Durango will never be the
same. For the last two years we’ve been growing our tango community by leaps
and bounds but I don’t think anyone was prepared for what happened last Monday.
Two
months ago, I was contacted by a woman named Michele Delgado, a tanguera and an
event organizer who frequently hosts milongas at The Savoy in Denver. She said
she had been reading my blogposts about the tango scene in Durango and wondered
if we’d be interested in hosting two couples who were the Buenos Aires Tango
Champions in 2010. She told me that we wouldn’t have to do much, just supply her
with a contact to the local dance studio and she would do the rest.
Who
could turn down an offer like that? Certainly, not me. During the past year and
a half, I’ve come to know and love the denizens of this tiny mountain town
near Colorado’s Rocky Mountains southern border.
If I could expose them to some tango greats and some great instruction
as well, then maybe I could pay this town back for at least some of the tremendous hospitality it has shown me the past eighteen months.
In Durango, they are
passionate about their dances and that includes the tango. On
Monday, they would meet two young couples who are equally passionate about their
dancing, especially the tango. They are emissaries to the world, spreading the
gospel of this dance to all who will listen.
Two
weeks before their arrival, Michele called with a special request: would I be
willing to take these young instructors down the Animas River since I call
myself the Kayak Hombre? I was ecstatic! I’d been dying to get out on the water
one last time before I departed for Fargo, the place of my next telecom
contract.
If there’s
one thing I love more than tango, it is river running. And, if there’s any way
to make that more enjoyable, it is by showing other tango enthusiasts what a wonderful
playground a whitewater river can be. Once more I’d get to call myself a river
guide and I was damn glad to have the opportunity!
I had to
scramble to assemble enough gear. Thanks to my lovely friend and canoe partner,
Ljuba, and a novice tanguera and outdoor enthusiast named Meg, I was able to
garner enough boats, paddles and lifejackets to support a ragtag armada on a safe
descent down the river.
Normally,
the Animas River is too low to float in the middle of the summer. Recent rains, however, had raised the flow to cover the rocks and brought back the
waves we had seen earlier in the season.
When I finally met Paula, Junko, René and Lucas, I was not surprised to find that they were well-mannered and incredibly good-looking; most Argentines are. I’ve
never been there but my guess is that they hail from a
nation full of tall, genetically perfect humans who live in fear of being impolite.
Maybe, I
thought, a day on the river would bring out their flawed inner selves. That was
not the case. When we started, it was a hot day with nary a cloud in the sky.
Ninety minutes later, the weather turned nasty. The blue skies became dark with
clouds. The hot, still air became cold and the wind blew with ferocity; this
not uncommon during a southern Rocky Mountains summer. In spite of the
conditions, our guests remained in high spirits.
The
lightning started just as we passed beneath the 15th Street Bridge.
Ljuba and I had our hands full steering the canoe to shore with Meg in tow
behind us in an inner tube. Paula and Junko were also in tubes while René and Lucas manned the inflatable kayak.
After
the bridge, Junko got caught in an eddy behind one of the bridge pillars. René and Lucas fought the river’s strong current to reach her.
Paula was swept past everybody by a strong blast of wind and was heading
downstream into the rapids without us. Because of the lightning, we needed
to get off the water and it was imperative that she get to shore.
In the span of ten
minutes, our sunny day had changed into a violent thunder and lightning storm.
It was not raining very hard but the air temperature had dropped significantly and
it seemed as if the clouds would burst at any moment. I feared that Durango
might miss its one and only opportunity to meet world champion tango dancers.
Briefly,
I imagined Junko slipping below the surface one last time, her tiny hand
stretched out above the surface to grasp a last minute rescuer that would never
come. Paula was obviously headed for the Grand Canyon on her river tube, never
to be seen again. I pictured myself explaining to Michele what had happened to
her friends.
Fortunately,
none of those things happened! Even the swift currents of the Animas River could
not prevent René from reaching his young wife, aided by his good
friend, Lucas. On my direction to head
for the riverbank, Paula extended her torso into the cold water and paddled
herself straight to the shore before she was drawn into the rapids.
Wow,
I thought to myself, these are not the athletically-challenged city-slickers of New York City, obnoxious tourists trying
to drown themselves in the fast currents of the Lehigh River, the last place I
worked as a river guide. These are superbly capable young adults and they
aren’t counting on me to find their way down this waterway; they are making their own
way in spite of the obstacles they encounter.
Earlier,
in a calm spot in between rapids, René told us that they had been all over the
world; most recently in Rome, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. I was impressed.
When I was their age, I was still counting which states I’d been to and the
list was not very long. These guys were real global travelers and it showed!
Once
on shore, I produced some warm sweaters and river jackets for the ladies. In
five minutes, all was right again in the world and everyone was happily dipping
their hands into a large bag of potato chips. The girls left us at this point because Lucas, René and I decided that we needed to get back on the water to get the larger boats to a place where we could take them off the
river. Lucky for us that the rain never became more than a trickle but the lightning bolts were still very intimidating.
One
of the many nice things about Durango is that the Animas River flows right
through the middle of town. Getting caught beneath an angry cumulonimbus cloud
doesn’t have to be an all day ordeal in the wilderness, as I’ve experienced on
many other whitewater rivers back East. While we made our way downriver, the
women went to the Durango Discovery Museum, http://www.durangodiscovery.org/.
In an
hour’s time, we were all warm and seated at a table in Carver’s Brewery, http://carverbrewing.com/, one of the best
places to eat in Durango!
A short
while later, the class began at Durango Dance.
The four river rats I left at the
restaurant had been transformed into a group of fairy tale characters or dancers
from the cast of Dancing With The Stars!
To look at them, one would know instantly that this is a troupe of trained
professionals.
To see
Paula and Junko walk into the crowded room at Durango Dance, you’d think we’d
never seen such beautiful women. Well, we hadn’t. Not like this. They were both
absolutely stunning!
Paula
was dressed in short denim shorts and some sort of dark blue cloth napkin tied
on with blue strings. Va-va-va-vooooooomm!
Junko
was also a vision to be hold but in a different sort of way. She is like a work
of art carved by Michelangelo but she is no stone; she is friendly and bubbling with enthusiasm. Something about her inspires
me to think about a warm summer morning when the sun is rising and the birds
are singing. I think she may be a princess:-)
The
thing that always blows me away when I meet gorgeous female tango instructors
is that they are intelligent and mature. Learning
how to dance is serious business. I don’t know how many classes I’ve been to where somebody felt compelled to act like a
clown. The demeanor of these two women quelled any urges we might have had to act
silly. We were lucky to have them here and none of us wanted to waste a second
of our time with these gifted tangueras who could teach us so much.
Paula
and Junko are the kind of women who inspire writers to create heroines that women
can look up to and be proud of. They are
so young yet they are such great role models!
They also make a fantastic teaching team. While one explains the follower's movement, the
other watches the class and offers insights from her observations.
Paula’s shorts
were not just for show. They enabled her to present an excellent view of
exactly what a follower’s back step should look like. I wonder
if any of my readers have been in a class where the instructor has to lift up
her dress to show what is going on with her legs. Tango is an illusion and it
is difficult for followers to see what is happening inside the dress, yet it is
information they desperately need if they wish to get better.
I could
talk about Paula and Junko all day but I need to let you know that all four
instructors worked together to deliver an incredibly powerful tango lesson. They
do this in perfect harmony and I don't think this kind of lesson could be duplicated by a single pair of teachers.
When they are instructing, all four are watching everybody, explaining to the
individual or the entire class as needed, with no discernible dissensions from their other team members. In this endeavor, they are all equal.
Let me
say a few things about René and Lucas.
First,
they are obviously good friends and get along tremendously.
Second,
they are Argentine tangueros. No man
dances tango like an Argentino. When he intends to dance, he does it with his
entire body. His toes, feet and ankles provide the foundation for calves and
thighs to support the hips, chest, neck and head in laser straight formation,
full of potential energy. Just standing there, a bystander can tell that he is ready to
move and feel that he is full of passion. By his posture and the look on his face, anyone
can see that he is ready to dance tango….or kill somebody!
This
is true only for Argentine men and one of the best reasons to get the authentic
product from the land where the dance was born. To see these men walk is like
watching a puma move through the jungle. Each step is separate, precise and
very deliberate. All the movements they make are executed to perfection and with serious intention.
Unlike
many male tango instructors, these guys danced with many of our women. I could not give a greater gift to the tangueras of our community and I will forever be in the debt of these two men.
One
of our ladies came up to me afterwards and said, “Wow, I never thought I’d get a
chance to dance with a world champion leader….it was awesome!”
My
only worry Monday was that these two extremely accomplished couples would teach
concepts too difficult for our nascent milongueros to understand. Would they
be able to see that we needed to work on the fundamentals and, paradoxically,
that we are starving for new patterns because we are, after all, Americans?
I
did not need to be concerned because what they taught was exactly what our
people needed. They must have discerned this from our warm-up exercises and
watching us dance. They are very observant and obviously much more experienced than their youthful exteriors betray.
They
started with caminar(walking) and then introduced a simple movement that
incorporated some minor contra-body rotation. The crux move was also simple and something quite common in tango dancing. I’m not sure what is called but it looks
like a tiny colgada that is really just a simple giro. It is a movement I’ve
often attempted but never mastered….until now!
Thank
you so much, Michele Delgado, for bringing such wonderful tango instructors to
Durango. Our town will never be the same. There is a difference between
ordinary and extraordinary. Lucas, Paula, Junko and René are obviously the
finest examples of the latter. Thank you all for coming to Durango! I hope I speak for
our entire tango community when I offer our extreme gratitude for making your way
here. As a result of your collective efforts we are better dancers. We will
always remember you fondly.
Sincerely,
Kayak Hombre,
a.k.a.
perri iezzoniJ
If you’d like to catch up with René, Junko, Paula
and Lucas, you can find their schedule here: http://morethantango.com/Welcome.html
I took some pics of our day’s adventure. Enjoy!
For more writings by the Kayak Hombre, check out his book, River Tango, available on Amazon:
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