a.  

new york!

I'm going to New York tomorrow, to take a workshop with Javier Antar and Kara Wenham!  I'm super excited, especially because my tango life has been dragging for way too long.  I'll let you know how it goes! xoxo.

j.a.

four poems: in paris

I wrote these for an assignment, which was first to write a love poem without any pronouns, and second to make a series in which only 25, 50, and 75% of the poem is represented. I'm not so sure about "experimental poetry," but because I decided to write a bit about Argentine tango (getting rid of pronouns by making people into shoes), and to some extent the cliché (oh, the very real cliché, what's with that?), you get to read it... Et voila.


IN PARIS
I.
In the Argentine tango one shoe longs for a partner,
Seeking always the displacement of a sole
In the slow brush of a leg, the grip of a thigh.
Separated by languages and nations –
-- hecho en Buenos Aires
fabriqué en France –
Leather, suede, gold becomes flesh and finds
As flesh never fails to find
A shadowed counterpart in a heel, a strap, a lace…
…
…
… A milonguero is a lonely man,
A milonguera a troubled woman.
At the end of a dance
To remember a name is useless,
While like a panther the leather flesh senses across the room
A new lover: more stylish, younger,
Perhaps more experienced, burning eternally
To step in the space of a sole
On a night of champagne and violins.


II.
The Argentine longs for a partner,
Seeking always in the slow brush of the grip of a
Buenos Aires
France –
Leather, suede, gold
never fails to find
A counterpart in a heel, a strap, a lace…
… A milonguero is
A milonguera is useless.
Like a panther the flesh senses across the
Lover, younger
Perhaps more
To step in the space of a night.


III.
Displacement
In the grip of languages and nations –


fabriqué en France
A shadow…
a lonely man,
a woman.
a dance
a name
a panther
A new lover
in the
night.


IV.
In the one shoe for a partner,
Seeking always the displacement of a…
…In the slow brush of a leg, the grip of a thigh.
Separated by languages and nations –
-- hecho en Buenos Aires
fabriqué en France –
Leather, suede, gold becomes flesh and finds
As flesh never fails to find
A shadowed counterpart in a heel, a strap, a lace
is a lonely man,
a troubled woman
At the end.
To remember is useless.
While a panther, the leather flesh, senses the room
A lover more stylish, younger,
Perhaps experienced eternally
To step in champagne.

-j.a.

new layout!

How do you like it?  It's not as cozy as the old layout, but I kinda like its chic-ness.  I've been playing around with this "Blogger-in-Draft" thing as a means for procrastination, and making up for the fact that my photos from Cairo keep getting rejected by my dying computer and won't upload.  I tried to upload photos from the Swiss Club Practica this morning, and was so depressed by the fact that my computer completely destroyed my new external hard drive (why??) that, what did I do?  I went to get my haircut.  Again.  Even though it's been 5 weeks, I'm in the clear, but I even had to check my blog posts to make sure that I didn't get my haircut an insanely short time ago.

I had so much to tell you...  So much to show you!  The amazing chocolate I bought in Switzerland, the very Swiss-like interior of the Swiss Club in Cairo (no, I'm not from Switzerland, I'm just developing a small obsession with this country that I have been in for a total of 3 hours)...  Have to wait until Tuesday, when I get a new computer (ISA).


Until then, here is a photo I took in Parma, Italy last July.  Life is sweet in Italy (for obvious reasons, Federico!).  Sometimes when I am sad I think about eating asparagus risotto outdoors with a great glass of wine, watching all the lovely people pass by, my only thought on what flavour(s) of gelato I am going to have at around midnight.  Things are better that way.

ana misreya aktar min il misreen

I'm alive!  I'm in Cairo!  I'm going to a practica on Tuesday!  I will take pictures (insha'allah)!  I am sunburnt!


Right now I am in Arabica, one of my favourite cafes, and I just ate a wrap with bresaola and rocket (very Egyptian, yea).  Tomorrow I'm finally going to the Coptic Museum to see the Nag Hammadi texts, which I'm currently reading for a course.


Spent a day at ain sokhna, lounging with friends on the beach and having an adventure in a raft that drifted too far out to sea ("we're all going to be eaten by stingrays!!!") - let me tell you, Egypt is a crazy place, and Cairo is its old crazy self.  Because of my adventures at the beach I missed my favourite Saturday night milonga, but I was relaxing on a terrace, eating great food with great company, and devouring chocolate cake, wine, and mint tea.  I've been craving this type of evening forever, that exhausted feeling you have after spending the day in the sun, swimming, putting your clothes back on and having a meal, watching the sunset, the sea quiet in the background.  What could be nicer?  It's a damn good life.


Not so much other news, apart from finding strangely that my Arabic is better than it was in December.  I guess I've spent the last three months in a bored/meditative state, everyone says I seem more relaxed, less worried, but I think it's because in the states you don't have to worry about getting hit by a car every time you walk on the street, or jump over thousands of obstacles from broken sidewalks to weirdly-placed palm trees to cats.  


Here is something someone said to me the other day: "America is like a gourmet meal without any flavour.  In Egypt, the meal is not so fancy, but it sets your tongue on fire."  There are good and bad things about this statement (for instance, you could get terrible food poisoning - literally AND metaphorically) - but in general I agree with it.  On the other hand, one of the only benefits I've gotten in the states these last few months is super-clean laundry.  


So is the choice between "exciting life with food poisoning" and "boring life with clean clothes"??  Hm.  Maybe a little of both is necessary to keep one's feet on the ground. 

j.a.

dancing tango under the occupation

Paris, 1943;

(thus spoke youtube).

Black & white photographs of artists, France, and tango, and you have me hooked.  I notice that in France during the tango craze the trend is for women to sing & record tangos (in French of course), while absolutely none of the singers from Buenos Aires any time before the 70s are women... These could just be the recordings I have, but all the old Gardel, di Sarli, Pugliese, d'Arienzo, Canaro, Troilo songs that have words are all sung by men.

It seems only natural given the nature of the tango and tango lyrics ("oh i loved a woman, she forgot me, now all i do is drink wine and so i will probably die tomorrow" &etc)  ...So I wonder, who twisted tango in France into a woman's chanson?

it's been so long

Lack of (s)inspiration in my life right now; tango trials making me want to hibernate, meditate, and return with a clear head.

I am choreographing (yes, oh la la, choreographing) a solo Borgesian tango for a university project.  I'm making a dance film.  Inspired by the Borges stories "The South" and "The Zahir." Ever mixed tango with sufi dancing and kabbalistic maps of the body?

I know it's probably extremely politically incorrect to 1) choreograph a tango 2) choreograph a tango in which there is no lead, but one follow following herself 3) make tango something that it's not,

but this thing is going to great, involving a red ribbon, a compass, a jaguar ring, sufi spinning, and death by planeo, all to the Gotan Project's "Vuelvo al Sur."

..any thoughts?

miracle tango shoes found at local shoe store

After my bad milonga night, after being rescued by Egyptians at Starbucks, I woke up the next day to get my haircut.  I refuse despair at all times (at most times), even if it means doing something stupid like getting your haircut exactly 3.8 weeks after your last haircut.  


The miracle happened afterwards, when I was walking down the street running my hands through my salon styled hair, black scarf and big grey sweater making me confident à la 60s french film star (which I still have to consciously convince myself that I am NOT) and I decided to stop into a shoe store.  I thought, with a sigh, that maybe it's time for me to look for a practica shoe.  I started looking for flexible little flat sneakers that I could stand to wear on a dance floor.


I found these instead.

Gaga, oh la la...

j.a.

rescued by egyptians

Bad tango night = worse night, every time.


Do you ever get claustrophobic at a milonga?  I don't mean because of the crowds of people blocking you on the floor, maneuvering as best they can because the place is so packed with tango dancers...  Tonight, after about two hours, all I wanted to do was dance, but the last thing on earth I wanted was for someone to look at me, approach me, and ask me to dance.  I was almost panicked, and that doesn't make for good dancing.  Even the idea of having a pleasant conversation with someone at one of the tables was horrifying.  I wanted to dance, but I wanted to disappear even more (but no, not like that scene in Flashdance).


So, knowing nothing good could come out of this emotional state, I put on my street shoes and called a taxi.  My whole being put up a sign: don't approach, see?  I even put on my street shoes to keep you away from me while I wait for my taxi.  A Russian came up to me and said, "That's it?"  The milonga was supposed to go to 3am.  I tried to convince myself that I wasn't feeling well, that was why I was leaving, and I suppose I really wasn't feeling well.  God, if tango brings me a whole new set of neuroses, I won't know what to do...


I left, and when the taxi let me off I stopped into a local café (ha, starbucks) to drown my sorrows.  I thought about how I was too poor to buy a bottle of wine (it's the end of the month and my money flew away on tango classes, practicas, and milongas) and I felt worse.


Then, like a sign from heaven, I sit down with my hot chocolate (very self-destructive, I know, I need to stop drinking) and there are two men speaking Arabic on the couch behind me.  I know, like it's in my blood, that by the way they are talking, they are Egyptian.  Mish maA'oul, yani, ba'oulak eie, mafeesh wa'at; ah, yani, helwa kidda, and all of that.  I am suddenly at Pastroudis again.  Or Arabica.  Or Om Kolthoum.  Or Stiletto.  Or anywhere in that dusty, insane place that I call home.

I turn to them and say, "low samaHt, inta min misr?" to one of them ("excuse me, are you from Egypt?").  Ah, min misr! yes! inti misreya? ("yes, from egypt! are you egyptian?") -- no, I am not Egyptian, I explain, I just... am Egyptian.  They couldn't believe I wasn't born in Egypt, or had Egyptian parents, and I spoke with them for a half hour in Arabic about cairo, boston, molokheya, traffic, alexandria.  So I left starbucks feeling happy, a little cold in the winter weather, but still with a smile on my face.  


I tend to be continually pulled by two things in life: Egypt and tango.  When one "life" disappoints me, the other fulfills me.  When I was suffering in Egypt, tango reminded me that there was incredible beauty in the world.  Now it's Egypt's turn to pick me up, but I still have to live with the fact that I will be a foreigner in every country I go.  I will never be truly Egyptian, I will never be truly American, I will never be French even though I speak like a Parisian, never Russian nor Argentinian or... anything, really.  I'm a stateless emigrée.         


"We find a country in these words..." I once wrote.  But now I'm beginning to think we find a country in these embraces, these sad, lonely little bodies that search for a love that lasts 3 minutes.  Sometimes it's beautiful; sometimes it's just awful.  Who ever said any of this is easy...?  Anyhow, I'm sleeping in my AUC sweatshirt tonight.

j.a.

take care of your tango toes

I have great shoes.  They have wonderful support and feel light and lovely.  


That doesn't mean, however, that I don't develop blisters on my feet, and especially calluses on the inside part of my big toe.  At this point these calluses are unavoidable, because I dance all the time with my feet turned out and it's only natural that most of the resistance develops on the inside parts of the toes.  But it's gotten to the point where my toes are so sore that the pain keeps me from turning my feet out as much as I should.  Now this is a problem.


Apparently the best thing to do to these rotten calluses is use a pumice stone and DESTROY THEM.  And also to wrap your toes when you aren't dancing.  For the ballerinas out there (merkel) this is old news, but tomorrow I will give my feet the royal treatment with a long shower, pumice attack (!!), wrapping, and a nice, cushy (but stylish, mind you, who do you think I am?) shoe.

Just dance, gonna be ok... (I love this record baby).

j.a.

celebrate extreme colour

Do you ever have wonderful tango nights, but you barely dance at all?  The milonga on Friday night was fairly normal, not too many people, but something miraculous happened that makes me think the universe has its eye on me: give me a bottle of wine and I am the happiest girl on the planet.

When somebody opens a bottle of wine, I can't help but feel joyous even before I taste it.  The popping of the cork set against an old Gardel recording and soft, dim orange light is one of those beautiful images that isn't exactly rare at a milonga, but it still sends my romantic soul swooning.  I barely danced, just sat with the DJ/instructor and some friends watching the others dance; we got to know each other better under the truth-telling influence of a happy Malbec.  Vino veritas.  At the end of the night I shared a great dance to one of my favourite songs (Paris Texas, Gotan Project) and left, wined-up and feeling great.  Wine - don't ever forget it.  How can you?

Other news.  In the last few days I have purchased a few pairs of leg warmers (very practical for both dancing and the winter wind), one of them HOT PINK (definitely not my style but complements my style perfectly, since I wear usually black, grey, white, & beige), and I'm just obsessed with them.  Really.  I look at them all the time, sitting contentedly in my sock drawer as they talk casually to my other socks (yes, my socks have personalities, all of my other clothes do not), I put them on, I spin around, I laugh.  I'm wearing hot pink for the first time in years, and I'm loving it.  I must admit I found it a little strange that some of the people covering NY Fashion Week seemed to talk about leg warmers as the "new obsession" for spring - I thought people have always been wearing them?  And especially in the last 4 years, revived? etc?  

And another thing I'm doing that I haven't done in years -- I'm eating a packet of M&Ms!!  Seriously, it must be 3 years now since I've had an M&M - for a chocolate-lover, this is strange, non?  And I'm in loooove again...

LOOK AT ALL THE COLOURS!!!

j.a.  

eva and che dance a vals

There are two things Madonna can't do (yes, just two) - the first is, of course, act -- Madonna can't act.  The second is dance Argentine tango.  Look, Madonna can do practically everything better than I can (except act & dance tango), so let me make fun of her gancho/boleo combination at around second 59 of this video:

I'm also astounded at how unnatural she makes the most basic hand gestures look.  "Evita" is arguably the worst music video this woman ever made.  But all the others are just fantastic.

j.a.

nothing else matters

Can someone enlighten me on the subject of the TANGO OBSESSION with the song "Nothing Else Matters"??


Here is a video of Junior Carvalho and Mabel Rivero dancing to "Nothing Else Matters":

And here we have Daniela Pucci and Luis Bianchi dancing to... "Nothing Else Matters":

And my absolute favourite is the video of Ismael Ludman and Maria Mondino dancing to... Nothing Else Matters (Metallica).  I have this video on my computer, but it was given to me under strict confidence that I would NOT publish it... I searched all over the internet for it but alas, it doesn't appear to be published.  

Tonight in my class, which was a basic review of close embrace & ochos, the instructor played one song for us to practice to for an hour and a half.  Can you guess what it was??  NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!!  Has anyone else encountered this song over and over and over again in the exclusive and eccentric world that is the Argentine tango?  Please, someone enlighten me!

And because I robbed you of Ismael y Maria (who are my absolute favourite tango couple ever) dancing to this mysterious song, here is another video for you to enjoy.  I love watching them dance because they are so theatrical, their technique is practically perfect, they happily dance to electronic tango, and yet remain so faithful to the spirit of tango that it makes me want to cry (with joy).  Before I go on too long...

Well, I'm off to write a paper on the Hypostasis of the Archons... Gnosticism.  Wish me luck.  Maybe I can relate it to nothing else matters??  Oh wait, that's just tango...   

(happy) valentine's day

Again I could not resist myself with this beautiful movie, Un Homme et Une Femme.  The song played is "plus fort que nous" by Francis Lai.

For Valentine's day this year, Claude Lelouch, the director of Un Homme et Une Femme, returned to Deauville where he filmed Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant fall in love in 1966.  This time he filmed thousands of couples on the Deauville beach as they ran to each other to embrace et embrasser!  The result is a crazy and charming little hommage à l'amour.  You can find the article by clicking here - to see the film, click on the red "video" icon below the photograph and select the video called "s'embrasser devant la caméra de Lelouch."

j.a.

tango en ciel de lit

Sometimes when I'm bored and have not so much to do, I put on my tango shoes.  Then I start moving around, sometimes I get the idea to film myself for technique correction.  This is a very useful thing to do!

But lately I just dance around to Brigitte Bardot like an idiot, because my nights are ever so eventful, and so I decided to combine forces: a tango video to Brigitte Bardot.  I was practicing boleos (continuing instruction from Fernanda Cajide), and you can see by the end of the video I get a bit carried away and my technique & form COMPLETELY die.  But I don't really care- who doesn't secretly wish that at a milonga once in awhile, they play 60s french pop?  And not just for the cortina...

boleos for one - tango en ciel de lit

j.a.