The Great "Lady Day" Part II: Tango Thoughts

In the present moment, Jan 2008

This is a blog about Lady Day, but it lead me to think about tango, or the pursuit of any art form in general.

It is natural that in our undertakings, those who excel at their art inspire us towards their greatness. Their inimitable style, grace and creativity give us fresh hope and energy. They become our role models, their accomplishments represent a path to follow suit in their footsteps.


In tango, many of us dance wanting to be someone else. Needless to say the same phenomenon occurs here in Buenos Aires, locals and visitors alike. Dancers spent their time following a particular tango celebrity, trying to emulate their dance style, steps or even the way of dressing.

To me, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to spend so much time and energy, only to become a clone of someone else. At best, we become a very very good copy of the tango celebrity.

So what is wrong with being a very very good copy?

For one, you will always be "second-best". Why define your own limits with someone's yardstick?

At worse, it will be akin to living a lie that you may never have the courage to emerge from.

The top tango maestros have strongly individualistic styles. They are iconic figures in tango not only because of their technical competence but because their dance is their own and nobody else's. They reached their level after many years of dancing and exploration to develop their dance.

The difference is to learn from them, instead of setting your heart to be like them. The best teachers will show you the means to become free in the dance. Don’t undo this gift from them.

So, if you have decided or you feel that tango is an important part of you, then perhaps take a look at what Billie Holiday said about her singing. At what other people said of her singing. In Charlie Parker's words: "Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn."


So live it, experience it. Have courage to find your own path in tango.


What is the first step to achieving this?
When you dance, dance with honesty. This way you will find your own dance in tango.

The Great "Lady Day": Part I

In the present moment, Jan 2008

My language exams seem a faint memory, I am fully enjoying my holidays. Even pleasurable activities like writing in this blog were left aside in the festive mood of December. Christmas passed in the midst of celebrations and a new year started in Buenos Aires for me. A new year comes with new hopes.

My thoughts turned to Lady Day for this entry and the next.

Billie "Lady Day" Holiday

I don't listen to much jazz. Billie Holiday is by far my favourite singer, although I admit I listen to her because the emotions are so raw in many of her songs. So paradoxically, I only listen her once in a blue moon.

I came across on this website some writing about Billie Holiday. It was taken from the book "BIG STAR FALLIN' MAMA - Five Woman in Black Music" written by Hettie Jones. Here is a section on how Lady Day sang:

"One day we were so hungry we could barely breathe. I started out the door. It was cold as all-hell and I walked from 145th to 133rd..... going in every joint trying to find work....... I stopped in the Log Cabin Club run by Jerry Preston... told him I was a dancer. He said to dance. I tried it. He said I stunk. I told him I could sing. He said sing. Over in the corner was an old guy playing the piano. He struck Trav'lin and I sang. The customers stopped drinking. They turned around and watched. The pianist... swung into Body and Soul. Jeez, you should have seen those people - all of them started crying. Preston came over, shook his head and said, "Kid, you win."

Billie Holiday was not quite seventeen then; it was 1932. Before she was done singing in the summer of 1959 many more people had cried over her Trav'lin All Alone and Body and Soul. There were popular songs, as were most others she sang, and a lot of other people recorded and performed them. But Billie transformed them. She was a jazz singer; she put the blues inside and made each song her own. She thought of her voice as an instrument: "I don't think I'm singing, she explained. "I feel like I'm playing a horn... What comes out is what I feel."

A lot of different feelings came out of Billie's horn - she sang for over twenty-five years, in the United States and Europe as well. She could be gentle, funny, sarcastic, heartbreaking. Her honesty about feeling was what made people cry; she found it hard to lie. Astonished critics cried: "'She appears to mean every word she is singing" and "You believed every word she sang." There were some words about which Billie was especially believable. People told her no one sang "hunger" like she did, or "love." She sang what she knew, a first rule in playing jazz as Charlie Parker explained it: "Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Billie said simply, "You just feel it, and when you sing it other people can feel something too."



These are some quotes by Billie Holiday about her own singing:

"I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain't music, it's close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music."

"If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all."

"I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know."

"If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling."


And finally, this quote -
"No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music."

Colonia de Sacramento, Uruguay

In the present moment, Nov 2007

Last Wednesday was time for my visa run across to the border once more. This is my 2nd trip to Colonia, Uruguay. Both times I chose Colonia de Sacramento over the capital, Montevideo because its closer. The two visits can't be more different. The first time I visited Colonia, it was raining heavily. Gray, windy and freezing cold. We sought refuge in a restaurant and I saw nothing.

This time, the skies over Colonia were kissed by sunshine. Blue and clear, with the warm blue of your lover's eyes, the corners crinkled with a smile. It is simply, beautiful.

It took 3 hours from Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires to Colonia de Sacramento in Busquebus. The fast version makes the crossing in an hour. I took the normal vessel which is more than comfortable. Besides, there is no hardship in spending 3 hours on the waters on such a day like this.

The historical quarter of Colonia del Sacramento, located at the tip of a peninsular and surrounded by water on 3 sides, was declared as a UNESCO heritage site in 1995. The historic portion of Colonia is reminiscent of old Lisbon, built in the Portuguese style of houses and cobblestoned streets.

As I am writing this, "La Sirène rouge" (The Red Siren) is showing on telly. The quick glimpses of a small Portugual coast town was reminisence of what I saw in Colonia.


Colourful houses on winding streets.



The Rio de La Plata is so wide that the town appears to be coastal.














Colonia de Sacramento was founded in 1680. It was the only Portuguese settlement along Rio de la Plata and for years was at the frontline of the turf struggle between Spanish Argentina and Portuguese Brazil around the Rio de la Plata region. Similar to the British and Dutch squabble for colonial supremacy in South East Asia in my part of the world.







Understandably so. Who would want to give up land under your feet and skies over your head as magnificent as this?















Up the road. Just a normal weekday lunch with friends and family.

Beautiful day, beautiful people. MOUTHWATERing cars.






To me, bougainvilleas are the stunning visual extravaganzas of the Mediterranean.

It also reminds me of home. Of the bougainvilleas we have in our garden of this exact colour, in the house of my Papa and Mama.







A totally charming cafe restaurant slightly off the main section of the historical quarters.


















I must try it the next visit.














My visit to the Museo Del Azulejo (Casa Portuguesa), The Tile Museum. Inaugurated in 1988, it is a typical Portuguese construction of the 18th century. The walls, a beam and part of the floor are original. The collection houses French, Catalan and the first Uruguayan tiles. The Museo is not big and the tile collection fits into 2 small rooms. Perhaps some visitors may be disappointed. But I enjoyed the visit. Look what I saw!

El Azulejo en la Arquitectura
Rioplatense en los Siglos XVIII y XIX (18th and 19th Century)

Catalan
Valenciano
Maldonado
Napolitano
Pas de Calais






I was able to take photos of these few tiles because at first I didn't see the sign that photos were not allowed :P




Azulejo estannifero de archilla modelada, sellada, pintada con oxidos de estano, cobalto y/o managaneso, con plantilla calada, mano alzada y/o arista, Francia, 1840-1900.











Such tile decorations were all the rage during the era, used widely to beautify walls, floors, windows etc. I was told that the tiles were imported into the country through Montevideo and then to other cities and town. The winds of fashion changed at the turn of the 20th Century, and inevitably the importation stopped.





Here are the seals of the French tile makers.




I only got as far as the French tiles before I was caught with my camera. All the tiles shown above are French.






The tile plaque of Paseo de San Gabriel. You can see a prevalence of such tile works throughout town.







Other tile works showing maps of the town and the Rio de La Plata.























Colonia de Sacramento revisited
Colonia de Sacramento is a lovely place, a perfect getaway from the hustle and bustle of Buenos Aires. Before I visited, some reviews said there are not much to see or do in Colonia.
















Perhaps, if what you are looking for are a checklist of "sights" to cover. However if you just want to enjoy the feel of a relaxed Sunday afternoon by the sea free from the urban jungle, a day out basking in the sunshine dining with friends and family and enjoying life, this is where you can come, any day of the week.


The "riverview" proved too tempting, I spent the rest of the afternoon outdoors at the restuarant El Torreón relaxing with my cigarettes. Such are the pleasures of life.





Final note for the road

The day in Colonia was exactly what I needed to relax and take my mind off weightier worries. A old dance injury made a reappearance a month ago. The first time when it happened 2.5 years ago, I was out of action a good part of 6 months. Thinking of the slow recovery and struggle I had to go through to regain strength in my foot makes me shudder. To date, my foot has not recovered. I still can't wear heels.

I hope, like my experiences in visiting Colonia, my foot injury will once more see the beautiful sunshine after the rain.

Shoe-Fleur: a footwear fantasty!

Besides tango, my passions have always been elements of renaissance beauty and intellect. What I refer to is the co-existence of art, intelligence and creativity in various combinations. Such was the magnificence of the Renaissance period. It is also the source of my love of oriental art, from Song furniture to peachbloom ceramics of Kangxi era.

Witness the existence of beauty. Beauty without the additional element of intellect is still undeniably beautiful of course. Beauty inspired by the creative spark, is to imagine the statue of Venus de Milo awaken with the kiss of life. Imagine the warmth of her milky skin, the supple strength in the column of her legs, her soft breath perfuming the air as Venus speaks...!

Day to day, I hope for such moments. To become hyper animated. When it happens, I am in the gripe of excitment beyond control. Captivated in wonderment. My mind is stimulated by the concoction of chemicals rushing through the bloodstream. It comes to life in a frenzy, the neurons in my brain firing in ten thousand million tiny gun salutes. The rush of emotions and the senses. Mmm, yes.



Today, it was an article on the work of photographer Michel Tcherevkoff which delighted me: "Shoe-Fleur: a footwear fantasty".



Using flowers and leaves as raw materials, Michel Tcherevkoff fashioned them into a collection of shoes, transporting them from the relms of fantasy into book form "Shoe-Fleur".

He decided to craft each invented shoe from a single variety of flower or plant:

“I decided early on that I wouldn’t mix different types,” he says. “Every shoe and handbag [most of the shoes in the book have matching purses] would be made from one particular plant or flower.”


The delicate beauty of the shoes and whimsical delight of his creativity is entirely wondrous. The whimsicality makes the girl in me smile with great glee. While the sheer wit of his creations appeals to my intellect and femininity.

From September 6, the collection of prints from the book will be exhibited at the Museum of Art and Design in New York.


It makes me wish for a moment I had relocated to New York instead of Buenos Aires :D

Salon Canning by monteleone

" El proyecto se trata fue realizado en Marzo del 2006 en el marco del Festival de Tango de Bs. As. y con motivo del 50 Aniversario del Salón Canning. El motivo de esta obra es reflejar el clima de la Milonga en un conjunto de imágenes que perteneces, atemporalmente, a la espesura del aire que se percibe es ese espacio. Las fotografías que se exhiben de fondo, pertenecen a la muestra “Mirada de Tango”. "

Monteleone

This piece of artwork by Guillermo Monteleone was created in March 2006, and displayed at an art exhibition at the Salon Canning. The composition was created to mark the Festival de Tango of Buenos Aires, and specifically, to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Salon Canning last year.

The massive photo mural simply titled "Milonga", measured 13 metres by 3 metres, graced the entire back wall of Salon Canning. It is composed of a montage of dancers at Salon Canning. The effect is a re-creation of the live atmosphere of the milonga, by transfixing the shining, ephemeral split second that is vibrating with the essence of that moment, forever suspended in time.

Besides the glorious hangings of tango masters Claudia Codega & Esteban Moreno lining the walls of Salon Canning, Claudia & Esteban are also featured on the dance floor on the left side of the room. Other famous tango dancers can also be found in the mural montage. How many can you find? :)

Claudia & Esteban: mirada de tango by monteleone

Photography exhibition June/July 2003
Paris


This was a photo exhibition by Guillermo Monteleone shown in Paris. Photos of tango masters Claudia Codega and Esteban Moreno filled the walls. Some photos appeared posed at landmark locales in Paris while others captured Claudia & Esteban during performance. To capture a moment of beauty in mid-dance is my yardstick of good photography. To forever record an image of the inner essence of the person, the live ambience of the place, the magic of that instance in time.

What enraptured me was the text by renowned Argentine writers Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar and Leopoldo Marechal accompanying the photos of Claudia & Esteban.

The writings were ardent and expressive. The beauty of the words, the emotions evoked, made the heart race and took one’s breath away.

“…la primavera de Buenos Aires y la mujer de mi develo se habían manifestado juntas…”

“…spring in Buenos Aires and the woman of my sleeplessness had manifested themselves together…”

Leopoldo Marechal

“…Verla, no daba sueño…”

“…Seeing her made sleep vanished…”

Jorge Luis Borges

“…ibamos juntos a los bailes, y yo los miraba vivir…”

“…and we would go to dances together, and I would watch them; they were alive…”

Julio Cortázar


This is my favourite because of the sentiments expressed in this verse:

“..al verla fui entendiendo que yo no sabria mirar otra cosa en adelante, porque mi contemplación nacía en ella y en ella se quedaba, sin retorno…”

“…when I looked at her, I gradually understood that I would not be able to look at anything else from then on, for my comtemplation was born in her, and stayed in her, without return…”

Leopoldo Marrechal

“…la abrázo como para siempre…”

“…he embraced her, as if forever…”

Jorge Luis Borges


Postnote: On the topic of great photography, our good friend Johan Khoo, now relocated to Kuala Lumpur, has this wonderful gift.