C-U Tangueros,
There will be several treats at the June 10th milonga at the Phillips
Recreation Center that are the icing on the cake for the typical sound
foundation. In addition to several hours of glorious tango (including milonga
and vals varieties) and the sprinkling of tropical Latin music, we will have
the following:
- As announced previously, an introductory lesson will be given prior to the
milonga by Maria Castello and Jacques Saint-Cyr, our guests of honor for the
milonga and our visiting instructors for the weekend. We recommend that you
advertise this workshop to your friends that you want to introduce to tango.
Also, if you are relatively new to tango or feel you need a review of basic
material, this workshop is also for you. ... I need to mention that learning
tango has magical qualities. I know a certain tanguero who took one of
Maria's tango workshops with a dance friend, as their first introduction to
tango, and this began a relationship that resulted in their marriage less
than a year later!! There is no doubt that the clarity of teaching in this
workshop motivated them to continue studying tango together.
- Maria and Jacques will be giving a tango performance during the break at
the milonga. They are professionals. This will be an impressive performance.
- The music at the milonga will be programmed by Leonardo. The theme here is
'Evolution of the Tanda and the Cortina'. If you're not familiar with the
concepts of the tanda and cortina at the milonga, you've been safely
protected from something you probably don't need to know. However, if you
stay with tango long enough, you will inevitably encounter it. If you've been
to Tango Nada Mas in Chicago, you may have recognized that occasionally a
short interlude of supposedly non-danceable light opera music is played
between tangos (or between tangos and other danceable music). {Actually, one
can do a night club 2-step to this light opera, but I won't be the first to
get out onto the floor and do it}. This light opera music is a 'cortina'
('curtain' in Spanish) that separates 'tandas'. In the narrowest definition,
a tanda is a set of 4 songs in the same rhythm (tango, milonga, vals, with
fast or slow taken into account) from the same orchestra in the same period
(e.g., a set of 4 slow valses by Canaro). One purpose of the tanda is to
create a persisting mood that lasts over several songs, and the cortina is a
musical interlude that breaks the mood and separates the tandas. [There are
more tango customs asociated with the tanda and cortina, but I won't go into
it here.] Not all DJs adhere to the strict definition of the tanda as 4 songs
by the same orchestra in the same rhythm, although many do, more or less.
Anyway, Leonardo will take this basic format (tandas with cortinas) and
maintain its spirit while breaking the rules of 4 and monotonicity of rhythm
and sending the monotony of homogeneous cortinas into lunar orbit. For those
of you who are not familar with academic tango and don't care to know, just
enjoy the music and dance.
In any case, the June 10th milonga will be a real treat, so be sure to be
there.
Leonardo
El Leon del Tango
TangoLeon@aol.com
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