TANGO-a new twist for a sound mind in a sound body

Milonga:  According to Wikipedia, Milonga is a term for a place or an event where tango is danced. People who frequently go to Milonga are sometimes called milongueros.  I suppose that attending one Milonga does not qualify me to be identified as a milonguera, but I’m ready to try it again.   Yesterday, Sunday 3/4, L. A. Turners and Ilona Glinarsky co-hosted a Milonga at our Center. 

Several amazing things evolved from this extraordinary dancing event.   First, I admitted to myself that I’m more suited to dances other than ones that require legs that go on forever.  A friend of mine, lovingly and thankfully infrequently, calls me Stumpy-a sort of 8^th Dwarf-ish friend of Snow White.  Second, despite the fact that stumps do not suddenly sprout, I want to learn this amazing and mesmerizing blending of musically induced/societally acceptable body blending.  The music is alluring, the intensity of the milongueros palpable and the results amazing.

About 100 people were present with about 35 or 40 arriving for the first hour in which a free lesson was given.  The long legs and some mysteriously intense-looking men arrived later.  Ilona put all the Tango Trainees through an initiation.  The explanation of Tango being a feeling before being a dance was a difficult concept and by the looks on many faces it’s obvious we need another lesson.  However, amateur passion notwithstanding, by the end of the hour we were rather blended, semi-intense but actually tango-ing.  Several of us boldly proclaimed that when we purchased the right shoes we would (pick one) have great legs, graceful gliding ability, restored youth, Latin passion and of course one of those mysteriously intense looking partners who would magically make it all happen. 

When the next Milonga is scheduled at the Turner Center, I’ll be sure to blog its date and time.  Meanwhile, you can do some homework by watching, Scent of a Woman, True Lies, Evita, Assassination Tango (this one is a rather unknown move in which Robert Duval proves the exception to the rule:  mysteriously un-intense looking men with bowed legs make excellent tango dancers.) or any number of movies in which Tango is impassionedly performed. 

See you on the dance floor.