Camille Cusumano

December, 2009

I finally got to Mar del Plata, Argentina’s much loved and much maligned seashore. Those guilty of the latter have certainly not grown up in New Jersey where the seashore sports some of the same grit. The tango—at Milonga de Gente Madura, at 3540 Gascon near España—was wonderful (phone: 54-223-495-2196).

I don’t gamble (at least not with my money) but I loved the casino – a bit of Atlantic City, Monte Carlo, and the French Riviera. Its architecture is eye pleasing. Yes, there are a lot of unsightly highrises, too, near the beach—but the same is true of every world-famous resort city I’ve ever been to—the aforementioned, plus Copacabana, Ipanema, Ixtapa, y mas.

Actually, Mar del Plata is not all that dirty. There was an accumulation of trash on one beach at shoreline. But many, if not most, beaches are clean. I swam at Cabo Corrientes, which was quieter and much less crowded than the popular La Perla. The water was in the high sixties (Farenheit), which is warm to me since I swim in SF Bay (as low as 55 degrees)

I took the bus, Pulsamar, from Retiro Station in Buenos Aires—took about five hours. I stayed at the comfortable Punta del Este hotel at 2563 Moreno, about five blocks from the beach (200 pesos/night, buffet breakfast included; room was small but fine; info@hotelpuntadeleste.com.ar, 54-223-494-2000). I loved walking along the long seacoast – much of it very scenic. I loved walking in Los Troncos and Divino Rostro barrios—they are stunning, see photos below. I found Villa Victoria – V. Ocampo’s home on Matheu, now a museum and her sister Silvana’s former villa, on Tucuman. In case you don’t know her, Victoria was a well-endowed Argentine intellectual in the 1900s. She published a famous literary magazine, Sur, that showcased many great writers from Jorge Luis Borges to Henry Miller.

I can recommend one restaurant, Casa Mama on Belgrano, about the 2200 block; steer clear of Montecatini – yuk. The city feels safe and I walked everywhere. I loved its seaside resort energy and bustle. Disfrute!

strolling along the malecon

Strolling the lovely barrios, Troncos

December, 2009

Teaching tango this morning to virgins – pure beginners, I had them first just walk as they normally would walk, in a circle, the line of dance, which is always counter-clockwise. Next, I had them walk applying sensory awareness techniques that are commonly used in guided meditation, Feldenkrais, Pilates, Alexander technique, and the oldest known practice of SA on earth, yoga.

First, I directed their awareness to their feet and the lower extremities in general. Watch how you step when you walk without thinking about. Now, consciously direct your feet how to step, various different ways:

—heel first, then rolling toward the instep, metatarsals, toes touching last.

—or ball of foot first, then, without dropping your body, roll down slowly into the full step.

Feel your weight distributed over the entire foot. Notice if you tend to pronate or supinate.

Now slow it down, so that you feel your body’s center of balance at every centimeter of locomotion. Pick up your foot slightly off the floor, standing balanced on the other. Move the airborne foot slow and close to the body, poising (or shaping) the foot for how it will be placed, heel or ball of foot first, whichever you decide.

Imagine you are a panther stalking its prey.

Imagine home base for the two feet is together touching, even when one is in the air slightly (this is the collection, all important in tango).

Sometimes bevel the stepping foot (bend it like a wing, as if you pronate when you walk, which means you step first on the inside of your foot). Place the metatarsal of the big toe, then the big toe, on the floor before you slowly roll down the rest of the foot. Imagine your foot is a big paw grabbing the floor soundlessly. All the while you are balancing and preparing the other foot to do the same motion.

Notice how your knee leads your foot. If it doesn’t – if you lead with you foot, you are marching. Focus on the knee for a while, letting it be the pilot for the rest of the leg. It should be flexed, softly.

Keep moving now but try to never have both feet on the ground at once – have one always slightly in the air ready to mindfully touch down. Put your mind in your foot. It’s OK, even better, if “in the air” simply means a little centimeter off the ground. Or even brushing the ground—but no weight on the foot.

Keep your arms relaxed at your sides, never stiff.

Direct your awareness to your lower and mid torso, finding your own center of gravity (the dynamic place that helps you balance the rest of you without falling over one way or the other). Feel your spine or axis running through your torso and center of gravity. Stretch it up without hyper stretching. Feel it’s power (all messages and information run up and down the spine). Stop mid-step now and then and pause and listen to the silence.

Now move again, slowly, placing your feet with determination to ground them, grabbing the earth as if your feet are claws. Feel that energy of grounding to the earth. If you do fall over, come back to your center and keep on. No recriminations.

Pause. Listen to the silence.

Next I had them break down into partners and do this exercise together, switching roles as leader and follower. Very informative and useful to the technique of tango.

How does it feel to put your mind where your feet are?

The lesson, or moral of the story: tango builds on natural, organic movements of the body. It asks you to move according to body mechanics you’ve known for ages. It is not like tap dancing, say, that asks the body to step out of its norms (because, for one reason, tap dancing arose from the urge to drum, to beat). Tango asks you to drop all notions of dance, to stay out of your own way. And just dance. Naturally.

December 23, 2009

Eugenio Maria follows me around like a puppy, trying to be heard over the din of music and chatter. He is telling me I’m beautiful or something similar. We’re milling around at the Christmas party awaiting the Tango Show at Jose T. Borda psychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires where I assist in tango classes a couple of times a month. This will be the last tango class until March because it is too hot and humid in summer here. The bright, airy cafeteria has ceiling fans but no air conditioning. Too many of the residents, all men, smoke. But I’m not about to make a fuss over that addiction when they’ve ostensibly conquered others worse.

Last time, I let Eugenio hug me but today he is beaded with sweat. So I press his arm affectionately and keep him at a distance. He speaks English, not badly. He says he lived in New Jersey once. He doesn’t tell me why or how. I sense his memory is fragmented. His teeth are brown as shoe polish. He is paunchy. He says he’s 47. And he looks younger. He has a baby face despite all the abuse his body has taken.

Last time, a psychologist told him he shouldn’t just go up to people (like me) and bother them with touching.  But I don’t find him annoying. Or dangerous. Having danced more than a thousand tangos, I trust my well-attuned instinct to accurately interpret touch. He rubs my arm. Eugenio just wants someone to meet his eyes. I do that. I thank him for the compliment (the tenth or twelfth one). Then we get swept into the dancing to the disco music that plays as we await the show. The wardees are way more animated than last time. They sit at long tables and kaffee klatch. A lot of sugary drinks are passed around. Pizza and pan dulce sit on paper plates.

You can tell the medical staff by their white lab overcoats. You can easily tell the residents by the look of wrecked by hard life—whether imposed from within or from without. They are men without home or family, no kin to take care of them—unusual in Argentina. They have been ravaged by drugs or alcohol or both and by lack of good healthcare and habits.

I smile at one man who looks slap-happy with most of his left ear missing. I walk around the room and admire the artwork, naive, childlike, and optimistic, a word that describes the atmosphere here. I don’t doubt for a second that every human in this room has their corner of despair—but all of us are lifted up by the festivity and lightness of the affair, all greater than the sum of parts.

It’s easy to be upbeat and optimistic when you look at someone like Matias, a glowing success story. Two weeks ago he was the one with the wild and giddy eyes. Now just look at him in his black suit with white tie. He’ll perform with Christine, a volunteer like me. He has gone through a period of rehab here, moved out, and he is teaching tango at a venerable Buenos Aires cafe, El Progreso. He hands me his card with his business name, Tanguito. I see his last name is Italian, Barrabino. That explains his stunning beauty. Nothing about him today bespeaks former druggie. He looks innocent as a priest (back when priests were innocent), even with his little silver earring and curly tail down the back of his neck, totally guileless (that’s him with Christine in photo).

If you want to call Matias for tango lessons, his number is 15-5095-44767 (a cell).

Soon enough the show begins with a little skit. Matias and Christine feign sleeping on a bench. A fairy with blue and silver sparkly mask comes and waves her wand. Fairy dust awakens the dancers and they magically dance tango. Another couple also performs and I don’t know until later that the woman is none other than Graciela Gonzales, the famous Argentine teacher who is known for her adornos, foot decorations.

No wonder I kept pointing my camera at her feet and shooting, more than a dozen photos; those are her legs (top right). Her partner wore burgundy pin-striped pants and burgundy suede shoes and they rocked.

•••••••

We offered a class to the men after the show, teaching them the six-step baldossa box. They really focus and learn it. Among other things, tango addresses the urge to be seen (affirmed) and the urge to be one (with god, the cosmos, yourself). It is great therapy for them. For anyone.

Come Nochebuena (Christmas Eve in Latin countries), these men would be alone, while every other Argentine was at home with his/her family. So they appreciated this fiesta more than anything.

Teaching the baldossa (6-count) box step, Christmas 09

I didn't get his name but he could dance cumbia like a champ.

The artwork is attractive and optimistic at Jose T. Borda

What a surprise--Graciela Gonzales and partner.

….

They say that in dancing a three-minute tango you learn more about a person than you would over six weeks’ worth of coffee chatter. Well, how about when your partner is your mother? What’s left to learn?

I had to make an unexpected quick visit back to the U.S. after my mother fell and needed help during her rehab period. She’s 87 and miraculously sustained only a broken tibia. A hairline fracture in her lumbar vertebra was easily patched with cement. The brace, knee pain, and limited mobility bummed her out. She had fallen while running an errand. A strong wind knocked the door of her her Lincoln Continental into her and she fell (in Stevensville, near Annapolis, Maryland).

Zealous, even evangelical, after a three-day International Conference on Tango Therapy  in Mendoza, Argentina, I came armed with my tango music and Big Ideas.

I had seen with my own eyes the healing power of tango. Two women in particular were walking testimony to tango’s salutary effects. Veronica Alegre was stricken with Parkinson’s disease at age 35, some 17 years ago. Silvana Alfonso, age 55, was sidelined with rheumatoid arthritis in her twenties. Both women (who are both medical doctors) talked of the challenging first years of their disabilities, not knowing day to day if they could even get out of bed. Silvana told us that just trying to inch her way across a street (she lives in Rosario, Argentina) taxi drivers would beep at her to get a move on. “I wished they would run me down and end my despair,” she says, laughing now.

Both women found tango after all else failed. They told heart-warming stories of throwing away their crutches, cutting back on their meds, and getting happily independent. Silvana, an artist, too, said she was even skeptical that the dance would help her. Listening to her, Veronica, and others who have told me how tango has helped them deal with bi-polar disorder, I came to think of this dance of dances as “the New Lourdes,” where people hang their crutches and drugs,  literally and figuratively on the Walls of Tango.

Every morning  for nearly three weeks, I would find my mother sitting in her recliner that faced the huge block of glass and plastic that serves as receptacle for the Infant of Prague and votive candles to Mother Mary et. al. It’s also a TV that gets blasted throughout the day while she naps, her sleeping fingers tapping the remote, raising the volume or changing channels through her unconscious state.

“Get up!” I told her the first day. “We’re going to dance.” I might have thought twice and thrice about this approach with any other woman of 87. But this was my mother, wife of my father for 64 years (he died in 2004). They never babied me or any of my nine siblings. So no coddling was forthcoming.

The physical therapist happened to be there the first day and he approved of the dancing. I put on Carlos DiSarli romantic A la Gran Muñeca, Bahia Blanca, and Buenos Aires. When my mother heard the music she went into a trance, not unlike the one in above photo where she is dancing with Dad to their song, Stardust Melody, a few years before he died (on Father’s Day and the Summer Solstice). Note their easy connection and total presence with each other. They loved to dance.

Leaning on her walker, she stood up with that awkward Velcro-locking brace stiffening her left leg. We used an open practice embrace and moved slowly in the line of dance. She stepped with the easy beat of the music. We stood in place some times and did just cadencias, rock steps that move weight from one foot to the other. She tired quickly, so I let her sit before the song was over. But we always kept the music going because there is something curative in the unique rhythm and tempo of tango music (suggests cardiac specialist, Dr. Comasco). Perhaps the crying violins and moaning bandoneon contain a cathartic sound. Eventually, I played Nido Gaucho, a heart-wrenching melancholic song with pastoral lyrics that I sang to her. This too, no doubt, cut in half her mending time (if only because she wanted me to stop singing).

The PT said my mother should not step backwards. But on the second day, she started to move her legs backwards on her own, so we continued with that. She could not comfortably do the pivots required for the ochos (or figure eights), so we did a modified little cross-body kick instead. She always enjoyed herself.

We both hated that brace and were eager to ditch the hideous thing. By the second week her balance and confidence in her own stability had improved tremendously. She graduated from the walker to a cane (see photo, right) and was moving about her single-level home with some abandon.

It is now about two weeks since I left her and returned to Argentina. She threw away the brace earlier this week and the doctor says she probably does not need the knee surgery he had thought would be necessary.

OK, there are those who are attributing her rapid recovery to any number of other factors—Father Bozzelli, her parish priest’s visit; her bible group; her sturdy Sicilian genes; her family of 10 kids, 24 grand-kids, 22 great-grand-kids (the damn phone never stopped ringing); Dave the PT whom she liked; her neighbors who looked in on her; my cooking and singing . . .

But I say tango upped the ante. I should know. We danced  daily for three weeks. And you know what they say about the tango embrace.

For yours and Mom’s health and listening pleasure:

Asi se baile tango (This is how you dance tango)

Malena

Esta noche me emborracho (Tonight I’m gettting drunk)

Mom with great-grandson, Charles Garrett

I attended this festival last January and it is among my favorites now. Port Townsend is a stunning historic Victorian seaport that is gateway to Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula. The town with lovely restaurants and hotels is worth the trip in itself. Note the hotels giving special rates, below. Enjoy!

If you can’t read this flyer go to www.pttangofestival.com.

Wednesday, December 9

Gustavo’s eyes were dead or resting in pharmaceutical peace, while Mattias’s were hyper-wild and terminally giddy from years of cannabis and other drug practice.

The thing that stays with me is how well both men, wardees at  Jose T. Borda psychiatric hospital, dance tango.

The hospital is in Buenos Aire’s Barracas barrio and I assisted in the bi-monthly tango class on a Wednesday afternoon. Dr. Guillermo Honig is the psychiatrist in attendance, though he doesn’t participate in the class.

I arrived, not knowing what to expect, but eager to help out. A group of us, including Silvana Perl, a dancer and psychologist; Sol, a doctor-in-training; and Christina, a tanguera from France, began cruising the ward in a decrepit wing of the hospital asking everyone, “Want to take the tango workshop?” Responses ranged from indifference to affirmative. The class is in a new modern wing. But the ward where mostly men were lulling is dismal with ancient cots, old, cracked, crumbling walls, smell of dirty hair and urine, broken floor. Residents’ artwork on the walls attempt to prettify and I have to say there was a certain serenity and I never felt threatened.

Silvana led the hour-long class, her strong raspy voice booming a question: “What do we need to dance tango?” And the attendees booming back: “Attitude!” Applause followed. A sort of pep rally. A wardee was in charge of the music – mostly DiSarli who is easy for beginners to dance to.

She taught the 8-count basico or cruzada. I worked with Gustavo who had very little to say but who picked it up in about 10 minutes. After working in partners for about 15 minutes, each couple showed the class how they did the basico. After each couple went, Silvana asked the group to critique them: on ritmo, tiempo, coordinacion, improvisacion. The group was kind but honest – telling one woman she was back-leading. Gustavo and I got loud applause and high marks on all counts. He gave a weak smile.

Mattias and Christina went last (“He dances like a king!” Christina later told me.) Mattias is going to teach a class there. To me this all says, what I’ve believed always, that tango is like love, like solar energy, like god-consciousness. You can not destroy it. Brains cells are helpful but tangential. Clearly.

At the end of the class—the energy was high. Silvana handed out lyrics to A Media Luz by Carlos César Lenzi and we all sang way out of key, but from our hearts and souls.

If you want to come and participate, next class is December 23, starting about 12 pm with a little show. Email me for help getting there: ocaramia@earthlink.net.

Photos, Ed Waller

They have had no meat, wine, caffeine, sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, or tango for four days. Very little social contact.

They spent most of their waking hours from 4 a.m. til 9 p.m. sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring at a wall. They smile because sensory deprivation is marvelous medicine, salve for the over stimulated mind––and lives of certain tango dancers who get over milongated.

Is your tango dancing suffering from fatigue? Has your dance gone flat? Lost that lovin’ feeling? Are your ochos at sixes and nines? Your voleos lost their kick?

This may be just remedy you need: Nothing.

Oh, the mind is a terrible thing. You know this.

Fifteen of us who believe that went to Vicente Casares, the country retreat outside of Buenos Aires, to not-think. Lovely vegetarian (mostly vegan) cuisine sustained us.

In tango as in meditation you must hold your own axis, or posture, straight up. And let go of thought, of past and future—in other words, of all illusion and delusion.

The essence of happiness, whether sitting still or dancing tango, is from within. It’s all too easy to forget that.

This is not to say that during this fiercely still period the mind is not like a dog (or pony) chewing on the bone (or grass) of the past, panting for the future. It is only to say that during this time, the Great Observer, the god-mind, the awareness that is you before you got conditioned and shaped according to your genetic material and your parents’/teachers’ ways and whims, the you that is not yet or ever Screwed Up, gets a bit of space and sees that there is a beyond, a mas alla, a green pasture, right now and here in this momentito.

Guided depression, sensory deprivations, getting a grip on real time is what it’s about.