After
eighteen months in the Four Corners Region, I finally made it to Denver for
tango. What a weekend! It’s hard to believe so much happened to me in only
seventy-two hours.
On Friday, my partner and I drove from Durango to Salida going over Wolf Creek Pass. I am sorry to report
that wild fires have consumed the area near Rainbow Springs, my favorite
backpacking destination. There are hot springs along the trail and they are a
popular with the hikers: remote, clean and refreshing. Pics of the smoke are
attached below.
Friday
night we stayed at the Salida Inn, a reasonably priced hotel with clean, odor-free rooms. It is located on
Rt. 50 as it comes into town from the west. We arrived at 10:30 p.m., got a good night’s sleep and were on our way
by 8:30 a.m. Saturday.
By noon
we were hiking on the Colorado Trail at Kenosha Pass, elevation: 10000 feet!
Once in Denver we were surprised to find that we could check into our hotel early. Our room at the Fairfield Inn on S.
Colorado Blvd. was the cleanest hotel room I’ve ever stayed in. The bed and
pillows were incredibly comfortable which was good because we would be
exhausted and sore after each night of dancing.
I have to say that the Garbanzo Grill on S. Colorado Blvd. is a
great place to eat healthy on a budget. We spent $20 on a meal for two people
that was more food than we could handle and even had enough leftover to make a great breakfast the next day.
I love dolmas(stuffed grape leaves)
and cucumber/tomato salad and found theirs
to be excellent.
Our
first tango excursion was to Boulder, to attend a workshop on Pearl St. near the Spruce
Street swimming pool. It is hard to find. The entrance is off of Pearl St.,
across from the Boulder Osteopathic Center. Turn into the alley, towards the
pool, and you will find the Community
Dance Collective in back. There are two dance studios; ours was the one on
the right, or Studio#2.
The
class was taught by two top-notch instructors, Darrell Sanchez and Sue
Thompson. They have a website: http://www.coretango.com/
Darrell
and Sue teach movements in a series, over the course of several weeks. Since
the class was small, only seven students, we received a lot of individual
attention and were able to complete the entire sequence of ganchos by the end
of the class. This was not an easy task and it required a lot of work on our
part as well as much tutelage from our instructors.
For $15,
we received ninety minutes of almost-private instruction from two qualified teachers.
This is quite a bargain and I challenge you to find better elsewhere.
After enjoying the carnival-like atmosphere of the town of Boulder further west on
Pearl St., we headed south for Denver. In forty-five minutes we were back in
our wonderful hotel room getting ready for two milongas.
I feel
obligated to disclose the fact that I could not find any
evidence on the internet of a milonga event for Saturday in Denver or in Boulder. Apparently
this was a rare occurrence, and, thanks to my friends, Amy Beaudet (www.tango.org) and Michele Delgado (www.MoreThanTango.com), I was able to
secure the time and location of two well-attended tango gatherings.
The first
was at Cheeseman Pavilion in the Denver Botanical Gardens, on the south side of
the city. There seems to be
some scheduling problems in securing this very elegant locale for tango and this is the reason for the lack of publicity. Checking the Colorado Tango Events Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/273316539359504/?fref=ts
I didn’t see a final confirmation of the event until 6:02 p.m. and the music
began at 7:30 p.m.!
It was a
small gathering of about forty people; all were accomplished milongueros. I
didn’t get the name of the DJ but all his selections were excellent. His mix of
Nuevo and Classical tango melodies was unique and very enjoyable.
Ladies,
I’ll have you know this was a leader-heavy event. I’m a heavy leader;-) but I
found the competition for tangueras very fierce. Even though the crowd was
gender-balanced, several of the women were accomplished leaders as well as
stylish followers, and competed with the men to make dance invitations.
The woman I accompanied to the dance did not sit down the
entire time the music was playing.
Besides
my partner, I only danced with one other woman, the hostess, Darlene Robertson.
She is a very beautiful woman, as well as a skilled tanguera. I’m certain I would not have had a better tanda of dances even if I had danced with every woman in
attendanceJ
The
milonga at the pavilion was only supposed to go until 10:30 but it was after
11:00 before we got out of there.
The park
is a sketchy kind of place after dark, so make sure you have someone to walk with
you as you leave. FYI, I arrived from the east on 9th Avenue and I
parked my car outside the grounds on East 11th Avenue, near an apartment building.
It was
just a short ride from there to the next event at The Savoy (http://www.naturaltango.com/). It was
only through my contacts that I found out about this event. There was a milonga
here on Saturday and Sunday. Both were well-attended gatherings of skilled milongueros
dancing to a fine playlist of excellent, mostly classical, tango melodies. I
did not notice any beginner-level dancers; I was busy dancing so I may have
missed them.
There
are two floors to this facility and the tango part of it was on the second
floor; the entrance was on the side of the building on 27th Street.
If I
hadn’t accompanied my partner through the door, I’d swear I had arrived alone
because she did not sit down the rest of the night. This story was repeated
again the following evening.
I
observed two very distinct styles of dancing: milonguero-style and not-milonguero-style.
I come from the East Coast and used to find the milonguero-style confusing and confining. After two years of living and dancing west of the Mississippi, it was nice to see so many people
employing this brand of tango with a wide variety of movements that I had not seen
before.
This is
not to say that the not-milonguero-style
was not performed with equal grace and enthusiasm. After watching people dance
all night, it seemed to me that some of the tangueros pivoted with a certainty
of balance and a quickness that I’ve only seen executed by native Argentines.
On Sunday
night I met one of the most amazing women I’ve ever danced with. Her name is
Nona. A tanguera later told me she might be eighty-four years old. You wouldn’t believe that if you had danced with her. We
danced and talked for the entire tanda! While we conversed, she executed perfect
molinetes and performed the cruzada whenever I led it. She never missed a beat!
So
engaging was her dialog and so flawless were her movements that the tanda ended
long before I was ready to part with her. One of the girls I danced with afterwards
mentioned, with not a little bit of envy, that Nona got more dances than she
did. This was not the comment of respect for an elder, rather, it was that of a
woman competing with another for dance invitations!
I did a
little research on the internet and found this article about her that I think
you’ll enjoy: http://fashiondenverstyle.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/nona-style-in-the-golden-years/
It was a
long ride back to Durango, filled with recollections of wonderful tandas and
all the different people we met and enjoyed dancing with this weekend. I waited too long to
make to long ride to Denver but it won’t be long before I make the journey
again:-)
Fire on the mountain!!! :-(
Nona!
For a better look at how the Kayak Hombre views the interaction of men and women dancing tango, check out his book, River Tango, available on Amazon.com
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