"How do you do an ocho again?", I asked Malena. "Oh stop! It’s like riding a bike... you never really forget." she tells me. We hadn't danced for two and a half months. I can hardly recall the warmth of the tango embrace. The excitement and joy I once felt seemed to have abandoned me back in Dec. Dancing tango was always my escape from reality. For the past 16 months, it'd been my way of life. So when I woke up on that cold winter morning and didn’t feel that urge to dance, I was confused and sad.
I tried going to a few milongas but had the most miserable time. I sat most of these evenings with only 2 to 3 invitations. Perhaps it was self manifestation or maybe I was dancing like Elaine from that Seinfeld episode and didn't know it. It brought back bad memories of high school dances; all dressed up and sitting pretty. The boys giving me the "once-look-over" then rejected me for the prettier girl next to me. It didn't seem to make any sense. I hadn't felt this level of rejection before, except for that one bad night with the tan-ego. For the past year, I rarely ever sit for more than a tanda. I've danced with many tangueros, from true beginners to seasoned instructors. What's puzzling to me is that I was asked to dance more often as a beginner than I do now with a little more skills under my belt. Malena and I tried to come up with some explanations. A) We appear to be snotty because we are often engrossed in conversation and may have appeared at times not interested in dancing. B) We danced too many tandas with certain individuals and they may have appeared as our exclusive partners. C) We haven't been going to milongas as much as we use to. It will take some time for people to warm up to us again, the old and new faces.
We decided mid-week to venture out to the Yale Festival for the All Night Milonga. Malena was very excited. The first words out of her mouth were... "OMG we have to try this pizza!!!" Apparently, she had watched a special on the food network about New Haven's two famous pizzerias Sally's and Frank Pepe's. We checked into the hotel around 6pm then set out to find Sally and Frank. We drove by Sally's and there was already a long line outside the restaurant, so we moved onto Frank's, which was two blocks down the road. Line was slightly shorter there. "Frank Pepe it is!" I honestly didn't think I’d ever wait more than 30 minutes for dough, sauce and cheese but the wait proved to be worthwhile. The pizza was delicious, even though our waitress was a bit rude, she demanded to take our order immediately and rolled her eyes a few times when she realized we hadn't picked out our toppings.
On the way back to the hotel, we picked up a bottle of Veuve Cliquot. We had a glass then decided to take a nap before the milonga. When we finally woke up, it was 11:30pm. Still sleepy, we rushed to get ready. We asked the hotel concierge to direct us to the Harkness building (where the milonga was held). She gave us a map then off we went. We didn't realize at the time there were two different Harkness locations. We stumbled into an old building hoping to hear faint sounds of tango music... but nada. When I gently pushed the large wooden front doors and it swung open automatically. The loud sound of the door hinge squeaking echoed in the corridor. Not a soul in sight, it was now midnight. Out of nowhere I see a boy wearing a black hoody rushing out of the adjacent door. As he walked past me, I tried to stop him for directions. "Excuse me..... excuse me!", I hollered. As if he couldn’t hear me at all, he kept walking and disappeared though the door. I looked at Malena, "Hmm... I think we better get out of here!" We rushed back to the car and looked at the directions printed off the Yale Fest's site and realized we were on the other side of the campus.
By the time we arrived at the milonga, it was already 12:30pm. We were really hoping to escape the NYC tango scene but was a little disappointed to see many of the dancers there were from NYC. Not sure why we were surprised, New Haven is not that far away. My first dance was with a student from Yale. We shifted our weights for a few seconds preparing for our first step. He then paused and he said, "let’s start and take a step to the right." Bizarre! Is he planning to give directions throughout our dance?? Everything just went downhill from there... I soon learned after our first song, he's only taken a few classes and this was his very first milonga. He had a sweet round face with large brown eyes, so I decided to suffer through a second song before thanking him for the dance. Our dear TP came to the rescue soon after. It was comforting to see him. He always has a warm smile and his enthusiasm for tango is quite contagious. We chatted a little bit and we shared a few tandas. He inspired us to check airfare first thing this morning for OUR next BsAs pilgrimage.
So Malena and I sat watching the scene for a while. After 30 minutes went by without an invitation, we decided it's probably not going to get better. We left the milonga at 2:30am and tried to find a local bar to have a few drinks but nothing was opened. We went back to the hotel and finished our left-over pizzas and champagne. While watching the history channel, we dozed off to sleep.
During brunch the next morning, we decided to take group classes again to get back into the mix of things; with tango and the people of tango. Perhaps, this is all part of our tango journey and we're just entering into the next phase. A dancer must decide at some point whether to invest in further education and become better dancers or to stop learning because they feel they have sufficient skills to enjoy an evening of social dancing. Well, I am ready for the challenge of becoming a beginner all over again. Bring it on...
