Tango to Tango

It's been a busy couple of days. The day I got back from Iguazu falls, we went downtown to a place Saori liked to shop and I got a last look at San Telmo. Afterwards, we finally hit Cafe Tortoni for chocolate and churros.

That night, we met up with Jamie and Leah and went to a live tango festival down in Recoletta. It was free and outdoors, and it showcased the Orquestra Tipicas that play in the streets and markets and are mostly made up of 20-30 year old Portenos. The festival was known as the Tango Jovens. I love this kind of music- they play well, using the typical instruments of Tango, but they change the composition, deconstructing the tango, playing with a speed and intensity which is really fresh and revitalizing. Sadly, its very difficult to get records of these Orquestras unless purchasing directly from the band. My favorite group was called Astillero, which was very experimental Tango. Anyway, we watched that for awhile and then Kevin Johansen came on and played for a bit.

This is a bit amusing, as it wasn't until last week that some of my classmates who have an apartment in Palermo Soho realized that Kevin Johansen was their next door neighbor.
I actually preferred the Tango myself. I love the fact that each generation keeps refining and changing the Tango to keep it alive and fresh. It would be analogous to if American youth today kept introducing new interpretations and variations on the waltz.

Today was a very busy day. I got up at 8 and made it down to the American Embassy at 9. I waited around, filled in a form, and finally got pages added to my passport in what took an hour process, so I'm very much releived about that. Most of the people waiting there had had thier passports lost or stolen, or were doing much more complicated things, so I was glad to be able to leave so easily.

I spent the morning packing up my clothes into one suitcase mostly, although there is more packing ahead. at 2:30, I met Saori at the Subte station and we went to the Teatro Colon downtown for a tour, which has been on my list for a long time. Less than two dollars with a student ID, we took the english tour.

It is a crime that I never saw a show or Opera or concert in this theater. It is simply amazing old european theater with great acoustics, seven levels of balconies, huge spaces, and decorated to to the last bit of gold leaf in french baroque and italian renaissance style. All in imported Italian marbles. Gorgeous hall.

The real surprise was the fact that that in the 1980s they dug three levels of basements under the theater for a massive sprawling dance school and the workshops. These levels actually extend out under the surrounding streets. One of the biggest concert practice halls is actually under 9th of Julio avenue.

After the tour, there was a woman who worked in the cafe there who burst into opera singing, so technically we heard opera at the Teatro Colon.

Next stop was Xul Solar musem, another place I've been dying to visit. Very surreal, symbolic paintings by the Xul, and the museum itself was an insane dream by Escher made in concrete.

After the museum, we stopped for tea and cakes, and then to the mall to look for more tango music. Then we came back to Palermo viejo and went to a 10 PM tango show. This tango show was small- only one "piano" keyboard and one bandieon. They alternated just songs, songs with a singer, and songs with two professional tango dancers. It was a little hokey, a little touristy, but it was what I wanted, especially never having been to a professional Tango show before. We were seated so close to the stage, I was worried that the woman dancer was going to kick one of the wine glasses.

So only ten dollars for that, which was really worth it, even for its cheesiness.

Outside ran into the other 4th year guys who are still in town and we hit a Mexican restaurant for margaritas and to catch up on what we've been up to, so that was a lot of fun too.

But back to tango- I danced tango the second night I was here at a lesson, I've seen street performers doing tango, people dancing tango randomly in the street to live music, older matrons tangoing in the tango clubs, listened to the tango of Carlos Gardel, Astor Piazzola, and Orquestra Tipica Imperial, the oldest classics to the latest experimental tango, and finally the tango for the tourists.

My experiance with this city has been a dance of tango. Subtle, dramatic, powerful, revealing, sensual, lively, and melancholy. Steps danced down cobblestones streets and in the parks, on piers, on busses, on subtes, on unstable pavers and dirty sidewalks.

I will miss this city.