tangophilia blog

I hope you all had a Happy 4th of July y un feliz Nueve de Julio!

I had a terrific time at the Chicago Tango Week. It\’s a fun event, well-organized, and the teaching staff were superb. I not only had the pleasure of DJing the Closing Milonga till 4:30am Monday morning, but also was fortunate to be able to partner with Melanie Klarics of Chicago for an impromptu demonstration at the Saturday night milonga. You might want to put it on your schedule for next 4th of July weekend.

This weekend is a full one!

Tonight, I\’ll be the featured guest at Mister Diplomat at the Dirty South Improv Comedy Theater in Carrboro. The show is FREE, is apparently standing room only, and the line starts a little after 8 for the 9:30 show. Here\’s how they describe the show, \”Diplomat features true stories told by one of the performers, a local celebrity or special guest. Anecdotes inspire a world of absurd scenes, fully improvised by the most aggressive improv comedians in North Carolina.\” I\’m expecting it to be a lot of fun! After the show, I\’ll be heading straight over to ….

…Eduardo and Dan\’s milonga at Metro 8, from 9:30pm – 2am, no cover charge, but please purchase food and drink to encourage the restaurant to keep supporting tango. This milonga will be held on second Fridays through the summer, then likely go into hibernation for the fall, so don\’t miss it.

Also this weekend…

• Saturday night, I\’m hosting the 2nd Saturday Traditional Milonga at Triangle Dance Studio. Lesson at 8, dancing and refreshments from 9-2.
• Sunday afternoon is the 2nd Sunday Lesson and Practica at Helios Annex. This is a great opportunity for those of you traveling to Atlanta next weekend to ask questions and brush up on your technique so you can make better use of what Gustavo and Giselle Anne are going to teach in their workshops.

Of course, since a lot of people, including myself, are going to be at the Gustavo Naveira and Giselle Anne Weekend in Atlanta July 17 – Sun July 20, I\’m going to be cancelling the 3rd Saturday Milonga at Helios Annex. However, there is an alternative event that night that you might want to attend…

Saturday, July 19th at the NC Museum of Art is a Music/Movie Combo, entitled \”Paris Dreams\”, featuring Les Primitifs du Futur, an ensemble that evokes \”the romantic sounds of pre-WWII Parisian dancehalls. It’s a magical, transporting swirl of Gypsy jazz, tango, waltz, rhumba, and other dance rhythms that will banish your every care. These wonderful musicians make beautiful traditional and original music on accordion, sax, xylophone, guitar, even the musical saw and theremin!\”. Following the music will be two classic short films of French cinema, \”The Red Balloon\” and \”The White Mane\”.

For something more literary, our local tanguero and author Lewis Shiner will be doing some signings of his new novel Black & White (LA Times Review), a page turner that deals with Durham\’s historic Hayti neighborhood. He\’ll be conducting signings tonight (July 11) at 7pm at The Regulator Bookshop on Ninth Street in Durham, Sunday 13 July at 3pm at Malaprops in Asheville, and Wednesday 23 July at 7pm at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh. I also wanted to personally applaud and thank Lewis and his publisher, Subterranean Press, for releasing his publications online under a Creative Commons license, in DRM-free electronic formats. Bravo and congrats!

Coming up on the travel and events calendar:

• I\’ll be DJing at the Baltimore Tango Festival, Aug 15-17 which will feature Pablo Veron, star of Tango Lesson.
• Friday, August 22, I\’ll be performing with The Old Ceremony (and an aerial dancer) as part of the Verge Festival. The show will be at Fletcher Hall in Raleigh at 7:30pm.
• Labor Day Weekend, I\’ll be immersing myself in the 8th Labor Day Tango Festival
  in Albuquerque, Aug 28 – Sep 1, 2008, but those of you that want something closer to home might want to visit the weekend with Homer Ladas and friends in Asheville, hosted by Tango Gypsies.

Finally, for those of you that have been asking about the music in classes, I apologize for not having CDs in inventory lately, but fortunately, Amazon has started offering more and more tango music. For example, Carlos Di Sarli – RCA Victor 100 Anos is the CD that I use for all the foundations classes. Even cooler, Amazon started offering DRM-free MP3s, of great orquestas like Carlos Di Sarli. Enjoy!