[Tango-L] Tango in Toulouse-Part 5

[randy cook]

Tango in Toulouse--Part 5
Friday, July 3, 2009
10:00 PM

Espace Cultural Lalande is a community center on the north side of Toulouse.   Tonight's concert-dance at Lalande features La Mariposa, a local octet which plays tango in the styles of Di Sarli and D'Arienzo.  Four of the musicians are women, including the pianist, the clarinetist, one of the violins, and the double bass player.  They perform on a stage at the edge of  a basketball court, which has plenty of room on the sides for tables and chairs.  I am reminded of the famous milongas on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, such as Sunderland and Pial.  But there is a difference.  Sunderland's court is stone.  This one in Toulouse has a spring loaded floor.

Lalande may have a spring-loaded basketball court, but it does not have air conditioning.  The night is brutally hot.  The Toulousaines say they have a spell or two of weather like this each summer, but normally in August.  This week's heat wave is unseasonably early.  I buy a "Tangopostale" fan from one of the local tango associations, which has its table near the entrance.  The fan features a silhouette of an airplane (representing the Aeropostale mail service that ran between Toulouse and Buenos Aires in the 1930's) and a pair of dancers (representing the cultural links between the two cities).  I loan the fan to Janet, who uses it until she starts to dance, then use it myself, before loaning it to some other people seated in our section of bleachers.  I eventually get it back.  I will take it home in my luggage--one of my few souvenirs, excepting a camera and notebooks. 

Before La Mariposa takes the stage, we listen to a tango duo, followed by a trio.  Music is as much a part of the tango scene in Toulouse as the dancing is.  The musicians encourage the audience to dance, and a few couples oblige them, but this music is suited for listening, not for dancing.  In Buenos Aires, they would be playing in a small bar or club, not on a basketball court.

Then the octet, La Mariposa, arrives to perform.  I am very impressed.  They have a full, resonant sound that adapts itself equally well to the crisp compas of D'Arienzo's arrangements as to the smooth elegance of Di Sarli's.  The musicians have been playing together in Toulouse since 1998.  We have nothing to compare with them in San Francisco.

After the virtual riot at Le Bikini last night, I am apprehensive how the dancing here will be.  But Le Bikini was a relatively small space compared to Lalande.  Even when the floor fills up with dancers, it doesn't seem crowded.  People have room for their "show tango" moves.  They can lead their high boleos and back sacadas without endangering other dancers.  The floor craft is still chaotic, however.  Couples cut in and out of lanes like jack rabbits.  My partners vary in skill, but seem to appreciate my quiet, simple style of dancing.  When the traffic is bad, I dance like I drive--defensively. 

Then they clear the floor for a demonstration dance.  The teachers from the local tango associations take their partners onto the court and form a big circle.  The music begins, and the teachers dance.  Watching them,  I see lots of fancy steps, but little of the essence of social tango--that intimate element called "connection."  And I begin to understand why the dancing in Toulouse is so inferior to the music.  If these performers are the teachers, their students are going to try to dance the same way--and the dance floor will be overly "busy"--meaning there is too much unfocused activity.  Dance, like the other arts, exists as much in the pauses and empty spaces as it does in the steps.

One of the teachers knows this.  I can tell by watching him.  He is a stocky, bald-headed man who some of the people say is French, others say is Argentine.  He stands out like swan among the geese.  He flows across the floor as if his feet were dipped in oil.  And he knows how to pause, how to create those spaces that fill the dance with meaning, and without which it is nothing more than jazzercize, or tango-aerobics.  This gentlemen can do the fancy stuff as well as any of the others do, but without seeming to be showing off.   If I were living in Toulouse, he would be my teacher.

Many people leave after the demonstration dance is over.  Those who remain are among the better dancers --the people who come out when the rough crowd goes home.   I find an exceptionally attractive partner.  I didn’t choose her for her looks, however (well, not entirely), but for her skill.  She speaks English, and tells me that she has come down from Paris just for the festival.  After dancing close embrace for a while, we open up a little,  just enough to experiment with some of the modern tango moves--the hour and the space seem right for them.    

 After the Parisienne, I rest for a while.  There is a little coquette at one of the cafe tables who has been playing cabaceo with various men, while her husband converses with a friend.  I nod, and she smiles, but doesn't rise from her seat.  Feeling my way into a situation that is more French than Argentine, I go over and ask her husband for permission to dance with his wife.  Bien sur.  Pas de probleme.  She isn't a very experienced follower, but has a playful, catlike quality that excuses all her missteps.  She takes my leads as the merest of suggestions, and plays with them as if they were a  ball of string, until I just have to laugh.   

The ride home through the streets of north Toulouse is almost as tortuous as that escapade on the way to Le Bikini, but Janet, Robert, and I eventually manage to unravel the tangle of wrong turns and detours that lie between us and our little hotel.  It is graduation night in the Toulouse public schools.  The graduates are partying boisterously at Place Belfort down the street.  They seem to be breaking a lot of bottles.  Our windows are open because of the heat.  My companions tell me in the morning that their sleep was fitful, but I dream happily of a polished Parisienne and a cat lady whose playfulness makes me purr.



Copyright 2009 by Randy Cook