As I contemplate how to relate my experience of the Baltimore Tango Element Festival itself, I can say that this was my 30th festival and is 2nd from the bottom of my ranking of quality of festival experiences.  I am only talking of MY experience, not necessarily the quality of the festival itself.

I take many arenas into consideration when I consider my festival experience such as: quality of DJ’ing; who attends; level of snobbishness/ cliquishness; navigation skill and following of navigation codes; how other Tango codes are used; seating arrangements; quality of entrance/ exit from milonga floor; temperature controls; food, snacks, water, coffee availability; performances and their quality and length; quality of announcements; milonga lighting quality; sound quality; organizational quality; meet and greet quality; experience of tracking participants’ payment and milonga/ class entrance; timeliness of events’ start and end; hotel quality including timeliness of staff response to issues, bathroom upkeep and quality with other customer service issues; venue quality, variety and ease of transportation to and from venues; how teachers conduct themselves on and off the dance floor…  The list goes on.

Even though I do not formally assess on paper, I could assess and assign a number on a scale for each arena similar to many other industries.  I wonder if others would be interested in this information?  Just knowing the arenas of ranking would give a festival organizer valuable insight and information to make their festivals better.

Of course, everyone has different experiences at a festival, including what is important to them.  However, everyone would probably experience some level of discomfort and frustration with the lack of air conditioning in a hot and humid milonga hall.  How festival arenas effect each individual varies.  And some of these festival arenas outweigh others.  If five of my favorite tangueras showed up and danced a lot with me, low rankings in other arenas just would not matter much.  In addition, festivals are experienced different from a follow’s perspective vs. a lead’s perspective.

With all this said, I did have many wonderful dances, connections and creation of memories.  Even though I probably will not attend again, I am glad I attended and want to share some of the memories that were created in addition to what I shared in my last entry- Baltimore Tango Elements Festival Part 2- Creating Memories.

I hung out with my good friend and first Tango festival buddy, Sarah.  Such good memories of several festivals we both traveled to, and our sharing of all that happened during so many milongas.  I have enjoyed all the debriefing of Tango happenings.

I also had a spectacular dinner with a professional coach.  Our conversation contained sharing of personal growth/ transformational technologies and methodologies.  This brought up many memories of my participation in these organizations- both positive and an acknowledgement of restrictions in fundamental cosmologies.  I treasure befriending people like her, for all of the shenanigans of Tango melt away while connecting with my good Tango friends.

Another mention are the performances Sabastian Arce and Chicho gave, which astonished me, inspired me, and thrilled the participants.   The thunderous clapping got 5 dances out of Sabastian and 6 out of Chicho.  WOW!  The expertise and cutting-edge explorations certainly showed me some of the places Tango can go.

And, one of my favorite memories is how at 5:15 AM in the Baltimore airport I met up with 5 other Tangueras/os.  If we all had not been so tired, we would have probably danced.  Just hanging out with these friends supplied me with a deep sense of community and well being.  Yum!

Now, onto the Denver Labor Day festival…

Seattle Tango Magic Salmon Bake pavilion on Lake Washington Harbor photo by Natalia

The Seattle Tango Magic Festival Salmon Bake cast its spell well before I arrived.  Ever since I heard the rave reviews and felt the mystical aura radiating from the words of those who spoke about this unique event, I yearned to dance there.

As I drove over the Lake Washington Bridge to Kirkland with my newfound magical tanguera, the Salmon Bake became real.   Anticipation grew as my inner child jumped up and down in excitement as if I was waiting in line to be strapped into a rollercoaster (I used to have summer passes to amusement parks).

Then something curious occurred.  While driving up Lake St. to Marina Park, I was flabbergasted by throngs of people walking around in their bathing suits.  I knew Seattle had a heat wave thrust upon it as the thermometer reached over 96 that day.  However, to see so many people walking on beaches to my left and on the streets with bikinis, flip flops, cut off shorts, and guys going shirtless I thought I had transported to San Diego!

I parked; quickly strode to the pavilion; scoped out a spot for my tango suitcase; looked at the long line waiting for salmon and promptly asked my companion to dance.  Upon entering the dance floor with my stunning tanquera partner in a red sparkle camisole, I beamed.

Only a few other couples joined us so we had practically unlimited space to use.  A slight breeze blew into the pavilion with the smell of salmon wafting throughout the space.  The Tango music thumped in my heart.  I floated in my trance and laughed at the delightful movements my partner expressed.  Onlookers gazed at this different sensual and passionate dance – calling forth even more passion.  I danced two tandas in tranced out bliss.

To say this moment was simply a festival highlight is woefully inadequate in expressing my deep appreciation.  That night continued for me with many tandas – this special milonga space infused every one of my tandas with magic!

A half hour before the sun embarked upon its disappearing act, I finally decided to eat some salmon.  I found my two very good friends and hosts, Steve and Linda, went through the waiting line for food, then sat with them.  Their companionship felt so good!  I watched the sunset as I savored the fresh salmon.  If I died that moment, I knew I would have been at the absolute best place, state of being and with the best people around me to leave this world.

My best friend Craig also attended this festival.  To have shared the moment of the salmon bake with him also holds a special place in my heart.  Craig and I have shared many festivals and Tango experiences, and to be able to hang out with him and share these experiences is priceless.  In addition, the number of Tango friends present at the Seattle festival and at this particular milonga infused my heart with a great joy of being in community, feeling a profound sense of belonging.

The power of this magical milonga space and community of friends present created a potent transcendent experience.  This will be one of my favorite Tango memories for all my years, and I suspect upon my deathbed, I will recall the Seattle Salmon Bake.  This singular event left an indelible mark upon my heart, spirit and mind.

Seattle Salmon Bake, I will be back!

One by one and two by two, tangueros and tangueras pranced, sauntered, and ambled into the milonga ballroom.  So many Tango communities represented: Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Tuscon, San Diego, L.A., Eugene, Portland, Seattle, East Coast cities… the list does go on.  The ladies aroused my pulse with their appearances- so gorgeous!  The gentlemen seemed relaxed, yet ready to cabaceo.

Because of my extensive travels over the past 8 months, I have met so many wonderful people from different Tango communities.  As I recognized each of my friends, I felt more calmed and greater delight.  Never have I known so many of the dancers at one festival.  Tango is my community (and where all of my friends are), and I felt joy at the reunion of so many people from afar.

I luxuriated in many dances: tandas with my angel, a tanguera so sweet, radiant, beautiful and divine that I melt when I am even just around her; another tanguera that had left me speechless and spellbound after some of the best tandas in my life in Houston, once again left me wanting to sit and bask in the afterglow after moving as one in our own world on the dance floor; a milonga tanda with a great friend that I always so enjoy; many tandas with a beaming, stunningly beautiful, childlike tanguera – she brings out my little Dave to play, and she is one of my all time favorites – wow did I have fun; a friend from the rainy country who is so connecting and sensuous, I just enjoy her enthusiasm and ever-present kindess; and other tandas all in all that left me giddy and full.

I am ready for more!  And happy to see that we have at least two DJ’s from our community DJ’ing this festival.

Onto Ulysses and his proposal from his last e-mail- “At your upcoming festival do these two things, and open your eyes to what you see.” Throughout the night, I lightly contemplated the existence of a Tango matrix as I did these two things Ulysses proposed.  Doing them had their challenges, though I consistently did them.  Utter astonishment at what I am uncovering about myself, and some surprise at what I am SEEING with others.

Illusion, causation, and attraction are the strongest words bubbling up to describe my experience of SEEING with my eyes more open.  I’m sure my dances were positively influenced by Ulysses.  The next milonga is about to start – and I’m feeling impish and animated along with a dose of mystical curiosity thrown in

As I travel around the country visiting Tango communities, I notice quirks particular to each community.  Even within different camps within communities, idiosyncrasies usually show up.

Quirks are habits that show up in a majority of the community’s dancers, and they are not necessarily bad or good.  Sometimes a quirk may be a more open embrace by default, or a lot of ganchos being led.  However, quirks are quirks, and usually unconscious.  When you want to learn more rapidly, it is very important to become conscious of what is not conscious!

Some bad-habit quirks I have witnessed in different communities: a lack of intentionality in the leading; a substantially higher pace of frenetic dancing; a lot of gas pedaling from the follows’ right arm; much less spinal movement.

Last night, I watched quirks of our community – in particular I realized how many leads allow the follows to migrate over to the lead’s right side and often do not use appropriate spinal rotation to stay with the follow as the follows are lead to the lead’s right.

Until my recent privates with Murat & Michelle, I had not realized I also had this quirk of migration and not enough of staying with my follow from the center of my chest.

I want to stress how insidious inbreeding in Tango is – when we dance and learn with the same people month after month (inbreeding), we can easily learn bad habits and not realize what we have learned.  Often our bad habits support each other, lead/ follow, to continue their bad habits such as a follow gas pedaling her right arm and the lead pushing hard with his left arm.

Crossbreeding – dancing with people outside the primary group of people one usually dances with – is needed to grow in a healthy way.

Awhile back, I asked several teachers what they thought the fastest way to learn Tango was.  While I received many tips, I think the best tip was the importance of dancing at festivals (thank you Tom Stermitz).  Dancing at festivals is essentially crossbreeding.

When I notice quirks, I look to the community teachers and pay attention to what visiting instructors have come through town.  I am fascinated with how quirks are unknowingly passed on. I am noticing my own quirks I may have inherited from dancing in the Pacific Northwest.  Can any of you guess the quirks?  These quirks are actually pretty cool!

These are ideas that the community at large came up with here at Stone Soup in Eugene, OR and some others that I added.  I might just make this an evolving list.  Please comment and I will update this post as an evolving article!

1. Offer a showcase and/ or performances for students
2. Offer social Tango parties (different than milongas)
3. Offer a retreat where people stay together in one place and do more than just Tango
4. Require for a class than students go to 3 other events
5. A teacher takes their students on a field trip to another Tango event together
6. Offer taxi dancers that wear something that designates them as such
7. Form a welcoming committee where at milongas/ practicas designated people welcome any “strangers” to the event
8. Publicly recognize newcomers and thank them for coming
9. Publicly offer a master class
10. Ask current community members to talk up tango and bring new people to an event
11. Have advanced dancers join a beginner class
12. After class/ milonga/ practica all go out to a restaurant/ bar and hang out together
13. Have a potluck
14. Watch Tango movies and talk
15. Form an online community through news groups or Facebook or ?
16. Switch around DJ’s so their friends come
17. Have a Q & A session on a juicy Tango topic
18. Have a special milonga just for beginners
19. Do Guerilla tango
20. Affirm people’s dancing – tell them what is good about their dancing
21. Have a monthly recruiting milonga
22. Eating between classes and the milonga/ practica

Wow!  What a format of learning Korey and Mila created.  Their classes are taught by one couple, and then we break into cells of 8-10 students.  Two teachers that eventually rotate around work within the cell.  To figure out what cell we are in, each person assigns themselves a number of their skill level between 1-4, 4 being at teacher level, and 1′s at beginner level.  And then each person pairs up with someone with a level that adds up to 5.

Korey (I don’t know who is responsible for what) at one point had students dancing with levels that would add up to 5.  A concept I am still exploring the merits of – seems cool right now.

Also, the information presented didactically helped me to understand Korey’s intentions for the weekend, as well as having guest presentations to took advantage of great resources from individual’s within the group.  Some actually have lives outside of Tango , or use to.

In addition, more traditionally based classes were presented.  However, the class I took from Murat and Michelle are anything but traditional.  I can conclusively say how much more I and others learn when teachers use great teaching methodology.  M & M are such teachers!

Alex Krebs taught with Jennifer Olson – this is the first time I got to watch him share his gifts – mmmmmmmmmm.  Now I know why he has adoration from so many tangueros/as – he is spot on with sequencing movements, while communicating clearly and succinctly.  I did not have to think to understand his directions!  And then all the leads and follows separated, while all of the festival teachers went around to individuals assisting on the moves presented – yesssss.  That works!  Oh, and they wore these great white Chef hats – sooooo cool.

Furthermore, we danced at around 7 venues guerrilla style.  Always interesting for those who watch and dance.  I just had fun – I don’t know how effective of a marketing tool this is, but I enjoy the sense of great freedom to just goof around.  Yeah, I usually goof around anyway, but at least in guerilla style, I think more people join in the goofing around.

Overall, I felt better yesterday with all of the inclusiveness, cooperation, and kindness most people showed.  I danced quite a bit, yet I still felt so much beauty inaccessible.  I am not able to express so much of what I want.  However, so many great leads on the dance floor inspired me.  The impromptu performances added to inspiration – but the funny thing is that the dancing level is soooooo high, that just watching the floor during the milongas is similar to watching performances. Ahhhhhhhh.  Such beauty!

I felt invigorated through the learning.  And I did have one tanda where I felt I could communicate and express to some of my highest level of expression ever.  I so wish I could dance with her 1/3 of the time – I am at my best as a tanguero, person and fun loving being as I move with her body and Soul.

So, how am I aligning with the beauty I witnessed on the dance floor?  I’m still stone, alone, raw as bone.  And I still yearn to share more of my beauty and be beauty in all aspects of my life.

Joseph Campbell wrote a lot on following our bliss – bliss for me is in the intimacy shared on and off the dance floor.  Intimacy with others, with self, with my own expression, and with the greater all.  I guess my stone is heating up.

On Friday night (4/24) at the Mercury Cafe in Denver, CO, I experienced a surreal, confounding and emotionally charged evening at the strangest milonga I have yet witnessed.  On this night, Extasis, our local talented Tango band chose to have their CD release party.  That should have been the first clue that things would be different – parties at the Merc take on a life of their own.

The Mercury Cafe has become similar to the land of Oz – a magical, fanciful atmosphere that imbibes all who enter with a sense that they are not in Kansas anymore.  Consider the tiger jumping through a neon fire ring on the wall, various x-mas lights hanging as loops, the puppets in the rafter upstairs (don’t know if they are still there), assorted glass balls hanging, art that – is – well – art, and so many other artifacts picked out of time and space, not belonging to this time.  I LOVE this cafe!

We certainly have a cast of characters, such as the munchins (servers), which frequently disappear, not to be seen for up to 10 minutes.  In fact I usually do not know who my personal munchin is for at least 3-5 minutes.  Perhaps they get lost in the poppy fields.

OZ- Marylin, the mysterious owner that oversees all.  She has supported Tango in Colorado since its beginning, and has the loyalty of many teachers.  And she is quite the character – endearing to many.

The Wicked Witch – she exists, but I prefer not to name her perchance she casts a spell upon me.  She isn’t very nice.

Dorothy – oh, a few tangueras come to mind, but none like Elena.  So fair, kind, light and bright.  She is a delight to dance with.

The Good Witch would be JOY – she always has this presence that brings up the fleeting fact that everything is OK.  Her optimism is good-witch-worthy and I think she knows a few good spells to help out.  I am a better person around her.

Straw Man (with his brain) – I think Nick Jones for the fact that he can move in ways that are, well, straw like – flexible, amazing and fast.

Tin Man – no comment.

Toto – Roberta’s dog that makes an occasional appearance at local Tango events.

Before the surreal events unfolded, I had already experienced angst and part of my transitional crisis in my dancing.  My night had already posed the question, “Why am I here, why am I dancing, will my dancing improve significantly, when will I move to a different base?”  I had this nagging feeling to not go down to the Merc that night, but I went anyway out of my desire to connect and get floor time in as I have enjoyed working on some musicality playfulness.

Then it happened.  The monkeys descended from the sky as Marilyn announced we would have 4 Tango competitions.  Whoever participated would be judged on best fashion, best tango, best vals, best milonga.  Ouch – I got into Tango knowing competition was not part of the dance.  This was all done in good fun, but some of us were not having fun.  Speaking for myself, I felt the lingering moments of not being good enough come up when I was a very uncoordinated child in elementary school gym class events.  I was usually the last to be chosen.

And then I fast forwarded to how competitive I have been at events where I crushed my opponents – thereby feeling horrible about myself, and ruining connection with others.  Competition with others does not foster connection with myself or anyone else.

I love my own personal internal drive and desire to better myself.  I do not think Tango is a place for competition- and certainly not at a milonga.  With over an hour and 20 minutes of competition, performances, prizes, and talking – I thought, where is the dancing?  I want my $12 back.

Then after a tanda played so the judges could confer, I discovered to my dismay-  first, second and third prizes would be awarded.  The only reason I didn’t leave was to watch a promised performance with Nick and Amy.  They rocked- Nick led Amy to do things only an experienced Ballerina could do – in a Tango way.  Fun, interesting, different.  Yeah to our local talent.

Oh, Exstatis, the band, announced another competition to one of their harder to dance to songs.  I left the floor waiting for the performance and left after the performance.

But wait, there’s more, not only do you get prizes, performances, but FIRE oh my!  I will NEVER forget this image – as I sat in the upper row of seats:  all of a sudden of my right field of vision I am drawn to a large flame on top of Donna’s head as she is leading Marilyn who is balancing a large curved sword on her head.  SURREAL.  I may never see such a sight again.  And of course with Donna’s voluminous hair, it caught fire and Mark quickly rushed to blow it out.

OH MY – Oz has gotten stranger.