(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. 

snow, snowstorm, snow

In celebration of both the snowstorm and my love for Doctor Zhivago, I just have to model my fur hat for you:

I don't know if you can see it in the background, but there is a photo from Doctor Zhivago on the wall, with Yuri and Lara wearing hats quite similar!

Dear J. Peterman: One rabbit fur hat, flaps can be tied up or worn down. Made especially for coming in on dark winter nights to a Turkish rug and a fire burning in the fireplace. Or for a quick stroll to the counter-revolutionary artists' café, The Stray Dog, in St. Petersburg, 1912.  Also quite useful for deserting the Red army and making your way, somehow, sometime, to Paris.      

What does one do in a snowstorm??  Anna Akhmatova, the great Russian poet, has some ideas:

Empty white Christmastide.

Snow, snowstorm, snow.

Let the roads be an ice-rink -

I've nowhere to go!

A.A. January 1914

j.a.

la trattoria

La Trattoria is one of Cairo's best restaurants.  It's on 13 El-Maraashli St., which is right around the corner from 37A Ahmed Heshmat (my old apartment) - lucky me.

Strangely enough, this picture is taken from Omar Sharif's favourite table. You can often see him dining there, and I have had the pleasure of sharing drinks with this wonderful, elegant gentleman numerous times because of mutual friends.  The first time I met him was at the bar in November 2008; and was again introduced to him when I got to know the owners of the restaurant and their friends again in October 2009.  Needless to say, La Trattoria is a relaxing place with good food and a fine selection of "under-the-table" imported wines.

I miss the kind, humorous waiters there, and the elegance that few people know how to preserve in a post-revolution Egypt...

If you love Doctor Zhivago (and Mr. Sharif) as much as I do, watch out for my next post...

in tango, attention to detail

I know it's poor form to take tango videos without the dancers' permission, but since there is very little dancing you see, I want to post it because I want to make a different point with this video.  I took it, sneakily with an iphone, at Providence Tango before Fernanda Cajide taught an excellent class on boleos.

 

There isn't much going on in this video - the dancers are doing back ochos, the instructor is watching them.  The reason why I love this video is because it shows why I love good tango instructors -- attention to detail.  Perfectionists.  Form.  In the video, the instructor stops the woman while she is doing her back ocho and adjusts the position of her leg.  The angle of her foot.  Anyone can do an ocho, a boleo, etc., but when I take a class with an expert, I want that person to tell me all of the things they see wrong about my dancing.  If my foot is not turned out enough, I do want them to stop me and turn it out for me, so I have the physical memory.  I want my instructor to be just as obsessive about my form as I am, and whenever I see someone adjusting someone's body position, the turn of their foot, the setting of their shoulders or turning of the torso, I am inspired by perfection and connection.  

I suppose that's the paradox of tango... Connection is always imperfect because it involves two human beings... and yet each of us individually strives for a perfection of form that can only come about through the trials and errors of embrace.  And together, through our imperfections, we try to dance a beautiful tango... 

Alors...  Vous avez mon salut...!

j.a.