A Busy Weekend

We began the weekend Friday night by going to the Hollin Hall Senior Center to listen to the Mount Vernon Swing Band. We always enjoy their music. One of the things we really like is that they don't play the same songs over and over. They play at Hollin Hall every other month. Every time they have a completely different play list. I don't know of any other band that has such an extensive song list.

Last night we had the first dance of the season with the Regal Dinner and Dance Club. This was a formal dance at the Country Club of Fairfax. It's always fun to get dressed up and go dancing. The Regal has 7 dances this year, all at the CCF. There are 5 that are formal and 2 that are Tea dances.

Tonight we are visiting Kathy and Randy. Their clubhouse is having a Polka night. We're looking forward to lost of good German food and working off the calories to an Om-Pa band.

New Season with the Friday Nighters Dance Club

We belong to the Friday Nighters Dance Club. The dance season started this month. We hold our dances on the 2nd Friday of each month from September through June at the Mount Vernon Unitarian Church. The music is provided by the Family Band.

I was elected as Vice President this year. This means I get to help set up and clean up the dances. We have a pretty good group of members and most everyone pitches in for a turn. I figure if I'm going to join a club I owe it to myself to participate. It's been my experience that the more I contribute, the more I get out of a club.

We're looking forward to another season of dancing.

Milonga at Freedom Plaza

It was a beautiful evening last night and we took full advantage of it by going downtown to Freedom Plaza for the Milonga a la Libertad. There was a good crowd and we saw a couple of people that we know. The schedule of Argentine Tango events around the area is maintained by the Capital Tanqueros. This is a Milonga that is held every Sunday evening during the summer. The calendar goes through the first Sunday in October at this point. There won't be many Sundays left before the season is over. We hope the weather holds so we can enjoy the dancing as many times as possible.

Freedom Plaza is located on Pennsyvania Avenue between the Reagan Building and the National Theatre. It's adjacent to Pershing Park and just a few blocks from the White House. The western end of the plaza contains a large fountain, while the eastern end contains an equestrian statue of Kazimierz Pułaski, a Polish soldier who saved the life of George Washington and became a general in the Continental Army. There’s also a giant stone map of the District of Columbia, as designed by Pierre L'Enfant.

The Plaza doesn't have the best dance surface. It's granite with inscriptions chisled into the surface. We've had a time trying to find the best kind of shoes to wear on the Plaza. We ended up each having a pair made especially with Freedom Plaza in mind when we went to Buenos Aires a couple of years ago.

The video was taken using my phone. It is facing the fountain and I hope it gives an idea about the dancing. I apologize for the poor video quality.

Dirty Dancing: Limited Keepsake Edition

This is great! The Washington Post has reported that a new version of Dirty Dancing is out on DVD. The timing is wonderful. We are going with friends to our 4th Dirty Dancing weekend at the Mountain Lake Hotel in late June. I ordered the DVD right away so we should get it in time to study for the trivia contest.

The Dirty Dancing weekends start with dinner and then dancing on Friday night. Saturday is a full day of activities. After breakfast, there is a tour of the places where scenes were filmed. Then there is the trivia contest in the Activities Barn. We actually were at the table that won 3 years running. Steve jinxed us last year by bragging. After lunch, instructors from a local dance studio offer group and private dance lessons. They also perform a showcase after dinner featuring dances from the movie. Then the floor is open for everyone to dance to songs from the movie played by a DJ.

Jen Chaney made a mistake in her article for the Post. Baby (real name Frances) didn't dance the merengue with Johnny. She danced the merengue with Mrs. Silverman during a class in the gazebo. Mrs. Silverman was the pickpocket that got Johnny fired. Baby and Johnny danced the mambo at the neighboring Sheldrake Hotel after Penny (Johnny's regular partner) couldn't.

You remember all this right? If not; go watch the movie.

Argentine Tango

We've been hooked on Argentine Tango for the last couple of years. Of all the types of dances that we've been exposed to over those years, Argentine Tango has been both the most challenging and the most rewarding. All dancing is a special way of communicating with your partner. You are together there in the moment talking back and forth without speaking. Argentine Tango is so much improvisation that it brings that communion between partners to another level. The dance and the music are inseparable and both evoke passion. I remember a great line from the movie Take The Lead when tango is described at "sex on hardwood".

We saw our first tango show and took our first lessons in 2006. We started taking regular private lessons from the Tango Duos the following year. Along with our lessons we found venues like Freedom Plaza where we could practice. We've found that we only get our money's worth with our lessons if we practice, practice, practice. We had already set our sights on going to Buenos Aires someday and wanted to know the dance.

We finally made it to Argentina in June of 2008. We were there for 2 weeks and really had a great time. The only hiccup was that we discovered in the Milongas as they are danced in Buenos Aires, they don't dance quite the same Argentine Tango as is generally taught in the States. What is taught in the US are styles like Tango Nuevo, Salon, and Fantasia. These are generally very energetic with a lot of kicks and turns. The Milongas in Argentina tend to be very crowded. There isn't room for large movements so the Milongero style is more subtle. It was such a pleasure to watch the dance that matched the music so well. We were determined to find someone who could teach us the Milongero style of Argentine Tango. We tried a couple of teachers and things just never worked out.

We recently found a teacher who understands what we want and who we are compatible with. We're taking instruction more in technique than specific steps or dances. We've been taking lessons long enough that we have a lot of steps. While we will never be competitive dancers, we still want to improve our dancing technique. A lot of what we are learning now is applicable to not only Argentine Tango but the other dances that we know.

The journey is the destination.

Pablo Veron Argentine Tango Workshops

We had an opportunity yesterday to take 2 workshops from Pablo Veron. The first workshop was in Vals, a type of Argentine Tango that has a 3-count beat much like a Waltz. The second workshop was in Milonga. A Milonga can describe either a dance event or something that 2 people can dance at an event. The Milonga is an Argentine Tango with a very snappy beat. The steps have a lot of syncopation and everything moves very quickly.

Pablo Veron is internationally known for his Tango and teaches around the world. He also starred and danced in the movie "The Tango Lesson". We felt extraordinarily fortunate to get into his workshops. The workshops were great in that they reminded us of things that we had forgotten in these forms of Argentine Tango.

To top the day off, Robert Duvall and his wife hosted a Milonga at their farm in The Plains, Virginia. The Milonga was a charity event in support of The Knowledge is Power Program charter schools. KIPP is a network of free open-enrollment college preparatory public schools in under-resourced communities throughout the United States. The Milonga was held in the second story of the Duvall's barn . They have a great room with a lot of space. The room filled up quickly with a lot of Tanqueros showing their moves. It was clear that Mr. Duvall and his wife enjoy the dance also.

We had a really great time.

Connections

I've heard it said there are 4 connections involved when dancing Tango. There's the connection to your partner, the connection to the music, the connection to the floor and the connection to the other dancers. We got to practice all these connections when we went to an Argentine Tango workshop at Glen Echo Park held by Sharna Fabiano and Korey Ireland of Tango Mercurio.

We made a day of it with our friends, Janet and Jeff. We went to brunch at the Ft Belvoir Officers Club. We usually go there to dance. It is a little hard to do on a Sunday when they put the steam tables on the dance floor. I hope they get up the syrup I spilled before Wednesday. (Just kidding. I have more respect for a dance floor than that.)

We had our lessons in the Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo Park. The weather was perfect and the Spanish Ballroom has one of the best floors around. There was a Basics for Elegant Tangos lesson at 1:00. This was followed by a Variations for Playful Tangos at 2:00. They had a Pre-dance Intro Lesson at 3:00 with a Milonga at 3:30. All in all, we got about 4 hours of Tango in. The lessons were great. They really emphasized the musicality of dancing Tango and the connections. I think the thing that I enjoyed the most was that they brought their own orchestra. The Community Tango Orchestra is a volunteer organization lead by Korey Ireland who is not only a tango instructor but also an accomplished musician and the orchestra's director. The beautiful music, great instruction and wonderful venue really made the day something to remember.

Technology and Me

I've been working with computers for decades. You'd think that I would have a better relationship with pieces of technology than I do. Do you remember the Twilight Zone episode where machines were taking over, bent on destroying mankind? I think there may be some truth to that story.

The other day we had some power outages. It got unseasonably warm and everyone turned on the AC at one time. That and a transformer blew out. It took a while for the electricity to come back on and stay on. It kept going out for a few moments then coming back on just long enough to go around and reset all the clocks before going out again. We thought it was on for good by the time we went to bed but it must have gone out again during the night. I went down to the kitchen to get some breakfast to find that the coffee hadn't started and the pot was flashing "12:00". I figured that I would just start it up and start setting clocks again. No such luck. With this model of coffeepot the time has to be set to get it to work at all. I had never set the time on the coffeepot. Doris usually gets this job. It turns out that there is a trick to it. One that I couldn't figure out, especially since I hadn't gotten my morning shot of caffeine yet. I messed around for a few minutes, pushing buttons and trying to coax it to give me some much needed coffee. I finally gave up and set the kettle on to boil so I could make some instant coffee.

I then turned to the microwave to heat up my bowl of oatmeal. It must have been designed by the coffeepot maker. I couldn't get it to go until after I had set the time. I'm already frustrated and cranky with being defeated by the coffeepot. I'm pushing buttons on the front of the microwave trying to set the time, not getting very far. It starts beeping at me and "CHILD" is displayed on the LED panel.

It's bad enough that the stupid technology won't work when I want it too. It didn't have to insult me, too.

Dancing at Hollin Hall

A couple that we know from the Friday Nighter's Dance Club, Robbie and Alan, told us that a great band was playing at the Hollin Hall Senior Center. The band was the Mount Vernon Swing Band. We decided to try it out and were glad that we did.

Hollin Hall has fairly large dance floor in what used to be a grade school cafeteria. The band was set up in a corner and even though it is a good sized band there was still plenty of room to move. They played a selection of Swing and Foxtrot with a few Latin tunes thrown in for good measure.

Skinifatz Nightspot

We saw an acquaintance of ours at the Dance Factory on Christmas Day. He told us that he occasionally goes to Skinifatz for dancing on Friday and Saturday nights. Skinifatz is a local night spot that is affiliated with the Lazy Susan Dinner Theatre. Both of these establishments are close to home and have been fixtures of the area for quite some time. We first went to a play at the Lazy Susan for our 4 year wedding anniversary. The last time we went there for a play was our 34th wedding anniversary.

The best way to improve dance skills is to practice. Jodi, our instructor when we started taking dance lessons, encouraged her students to get out and dance. We decided to take a group lesson at Skinifatz. On Tuesdays, they had a beginning and intermediate lesson followed by open dancing. We had only just started dance lessons and hadn't realized that the Waltz is a moving dance. Nor did we have a clue about line of dance. (On a moving dance, dancers all move counter-clockwise around the floor. This helps couples avoid bumping into each other.) At that point we were only up to the basic box in the Waltz. After the lessons we went out on the floor to put our dance lessons to use and promptly got run off the floor. I can imagine what the more experienced dancers thought of us rank amateurs doing a box in the middle of traffic. The music started and we began our few faltering steps and then everyone seemed to be racing toward us from all different directions. I panicked and froze which made matters worse. We did make it off the dance floor without causing serious injury, other than to my pride. We haven't lost our amateur status, but I think our dancing is a little less rank.

We decided to try out Skinifatz again last night as we didn't have anything else scheduled. We met Sharon and Paul there to check the place out. We arrived about 6 PM and were the only people there besides the staff. They have a pretty good selection of appetizers and sandwiches so we ordered some dinner and enjoyed the fireplace. The fireplace is designed after the cooking fireplace at Monticello and held a good blaze that was appreciated on a cold winter night. The dance floor was all ours until 9 PM when the DJ showed up. In the mean time they had the sound system tuned to a radio station that did play music that we could dance to. All in all, we had a good time. It's always good to find another venue to dance at if the agenda on Saturday night is empty.

The New Year is Here

I'm one of the people who subscribe to the opinion that it's not only the beginning of a new year, but also the beginning of a new decade. We brought in the new decade last night with friends. We spent the evening with Candy and Jerry and with Kathy and Randy. The community where Kathy and Randy call home has a club house and they put on a special do for New Year's Eve. We had a buffet dinner and DJ. The dance floor kept pretty crowded. I can't think of a better way to welcome the new decade.