hanspetermeyer

by hans peter meyer

I am reminded of my time in Buenos Aires in the oddest places. Almost always, in the 2nd posture, in my yoga class I think of the tight cluster of streets in Bario Norte near Ecela, my Spanish language school. No idea what the connection is, but almost immediately as I am stretching up “to touch the ceiling, bending over in perfect form as if [my] hips and shoulders are between two panes of glass…” I am navigating pedestrian traffic, muchos taxis, and dog-walkers.

Dancers on the streets of Buenos Aires

Navigation of tight streets and sidewalks is not unlike what happens on a crowded dance floor, where dancers are (supposed to be) following a line of dance. What’s this “line of dance” thing? you ask. It’s the counter-clockwise flow ’round the dance floor that we do (or, we’re supposed to do) when we waltz, foxtrot, quick-step, milonga, or tango. For leads, that means we hae to consider “navigation” as well as keeping time with the music, moving her in a way that is graceful, creative, and allows her to blossom into the beautiful dance creature she is. Quite a handful of things to look after. And, lots of times other dancers aren’t “flowing” ’round the line of dance. They’re moving slower, faster, doing fancy moves, or even just standing there. All of which makes navigation a big (and eventually, exciting) part of being a decent lead.

But back to Buenos Aires (which is why I’m writing about the place these days: I’m trying to generate the energy and online presence that’ll have me back in that town for a few weeks in the next year or two, learning more dance and putting together some of the pieces for a foto + text project on the city and the dance scene there). I made a month-long visit in May 2007. My intention for that trip: to learn to dance some tango, to learn to speak some Spanish. Mission accomplished, I came home and have continued my learning about tango thanks to Kirra and the crew at vancouverislandtango.com. Whatever Spanish I picked up lingers, barely.

One of the amazing things about being in Buenos Aires, however, was experiencing a milonga. What’s a milonga? It’s confusing, really. It means two related things. One, it’s a gathering of folks who dance the various tango-based forms (tango proper, milonga, and vals). Por ejemplo, you don’t say, “Hey, lets go to the dance at the hall.” Instead, you say, “¡Hola chica, lets go to the milonga at Salon Canning!” Two, it’s also a bona fide tango-based form in itself (faster, akin to polka). In this case you might say, once you’re already at the milonga, “¿Querida, want to dance a milonga?” Yup, not a little confusing. But I don’t worry about these words anymore. I just try to get to as many milongas as possible, so I can dance as many milongas as possible, with as many muchachas as possible Life can be so sweet.

All of this was news to me when I ventured south in ‘07. I’d gone down because I thought tango was Buenos Aires was great. I met warm and affectionate people. I learned a few words and phrases in Spanish, and could carry on rudimentary convos with the guy who shined my shoes on Avenida Puerydon every Friday. I enjoyed my tango lessons. The purpose of being there, however, was not just to take lessons; it was to venture out and into the milongas where milongas and tangos were practiced real-time.

This is a big city. Nevertheless, it’s stunning to consider the roster of weekly milongas in Buenos Aires. Not quite 24/7, but it was possible to be on my feet, in my new tango boots (muy cool, de fattomano.com.ar ), from noon until 7am every day of the week. That’s 19 hours of tango y milonga. If I chose. I never chose; one of the reasons I want to go back, to see how much of the 19 hours I can actually do.

It was suggested that, for me as a novice, the milonga at the Armenian Community Centre (cruce Armenia y Jose Antonio Carbrera) in barrio Palermo, blocks from where I was staying) was a good bet. So I went. On my own. Into a muy crowded hall. It was challenging. I’ll write more about that experience later. Here I just want to say that navigation was a major challenge. I was new to the dance.  I hardly spoke a word of Spanish – and almost nobody I met in BsAs spoke English. And the floor was tight, thick with bodies moving knowingly, confidently around the line of dance.

What remains in my mind isn’t the amazing display of beautiful dancing that passes for everyday tango in these milongas, it’s the image of a young man and woman dancing milonga. Buenos Aires has a rep as both a beautiful city and a city of beautiful people – particularly beautiful women. Here was one of these beautiful women, dressed simply but elegantly. Her partner, on the other hand…he could have easily stepped out of the Waverley on a Thurday from an afterwork beer, with his dirty, loose-fitting jeans and white sleeveless t-shirt. But when they moved… in my heart I determined that this was how I wanted to move with a woman, holding her close and dancing the milonga with style, grace, and speed. I was transfixed.

Cut to last night, August 24 ‘09 in the Comox Valley. Downtown Courtenay. The Zocalo Café on “Milonga Monday.” As I with a novice to tango y milonga, I remembered this image of the young couple at the Armenian hall, and realized just how much it has lain behind what I do and try to do in our little milongas here in the Comox Valley. At the Zocalo Café we don’t have much room. Besides other dancers, there are café patrons winding their way around and through the dance floor. And we continue to circulate (most of us), around the line of dance. Thanks to Kirra, I get a good crack at dancing milonga, which I am now enjoying more than tango proper. And thanks to a couple of relatively new dancers I’m feeling some of the kind dance connection that transfixed me that late, late night in barrio Palermo.

And that, ultimately, is what this dance – and all the forms that come out of tango proper – means to me: connection, a wordless creative intimacy that folds and unfolds as we move around the floor, shifting with the rhythms of the music, with the flow of the dancers, around and back when confronted with couples who aren’t moving, always and endlessly weaving and reweaving our own version of what our bodies and the music is telling us is the story of this 3 or 4 minute song. One of my favourite things to do.

… and I can hardly wait to get back to a place where I can practice this for 19 hours a day, if I choose.

If you have ideas or information about tango y milonga in Buenos Aires, please let me know.

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by hans peter meyer

One of the things I love about twitter is how quickly important news travels. Or, how quickly news that’s important to me travels directly to me. Today’s tidbit: TimberWest, which owns thousands of acres of primo Douglas Fir forest land on Vancouver Island, just launched a lawsuit against several local governments over the issue of local taxes. Read about it here.

Some people might think that twitter is another excuse for those of us with distractability issues. Maybe. But, if I’m careful, I can avoid the firehose of info that’s aimed me and select only those twitter feeds I want to follow. For example, I’m interested in forest industry issues in Canada. So I follow the only Canadian twitter feed on forest industrial issues (@ForestTalk). Depending on what’s cooking in the Canadian forest industry, I and get daily or hourly updates on things like mill closures, government policy, what our trading partners are doing, etc. Most of the news is from the east, and this makes me think we need a similar resource in BC. But BC topics do get coverage. Like today.

With the help of twitter I now know that the folks who run TimberWest really are struggling. OK, I knew this already. I know it not because of twitter, but because I live in a town that still depends on forest industry dollars for its well-being (golfers and retirees and tourists still haven’t supplanted our one true source of real wealth: our forests). I live in a region that is hugely dependent on the industry. Places like Campbell River up the road, Powell River across the water, Port Alberni just across the mountains, and the Cowichan Valley south of us are all places built on the rich Douglas Fir forests that persist in growing here (even after being laid flat a couple or three times through logging and fire and clearing for farming). Living here, in towns that are dominated by a very small handful of licensees (TimberWest, Western Forest, Interfor) means being aware that things are not going well in the woods. Decisions made at government level and in private sector board rooms have not boded well for the industry. It’s been even worse at a community level.

Today’s news tells me things are worse than I thought because TimberWest isn’t even doing what’s in the best interest of short-term shareholders. Over the past couple of decades they’ve worked hard to accumlate a huge chunk of the large private holdings on Vancouver Island. This is number one Douglas Fir ground. It’s also number one real estate development ground. Shareholders are anxious about dividends, which makes boards anxious about their salaries. The idea to turn the unique forest wealth of the region into real estate is a no-brainer. Really. A no-brainer: that anyone would sacrifice long-term economic (not to mention social and ecological) well-being for short-term profit at a time when the world is crying for long-term thinking… a no-brainer.

But it gets even better (or worse): Now the industrial giant is suing the very folks they need to ask favours from. Couverdon, the real estate arm of TimberWest, can’t do much with its real estate dreams unless local governments – like those in North Cowichan, Port Alberni, and Campbell River (or sister municipalities who may not take kindly to their neighbours getting bullied) – rezone or otherwise make “developable” these huge chunks of forest land. I’ve shaken my head on this forest land for real estate issue before. I’m shaking it again. Truly amazed.

It’s a worst case scenario for everyone. Citizens in small, stressed coastal communities (stressed because of bad decisions by government and industry) will now get to pay more taxes to simply deal with these lawsuits. TimberWest, which could be doing some very creative things with its forest lands besides liquidating them, is thinking like a 1980s short-term corporation and losing goodwill and investor confidence (who would want to invest in a company that is consistenly behaving so badly? consistently coming up with new dumb ideas?).

Thanks to twitter I know about, and I can “tweet” about it – and have. June 10, 2009. A stupid day for the folks making decisions at TimberWest. A bad day for the folks in Campbell River, Port Alberni, Powell River, and North Cowichan. A bad day for shareholders in TimberWest. A bad marketing day for the folks at Couverdon.

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(cc) hanspetermeyer.ca

by hans peter meyer