La Pista, downstairs studio – the door is on the ground level to the right of the main entrance.
766 Brannan
Between 6th and 7th
Nearest Bart: Powell
San Francisco, CA

La Pista, downstairs studio
766 Brannan
Between 6th and 7th
Nearest Bart: Powell
San Francisco, CA

Class taught by Camille Cusumano, continues the theme of Wed classes (taught by Tom & Camille). We cultivate a strong foundation, cover all fundamentals of this social dance, from walking & the embrace to keeping your axis & the connection with partner. Come prepared to dance, dance, dance. Absolute beginners are most welcome and all are highly cared for. No dance experience necessary. No one leaves without a smile (or a hug will be administered promptly). Drop-ins welcome and embraced. Questions? Call Camille: 415-425-6515 (www.camillecusumano.com). “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.”

Photo is Camille & Carlos at Tango under the Stars, Buenos Aires

Following are notes from:

Second International Congreso de Tangoterapia,

Mendoza, Argentina, Oct 28 thru November 1, 2009

• Tango is unique in its use of silence and pauses.

- vrcomasco@ciudad.com.ar

Dr. Comasco is a cardiologist who heads the research for the use of tango dancing in the prevention and rehabilitation of heart disease at Argentina’s Favaloro Foundation. He also happens to love tango as does his wife, a psychologist who helped demonstrate much of his lecture by breaking into dance with him.

Dr. Comasco wants to establish guidelines for what tango therapy is and isn’t and many of the participants shared ideas on that. Everyone agreed that tango, as music, song, dance, or poetry, is a preventive measure not a just treatment. Many discussed tango as “alternative therapy.” But it must be recognized that Dr. Ricardo and other health practitioners here are credentialed and work within the “establishment.”

Dr. Comasco suggested that tango therapy is something that restores, maintains, and increases health. He suggested we define health as . . .

complete wellness—that is, not only the absence of disease, but we should include a “spiritual” component now.

He suggested complete health involves social wellness, harmonious development, or a fulfilled life.

Focusing on the purely physical benefits at first, Dr. Comasco showed a video of tango dancers wired to monitors that displayed their heart rates, which the dancing raised, and their oxygen consumption (known as VO2max in athletic circles). Thus, he pronounced tango one of those exercises that fulfills the profile for aerobic exercise—it must be done with a frequency of at least three times a week, with an intensity that reaches a certain percentage (about 60 % for most) of your maximum heart rate (MHR), and it must be done for a duration of say thirty minutes minimum.

“Tango only has value when you are actively performing it,” noted Dr. Comasco, “but there is a training effect in tango, too, with a certain regularity.” (This is a very funny thing to say because anyone who gets into tango needn’t be told they have to do it regularly. More likely they need to be told to temper it.)

In sum, tango improves your heart-lung package, making that fist-sized muscle more efficiently use oxygen. [Little aside: I kept trying to find Dr. Comasco in the corridor to tell him that I believe tango lowers my heart rate---the way yoga does for yogis; I can feel it happening and I would love to be monitored during my tango trance. Tango is not aerobic for me, since I swim, bike, and power-walk. But I never got to corner him. He was always surrounded by many admirers.]

For some of the at-risk patients, Dr. Comasco modifies this regimen. In applying tango therapy, age, condition, pathology, and psychology are all considered.

Dr. Comasco described how he breaks patients – a sort of triage – into groups based on their risk of cardiac incident. He credits the late Dr. Rene Favaloro with connecting tango & health of late, but, he says the first professionals to suggest tango as therapy were, interestingly, French doctors, around 1913 in Paris. So this concept is not new.

Debora B. Rabinovich, clinical psychologist, debora.rabinovich@mail.mcgill.ca

was one of my favorite speakers. Debora is currently doing graduate work at McGill University, Montreal, in experimental medicine with a specialization in bioethics. An Argentine native, she noted that in the U.S.  there is intense use of alternative therapies or what she describes as mind-body therapy. Thus for her that is what tango is seen as.

Debora, a tango dancer, became interested in tango as therapy after following the research of Dr. Gammon Earhart (Washington University) and Dr. Patricia McKinley (McGill). Both those researchers showed the benefits of tango for patients (at great risk of falling) with Parkinson’s disease.

Debora noted that one-third of adults over 65 suffer falls annually. Twenty percent end in death; forty percent end in hospital stays. Quality of life suffers. [Coincidentally my mother fell right before I attended the conference. Read HERE.]  Fear of falling, she said, was the number one fear of old people in one survey (number two being crime, three being fear of forgetting something important).

Debora noted that only 50 percent of medical prescriptions are followed. But tango, were it to be prescribed, is an activity, not a pill and there is a lot of pleasure in it and enjoyment. She talked of how tango cultivates the “Flow” (per author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book about “the psychology of optimal experience”). There is an “intrinsic motivation,” in tango as therapy, meaning the dance in itself, the pleasure one feels, the reward at the moment, is the end.

The source of motivation to do something must come from what we feel in the present moment of doing the activity.

At the moment of performing the act we experience great joy and don’t want it to end. Like in tango. This is intrinsic motivation—there is no after reward – no pay or material gain, no fame – nothing outside the activity. Many people find if an activity lacks this intrinsic reward, the individual stops doing it. (Think of the highly paid business men/women who suddenly give it all up—they may be rich materially, but their work offers no intrinsic reward—they cannot flow.)

There is considerable speculation as to why tango beats out other dances as therapy (in one study by Dr. Gammon Earhart, tango beat out foxtrot, American waltz, and tai chi as a mode of improving balance in Parkinson’s patients). So one theory has been that tango shines above other dances because it is a dance with “undetermined sequences” unlike say rumba, waltz with have predetermined sequences. Tango is multidirectional in its walks and turns; this helps develop unilateral balance. It is simple but not easy. For example, the walking in tango is simple but not easy to do so elegantly. So there is a challenge and a goal—and that goal is attainable.

Tango involves the changing of weight from one leg to the other, which is hugely beneficial to older adults, who lose this basic capacity. Slowing down and pausing is part of the dance in tango. And rhythm is important, because the music allows them to step in two stages.

Tango is movement that encourages and promotes relationship between adults. Debora noted a study of thirty persons, comparing the benefits of tango and walking. You guessed which activity won. The walking group was exposed to music and imagery in order to isolate the dancing as a variable. Benefits of this study, in sum, were:

1. Improvement in perceived and real balance for both groups, the walkers and tango dancers.
2. The tango group increased in speed of pace they could walk. There were psycho/social benefits of dance and rhythm.
3. Walking group – 60 percent dropped out. Only one person dropped out of the tango group. And those in tango continued tango after the study was over.
4. Conclusions – results persisted for one month after study done. Tango was cost effective and sustainable.

Also of note: People in the study worked with a caretaker and tango improved that relationship.

TANGO EMBRACE

Debora, like many before her, suggested the embrace in and of itself was therapeutic: it is physical, with touching, holding, transmission of cognitive info, a form of communication. It’s true that all partner dancing has an embrace. But the one for tango is different. It’s soft and sliding to accommodate the improvisational aspect. It’s not rigid or firm, fixed, and “framelike” as in ballroom and swing, where info is transmitted through tension or what’s called compression. In tango, it is exactly the opposite. The touching is much more gentle and light with ultimate sensitivity. The touching involves more than just the arms, too. It involves the torso, also in a fluid way.

Debora noted that all dance bonds emotions to movement and communication so it is a sustainable practice.

She mentioned the “complexity” of tango, which is sort of an interesting paradoxic to my mind. The dance is simple. The complexity derives from the fact that each partner must be responsible for his/her own axis (or weight) and prepared to move in any direction.

Thus, Debora noted that self-sufficiency was an important factor in the study. The participants got to use their own judgment. Self-confidence went way up. They performed an activity with some challenge built in, thus with their increase in efficiency, they could say, “I learned this.” This means the world to people whose very sense of meaning in life is at risk (such as in elders). In this sense, tango offers spiritual benefits.

Body image is hugely affected by physical problems and tango helps to restore body image. Debora described patients who got a new self-identity from dancing tango—such as a woman with chronic back pain.

Tango’s best characteristics according to Debora:

—Tango has clear goals that are easy to see, identifiable, with immediate feedback.

—It offers a good balance between demand and skill of the activity.

—It makes the doer become so involved in the activity and lose self-awareness; feel centered in the present and lose the fact of past and future, in a flow-like altered sense of time.

—In tango, you move at rhythm of other person.

—Participans all felt connected with universe as a whole.

—It gives the participants a sense of autonomy. It improves balance, strength, and mobility. Significantly, there is a high adherence to it. It is a valued challenge and provides the contact lacking in elderly.

Carlos A. Rodriguez Moreno, Professor of music and song

rodriguezmoreno@gmx.net

Sujeto y sociedad (Society and the individual) – Here I simply offer my notes per the translator – with only enough editing to make legible

“Tango is a vehicle for different customs no longer practiced, such as the etiquette in milonga. . .  the 1960s abolished a lot of consideration for others. Tango is a public intimate activity and it is a reservoir to keep social relations as a model we should practice. The lyrics and art imagery of tango impart philosophy, a vision of sorts. There is a model of man/woman, of self-awareness. The classic story of the man abandoned by woman set in motion by Mi Noche Triste in 1917 [a song that marks the dramatic change of tango from felicitous to melancholic]. Tango is still accompanying social change. The seduction ritual centers the dance – the lyrics and actual dance talk with each other. . . .In a few seconds of tango dancing you can learn what would take a whole hour or more of coffee drinking.”  It has something we can’t compare to other dances. . .

In tango – it has such an esthetic and the lyrics are strong [unlike other dances]. We get sensitive to eroticism. It thus makes us dancers more sensitive and vulnerable.

Self esteem is changed. We are now self aware . . . A cognitive process comes from the embrace. Many things can happen when male/female come together in the embrace and with the centrifugal force they feel. Tango is a chance to recover that masculine/feminine thing . . . Tango is a great cultural compass. It is art in itself, nurtured from the immigrants.”

Dr. Roberto Antonio Schena, is a cardiologist, 80 years old

drschena@yahoo.com.ar

rasche@intramed.net.ar

Con el Corazon en el tango (the Heart and Tango)

In tango there is not only the heart chakra connection – but also connection to the liver, kidney, stomach, because the heart has “eyes” and understanding. To the Egyptians, the heart was so important it was left in the mummies. There was a consciousness was in the heart.

I am abridging Dr. Schena’s long talk here. He took the heart through history (and pre-history), noting some provocative things such as that the heart lost prestige in the Middle Ages, then regained it with the Romantics in the Renaissance.

The next speaker continued on the theme of the body itself as communication.

Daniela Florencia Galicia, a psychotherapist gave a talk entitled Tango y Erotismo

She spoke of “optimizing the erotic bond” that tango creates. Tango is more akin to making love than to other dances. The body is an open book. Its capacity for communication is huge; we can use tango to enrich and develop our senses, to enable us to communicate at the erotic level.

“We assume there is a communication deficit in any dissatisfied couple (who comes to see her for counseling),” Daniela says.

There are verbal and nonverbal channels of communication.

Ten to fifteen percent of all communication is conscious. 80 to 90 percent is unconscious; 65 percent of messages pass thru to us through nonverbal channels.

So important is the human body as a form of communication. And tango, more than any other partner dance, uses more of the human body to transmit info.

Tango is a great form of communication between different bodies. Stimulation of senses of smell, taste, and touch, of genitals comes with this dance.

Originally, before speech – we communicated with our body and with crude throat-body sounds. Speech has come late in our human evolution. And with socialization, our responses became more complex. The body communication is much older and established – and we still have it, if latent or dormant. TANGO wakes it up.

Our conscious part has the lowest percentage of focus on speech. In other words, know it or not, you are transmitting and receiving most info through your body, face, touch, etc.

Tango is a dance that is one of the best resources in body language training. It helps the couple start to express, sense, feel. It invites us to extend to the erogenous zones.

Back to lost contact: it also generates anxiety – many leave or drop out of the tango lesson. Anxiety is necessary to the extent it helps mobilize attention to communication. Tango invites us to LET GO and follow the rhythm. Relinquishing control is a huge stone rolled away for some. Tango is an exquisite tool for couples therapy.

• Let me interject that tango is famous for breaking up couples; perhaps this is a good thing. Once they communicate honestly some partners find they do not want to be a couple.

More notes to come from many other speakers

Every last Friday of the month we offer this beginner’s milonga, open to all tangueros!

Where: LA PISTA, San Francisco, 768 Brannan Street (between 6^th & 7^th streets), 7 to 8 pm is class; 8 to 11pm is the milonga.

Before the milonga we’ll teach a smooth move or pattern (figura) you can use in the milonga.

Class is free with milonga admission, $10, includes:

• Dancing tango in the milonga as it’s done in Argentina

• The etiquette, including the cabeceo, tanda, charla, chamuyo (!), and more

• Experienced dancers on hand to answer questions and help you feel at ease

• Refreshments served

• DJ music by Mila Salazar, custom designed for beginners

Intermediate/advanced dancers encouraged to come

More on our beginner classes

Milonga Etiquette Primer

Cabeceo – the head-nod with eye-lock that dancers use to invite each other to dance a tanda.

Tanda – series of 3, 4, or 5 like-themed songs – either tango, vals (waltz), or milonga themes. Within those three categories there are many interpretations depending on the composers (to name a few whom you’ll hear in a traditional milonga: DiSarli, Biaggi, Troilo, D’Arienzo, Canaro, Calo, Laurenz, DiAngelis, Donato, and many more).

Cortina – a short piece of recognizably non-tango music that tells you the tanda is over, sit down.

Charla – this is Spanish for chat. Some dancers prefer to stand in silence between songs in a tanda – perfectly acceptable (and silence during the dance is highly advised). But most dancers take the 10, 20 seconds or so to have a charla, which often involves telling your partner how much you enjoy his/her dance, embrace, etc.

Chamuyo (chah-moo-jsho) –this is a Lunfardo (Argentine slang) term and you hear it a lot in the milongas of Buenos Aires, “What a load of chamuyo!” speaking on a subject with a pretense of authority, when in reality the speaker is simply inventing, or “bullshitting.” It can also mean “sweet talk” such as when a guy is “talking trash” to a girl, saying nothing of substance, for the purpose of socializing. After all tango and the milonga is a milieu of seduction (and betrayal, some say). So flirt, and chamuyar, to your heart’s content

Piropo – a flirtatious remark – could be chamuyo, or not. Examples: “On a scale of 1 to 10, you’re an 11! OR: “If Adam ate the apple for Eve, I’ll eat the entire tree for you!”

At La Pista, we offer beginners this special “milonga with training wheels.”

Our beginning tango classes at La Pista: We specialize in teaching beginners, including those who have never danced at all.

You will not find another dance salon like La Pista.

Its owner, Tom Lewis, is in the restoration business and that restorative knack of his seems to overflow into his passion for Argentine tango. A nurturing air of calm and tranquility pervades La pista’s two levels, including the top floor where Tom’s business offices line the front of the building. The warmth and generosity of its designer and architect pervade La Pista in the scarlet walls hung with many evocative photos and paintings of tango performers in pose. It’s not too far afield to say that La Pista is a refuge, a sanctuary, even a temple to the art of dance in all its glorious benefits to mind, body, soul.

Thanks largely to Tom, La Pista attracts the best tango dancers from around the world. I’ll admit to a possible lack of impartiality when I say that San Francisco has the best Argentine tango community outside of Buenos Aires.  Buenos Aires beats us in sheer numbers and density of crowds, teachers, and all the accoutrements that tango brings.  But SF, being SF, has an air of freedom, mutual support, and great local teachers—a combination found nowhere else that I know of.

Drop by for a class:

Tango for Beginners – with Tom Lewis & Camille Cusumano, La Pista, 766 Brannan St. SF, Wednesdays, 7:30 to 8:30 pm, with practice time afterward. $10.

Starting Friday, February 3, 2012, Beginning Tango class, 7 to 8 p.m. withe Camille. – $10.

Starting late February, 2012, Beginning Tango class, Monday nights with Mila Salazar – TBA.

Starting January 27, 2012, every last Friday is La Milonguita, beginner’s milonga, open to all tangueros.

Note on shoes: The best shoes to wear are soft-soled, slippery – like suede or leather. Nothing synthetic that is non-slip. I am going to start bringing old (clean) socks to class for anyone who doesn’t want to buy special shoes – that’s a trick I learned in Buenos Aires that will work, too. You slip the socks OVER your shoes.

Step list

All of our classes at La Pista follow a similar format: warming up with exercises facing the mirror without partners, explanation of the technique we are focusing on, introduction of the step—with partners, then separately with lead and follow parts shown slowly, then dancing and practicing with Tom and Camille coming around to help all participants with correct form, technique, and, when helpful, attitude.

Here is what you should expect to learn in your first 8 weeks (1–2 hours of class time) of beginning Argentine tango:

—Walking (caminada)

—Walking in the line of dance (always counter-clockwise) with weight changes in place

—Rock step – cadencia

—Check steps – rock steps with a quick-quick weight change and a little (45-degree) turn to the left

—Ochos (figure eights), forward and backwards

—8-count basic or basico to the cross or cruzada

——Molinetes (or giros or grapevines) – the follower turns to the left or to the right as led by the leader

—Walking to the cruzada in normal (parallel) system (lead and follow step on opposite feet, LR or RL)

—Walking to the cruzada in cross system (lead and follow step on the same foot, LL or RR)

—Walking inside & outside (left) & on the follower’s dark (right) side without leading the follower to the cruzada – in normal system

Extra, but not necessary yet:

—Ocho cortado (cut ocho)

About our classes: We focus on beginners  and aspiring tangueros who have never danced. All our classes start with exercises to help you keep all-important technique in mind as you execute steps. Tango technique can be summed up in three important body mechanics: spirals, weight change (or transference of weight around your axis), and pivots (almost always on one leg). We “triage” in our classes, that is, everyone does the beginning exercises together, then we take newcomers aside to bring them up to speed with one-on-one instruction.

You will hear us talk frequently about connecting with the floor (like those famous tires that “grrrip the road”) and also about keeping your posture (head up, not looking down at your feet).

—Weight changes – transferring weight from one foot to the other, we talk of shifting the axis left or right.

—the axis is always the center of our body around which all weight is evenly distributed.

—Pivots – used frequently in tango by both leader and follower, pivots can be thought of as a rotation of the axis in place before stepping and they rely a lot on the fact that you most often are always on one leg or the other, or the free-leg principle.

—Free-leg principle – see above

—Maintaining your axis – you’ll hear this a lot in tango because, given the intimate (close) embrace of the dance, one can lean too much into his/her partner. But the beauty of the dance is this paradox of shared axis but still “maintaining your own axis.” This paradox is what (Camille thinks) leads to the feeling of a Third Presence in tango.

—Third Presence (also referred to as Tango Moment)– see above or pick Camille’s (or Tom’s) brain(s).

—Contra-Body Movement (also called CBM or disassociation) – the upper body, from about waist up turns slightly on a diagonal to the lower body (waist down), a movement used to lead the follower to the cruzada/cross. I have decided to use the simpler, more lyrical term, “spiral,” but keep in mind that it can mean the spiral begins at your shoulders or at your feet.

—Connecting with the floor is important – Tom has said this many times. So we work on this each class with the music. Stepping cleanly, precisely, meaningfully into the floor with the music is like enunciating in good speech, or like writing good poetic meter. We say that tango music doesn’t have a precise rhythm or tempo but it does have a beat or cadence—and it does have rhythm and melody. You have a certain of amount of freedom in how you follow that beat or cadence.

—Along with connecting with the earth or digging our feet in, we might think of reaching, from say the waist (third chakra area) up toward the sky or heaven. This will help us to keep good posture.

—Connection with partner – close/closed embrace we meet torso to torso but allowing space between our lower torso or abdominal area (this embrace is also called a carpa, from Spanish for tent.) Connection is highly personal and individual

—Embrace – soft, sliding, pressure is equally distributed along all points of contact. Palms meet palms softly, pulses may touch, elbows are pointed down. The arms go around each other and connect gently. There is a lot to say about embrace, which, like connection, can vary from couple to couple, depending on several factors.

—the Lead comes from the leader’s torso/chest (the heart-light), not his arms.

—The Follower waits for the lead, is always in the “hover” zone (Camille’s term), one leg suspended, not anticipating, but waiting for the lead. (Waiting is the only virtue, in tango and in life.)

— Fully engaged - Tango may well be soft, gentle, smooth, but the whole body is engaged. It’s as if your whole body is one elastic muscle—the degree of elasticity varies with the style of tango danced, but it should always be there in some capacity. Both leader and follower are 100 percent engaged (elastic), moment to moment. This engagement might be the vehicle that transports each dancer to that place in tango of “no clock time” (no past or future), where you feel that music is dancing you. You will decide for yourself. Meanwhile, to help you cultivate being fully present and engaged, I like to say, as we say in yoga, pull your every muscle to the bone.

—Tango is a dance of improvisation – you learn the basic structure (or vocabulary) and the all-important technique and then you invent the way to connect it all within the framework of the music and the dialog between two partners. No two dances or dancers are ever the same. We will help you understand this concept.

When you have some idea of the above, you are ready for your first milonga, La Milonguita, every last Friday of the month. It’s a “milonga with training wheels.”

I contend that no matter whether you write fiction (short stories or novels) or creative non-fiction (essays, memoirs, magazine features), the same set of rules applies to the craft and art of good writing (where good = readable, compelling, digestible, interesting, entertaining, informative, perturbing, moving, rewarding, satisfying, and more). For, even in telling the “truth,” as in memoir, you are always recalling, remembering, reconstructing the past. You consciously or unconsciously choose the details to emphasize, the accent, importance, emphasis to give events, facts, persons, and you set the tempo, pacing in hindsight. In other words, the filter of sense, perception, conception, interpretation is not much different from the filter at work in fiction. The mechanics of language is true in fiction, even if imagined, even if you sink into the depths of yourself to shape the stuff of nighttime dreams. All writing is based on the experiential even if that experience is imagined. In sum, if you are not bringing art to bear on the least piece of writing, you are missing one of life’s great opportunities, free to every last one of us.

OVERVIEW OF THE DAYLONG WORKSHOP

I. Writing as Process — First half of the day focuses on writing as process paced with some discussion and writing to hone awareness of the deeply personal nature each of us brings to it.

1. Jumping in, feet, head, and hands first – a fun little exercise to prime the pump (Hint: we’ll be using memory, real and false.)

2. Brief Introductions – Hello, my name is . . . what I hope to achieve . . . .

3. Process from the inside out: Brief chat on blocks & obstacles (acute & chronic) to writing process, real & perceived (or imagined). I’ll share a bit on my work to break through (using meditation, art therapy) and point to Tolstoy, Hemingway, Woolf, Styron, and other luminaries who all had it. Can you name writing’s Public Enemy No. 1?

4. From the outside in: We’ll read a couple of short pieces, one on the magic & mystique of writing (how it lets our hidden self/material float to the surface); and a second short essay that exemplifies how the deeply personal telegraphs or unpacks the universal.

5. A Letter to the Editor – You will write something so unbridled, so telling, so revealing, and maybe even hair-raising and breathtaking that only you will decide whether or not you want to share it. Instructions to come in class.

6. The Writer’s 7-Step Prescription to cultivate your “autonomic writing system” – This is a bare bones overview (with personal writing exercises) of the actual physical and mental journey writers encounter in getting to place of confidence, trust, and elation in their process. Briefly, it draws from Elizabeht Kubler-Ross’s stages of dying, Zen meditation, and my personal experience of overcoming resistance to writing. (A helpful acronym: DABDA+EN – to be decoded.)

7. Your Passion as Prose: First a silent period of writing about the passion that drives or inspires you to write (vs. any other art form) followed by a brief group discussion (Talk Your Story). Participants have the option of saving their piece to share in private with me, the instructor, in the private sessions upcoming.

8. Piece of Your Heart (or Prose as Passion): I now guide you to write a focused piece based on our previous discussion and exercise. (Brief discussion of “lede,” importance of, and why is it “lede,” not “lead.”) Note, this is not a random “writing prompt.” It is specifically focused on you and your material. Personal anecdote to come: The Most Splendid Duck.

9. LUNCH BREAK – I like to keep the connection with you all by eating together and just informally chatting. But anyone is free to go off alone and return for next half.

10. Private Sessions – While the group continues to work on specific writing, I will take each participant one on one to talk about his/her writing, content and process.

Focus on content, style

11. The six key elements of good writing – presentation of each followed by writing, applying to the piece you’re working on.

A. Includes the Seventh Element – breaking rules, when, how, why. (Hint: Who is the reader?) I’ll read a short piece – with all the elements and we’ll continue writing until the final hour.

B. Includes brief discussion of Truths, Half-Truths, and Truths-and-a-Half in writing. When, if ever, is bending, re-focusing, refracting, embroidering truth permissible in creative non-fiction?

C. Includes discussion of plot & theme, how they apply whether you write fiction or non-fiction, how there is never-ending debate on the number of plots that all literature falls under. Some say one universal plot. Others say there are 3, 7, 20, or 36 possible different plots (or for our purposes, themes). I’ll tell you about all of them. Can you name the two elements that keep readers reading a story?

12. The last 45 minutes of the workshop is dedicated to integrating writing as process & content.

Handouts with workshop overview and reading list to be given out.

Writing is drawing that’s been untied and retied. But he likes it as Drawing is writing that’s been untied and retied.

I like both.

Food for thought.

Another StarDate reported how the Earth’s axis being at a tilt in relation to the sun is why we have season’s. However, Venus has a straight up and down axis in it orbit. In dancing tango, think of yourself as  the Earth when learning the off-axis moves like volcadas and colgadas and be Venus when the dance calls for you to be straight to the core, trusting the forces of your orbit.

When you start dancing regularly in the milongas, you will grasp how the idea that we are heavenly bodies trying to stay in our orbits, giving and receiving energy, is not so far fetched.

Full script of StarDate report on Pulsars:

“They signal to us across thousands of light-years, pulsing through the cosmic static like a vinyl record that’s reached the end of its songs….like the furious rhythm of a tom-tom….or like the whine of an electric motor….

These are the calls of pulsars — the remnants of once-mighty stars that emit beams of energy like cosmic lighthouses.

A Heavenly Milonga

A pulsar is born when the core of a massive star stops producing energy. It collapses, forming a neutron star. Such a stellar remnant is more massive than the Sun, but only a few miles in diameter. A chunk of its matter the size of a thimble would weigh billions of tons.

As the core collapses, it spins faster, like an ice skater who pulls in her arms — up to dozens of revolutions every second. It also generates a powerful magnetic field. As the newborn neutron star spins, particles trapped in the magnetic field emit beams of energy from the magnetic poles — often in the form of radio waves. If Earth lies in the path of one of the beams, telescopes detect rapid pulses of energy — hence the name “pulsar” — short for “pulsating star.”

Over time, pulsars lose energy, so they spin slower. But if they have a companion star, they can spin up again by stealing some of its gas — a process that can make the pulsar spin hundreds of times a second.

The rate at which a pulsar spins can be changed by the pull of companions — including planets. More about that tomorrow.”

Kuan Yin’s Prayer for the Abuser

To those who withhold refuge,
I cradle you in safety at the core of my Being.
To those that cause a child to cry out,
I grant you the freedom to express your own choked agony.
To those that inflict terror,
I remind you that you shine with the purity of a thousand suns.
To those who would confine, suppress, or deny,
I offer the limitless expanse of the sky.
To those who need to cut, slash, or burn,
I remind you of the invincibility of Spring.
To those who cling and grasp,
I promise more abundance than you could ever hold onto.
To those who vent their rage on small children,
I return to you your deepest innocence.
To those who must frighten into submission,
I hold you in the bosom of your original mother.
To those who cause agony to others,
I give the gift of free flowing tears.
To those that deny another’s right to be,
I remind you that the angels sang in celebration of you on the day of your
birth.
To those who see only division and separateness,
I remind you that a part is born only by bisecting a whole.
For those who have forgotten the tender mercy of a mother’s embrace,
I send a gentle breeze to caress your brow.
To those who still feel somehow incomplete,
I offer the perfect sanctity of this very moment.

Naturally, I hooked up with the local tango community. Oh, how many people told me “You won’t find tango in Nairobi?” They didn’t know Mario Ruggier, a native of Malta and naturalized Canadian who came by way of Geneva two years ago to work in Nairobi in an engineering capacity for the U.N. also. (There are some 25,000 expats in Kenya.) Mario found only ersatz tango—the ballroom stuff of stiff frame, bodies held apart, making like a tulip. So he began to teach the real thing, Argentine tango and now he has a good following. I was received with open arms and close embrace. Mario has a trademark way of teaching—he calls it the “free-leg principle.” I found the Kenyans I danced with all have a native intelligence for tango. Their elasticity gave their lead a muscular feel, a comforting presence. By the time I left Kenya I had more than a dozen new friends and as I keep telling friends, “I’ve been Africanized.” I’m not sure what it means. But every night I search for films about Africa. I’ve read and re-read It’s Our Turn to Eat by Michela Wrong, about a Kenyan whistle-blower. I’ve joined an Africa Meetup group here in San Francisco.

Here are some videos and slideshows that tell some of my story. The first video is of these little boys I fell hopelessly in love with. I was not teaching them tango. Mario and I were teaching at-risk teens in the crumbling shell of a church in a poverty-ridden section (much of Nairobi, it seems). And these little fellows decided to mimic us. Aren’t they wonderful? You can imagine their living situation, but just look at the joie de vivre in their faces. My hope is to go back to Nairobi later this year and teach all these kids, teens and younger, for an extended period. Juliet Kisilu, my Kenyan friend who invited me to teach them, works for the NGO (Exodus Kutoka Network) that tries to give these kids art, dance, music, crafts—to feed their souls. I’d say they are triumphing in the most dismal of surroundings. Two years ago I was accepted into the Peace Corps. But the red tape and bureaucracy kept delaying my decision—and I must admit the fact that I didn’t want to be apart from tango that long. Here I have done what I wanted, at last, all cultivated in the space of a five minute conversation.

Scenes from my first night of Tango in Nairobi:

Mario & I teach at-risk kids:

For my sister Donna, our safari–at the edge of a metropolitan city:

African tango- Kizomba:

What drew me up to Mendocino, hallowed ground with which I’ve had an intimate relationship since 1982, was Facundo Posadas and Christy Cote’s workshops. I am working on my lead now (heaven help you all). And no one teaches body mechanics and technique more clearly, more generously, more patiently than Christy. And Facundo—is there a more charmingly disarming milonguero from Argentina? I have thought not, since the days when I still lived in Buenos Aires and got lucky at  Sunday night’s La Milonguita, where Facundo invited me to dance.

Since about 2005, when I discovered the small tightknit tango community up north, I have been enamored of every single one of its dancers. There’s a tip for those of you who feel intimidated by our big, crowded milongas in the Bay Area. Mendocino milongueros will embrace you in more ways than one, no matter your level. When local teachers Howard & Irene moved to Santa Fe last year, they handed off the teaching to Walter & Raquel, wonderful—buenisimos—dancers, both of them. And why not stay at the Weller House Inn while up there? (see info below). Vivien has a stellar lineup of tango events each month (check her calendar).

Come the Saturday night milonga, I got lucky again, when Facundo invited me to dance to Pugliese—on that floaty virgin redwood. It was awesome and as usual very relaxing. A dancer of his stature could easily make you feel on edge. Not so with Facundo. There is something humble and earthy about him. We didn’t finish the tanda though, but for good reason. Vivien brought up a tray of her homemade flan. So we dove for the ramekins. I can report that caramelized sugar is an excellent enhancement of tango.

Had I not gotten to dance with Facundo, luck was all around for me that evening anyway. I danced with every leader (some twice and thrice) in the room before the night was over. For me, greedy tango glutton, that alone is the mark of a successful milonga.  I went to bed that evening sated, with my usual tango “facelift.”

During breaks between classes, I had a chance to chat with Ching-Ping Peng, Facundo’s partner since 2007. Facundo’s longtime previous partner, Kelly, succumbed to breast cancer a few years back. I was lucky to catch Facundo & Kelly dancing in 2005, during my first visit to Buenos Aires. Like Facundo, Ching-Ping, from Taipei, is down to earth and warm. She told me how she has lived in New York, upper West Side, for 20 years. She had been a member of Cloud Gate Dance Theater, an acclaimed modern dance troupe, when in 2007 she “suddenly fell in love with Argentine tango—and in a flash abandoned a five-continent career in Chinese dance.” Sound familiar? Read more about Facundo and Ching-Ping here.

You’ll learn that Carlos Facundo Posadas (his full name) had a maternal grandfather born in the U.S. who came to Argentina as the chauffeur of a wealthy Mendoza vintner. And that Facundo is the grandson/nephew of Don Carlos Posadas, author of more than forty tangos.

Come Sunday night, it was time to head back to San Francisco. I should have been satisfied, not just with all of the above, but with the blood-oxygenating walks at Glass Beach and MacKerricher State Park. But no. There was the Sunday night milonga in Elk, just three miles off Hwy 128 on my way home. So I hit it and again danced with every leader there, including Raquel, who is among the best. Each time I tried to leave, the DJ (irascible Walter) put on Biaggi or some music that made me turn around and stay until the end. I got on the dark road after 10 pm, but the scent of tango and the redwoods and the will to live for my next tanda saw me safely home by 1:30 am.

THE WELLER HOUSE INN – You must try a Tango Getaway. Ask Vivien about Dancer’s Dorms, for ladies and gents, $50/person if 4 per room, $65/person if 3 per room

Otherwise, weekend room rates range from $160-$210 for two, including classic hot breakfast. All guest rooms have private bath and/or shower.The added inducement about the Weller House is its location on a quiet rural street in Fort Bragg, about ten miles north of the more touristy town of Mendocino (a lovely village packed with  jaw-dropping gorgeous old Queen Annes, Victorians, and other gingerbready architecture, the legacy of the 19th-to-early-20th-century lumber barons). The Weller House is rife with romance—near the Skunk Depot (a train that goes through redwoods to Willits) and it has a room in the Water Tower with an ocean view. Just as breathtaking is the inn’s decor—from Mediterranean to French, British to Asian inspired. There are fireplaces, pressed-tin walls, stained glass windows looking out to the Victorian gardens and fountain, a Jacuzzi in one room. Contact Vivien LaMothe for reservations and information: 707-964-4415; viv@whi-tango.com; wellerhouse.com.

WHAT: A full day (8 hours) of writing instruction in a very small group (limited to six participants).
You’ll learn everything from unlocking the writer within, the six key elements of winning creative non-fiction (or personal essays)to understanding the all-important narrative arc, how to shape it, how to cultivate your voice (or voices!) and the delicate art of self-editing. You will write, write, write, and leave inspired.

WHEN: JAN 22, 2012, 10 am to 6pm – Lunch provided (dietary restrictions honored) no extra cost.
WHERE: Private Studio Ocaramia, 2395 Franklin Street, SF, Ca 94123
QUESTIONS/INFO: 415-425-6515; ocaramia@mac.com

COST: $150 – to pay, click on the even for Jan 22, to the right, and use PayPal button

More details: We’ll start right in writing, then discussing briefly a reasonable goal. We’ll cover “Six Key Elements” of a winning story. Do you know what they are? I’ll give you writing exercises. But more importantly we’ll focus on what you hope to achieve with your writing, anything from private satisfaction and self therapy to getting published and writing the great American novel. We’ll pace ourselves with breaks and read others’ works. We’ll breathe and relax at intervals.

WHAT: A full day (8 hours) of writing instruction in a very small group (limited to six participants).
You’ll learn everything from unlocking the writer within, the six key elements of winning creative non-fiction (or personal essays)to understanding the all-important narrative arc, how to shape it, how to cultivate your voice (or voices!) and the delicate art of self-editing. You will write, write, write, and leave inspired.

WHEN: JAN 22, 2012, 10 am to 6pm – Lunch provided (dietary restrictions honored) no extra cost.
WHERE: Private Studio Ocaramia, 2395 Franklin Street, SF, Ca 94123
QUESTIONS/INFO: 415-425-6515; ocaramia@mac.com

COST: $150