dK

"We began with an exercise. We were to imagine that Di Sarli and his orchestra came back from the dead and had a gig in the San Francisco Bay Area. The current band’s name is the “Di Sarli Zombies”. Last night the band had a wonderful time at the local bars drinking Fernet Branca, but one unfortunate consequence was that the violinists didn’t show up for rehearsal today because they were too wasted. Since Di Sarli is now in a bind, he asked us to step up to the plate and rehearse with them. So, we whipped out our air violins (a la Guitar Hero 5) and improvised playing violin to Di Sarli’s Bahia Blanca, trying to get the size and expression of the music. So for the louder parts of the song, we were to play with our bows having long, full strokes, and for the quieter parts of the song, our bows would have smaller strokes, and for short notes, even smaller strokes. These same movements of long strokes or short strokes apply to the bandoneon." - dK from Mento

"Tango is not about leading and following." - dK from Mento

"A female tango dancer friend related to me, a fellow guy dancer suggested this to her: This dancer said that dancing tango is just a way to 'stretch one's body'... ...He regards tango as a kind of sport and might think of the milongas as gyms too... ...He also said that the dancing energy can be seperated from the music and he doesn't like girls to express anything of their own in the dance. He even said that girls can give up their musicality and just follow what he wants to do." To that I have the perfect response, which comes in the form of a story a good milonguera friend named Marite told me: She was once with a dancer who danced trying to control and lead her every movement. He ignored all the suggestions she made to him during the dance... After half a song, she gave up adding her own spice and just followed. At the end of the tanda the guy said: "Wow!! You dance very well!" To which she replied: "Oh thank you! I followed well, but I didn't dance."" - dK from Mento