Last Friday was the culmination of a month's work, although not constant. I'd been working to get Dr. Chenyang Lu to give a talk at work, on RAP, CAMRIT, and a quick survey of other projects. He specialises in wireless ad hoc sensor networks, for Washington University St. Louis. Here's his website:
http://www.cse.wustl.edu/~lu/
He was staying in Laguna Beach, about 25 miles from work, so I racked up 100 beautiful miles. I say beautiful, because that's the nature of California. So, I get to enjoy nature while simultaneously helping destroy it.
On Friday, I went to a milonga in Hollywood called El Abrazo. Pablo Rojas and Makela Brizuela-performed three different dances. The first dance had them both dressed in travelling clothes, Pablo holding a suitcase at the beginning. It was all very Casablanca-ish. Anytime in the song that the word dejame (leave me) was said, they would turn away from each other dramatically. The second was a good normal fun milonga, very nice. The third was more modern, with Pablo opening up his shirt, and both of them slicking back their hair with water and wearing sunglasses. From what they said, they had one hour of prep time for the performance. There was a modern style sketch artist working in the background, and she did a piece for each dance.
After that, I went to an all night milonga at Caltech. I ended up leaving around 4, with my stomach full of waffles and fruit, and my head full of ideas (from Vladimir Estrin) on proper dance frame for open embrace. You see, I always understood that the frame needs to be a solid structure for the woman to work with, while not using muscle, but I don't dance open much, so the structure tends to collapse. It's a habit that will take a while to break. After that milonga I went home, but took another 15 minutes finding the right exit since I kept thinking I had passed it. I was under pretty severe highway hypnosis.
Since I was so tired from such a late night. I'd considered more tango or salsa, but luckily Sara told me they had an extra couple of spots at Orange County's Funnest Person Contest, down in Huntington Beach, http://www.ocfunniest.com/. The highlight of that evening must have been Lola, who had to be at least 70. She had this accent from the south I couldn't place, but it added to her personality. The evening wasn't as good as the improv, but it was worth my time.
Last night, I went to a workshop with Omar Vega, who is famous for teaching milonga with traspie. I had been talking to my friend Christopher from Iowa, who told me that I had to go, so I went down to Westwood for the 3 hour workshop. Omar is a good teacher, although his English is bad, fortunately the teaching was in Spanish. For those of you who aren't familiar with traspie, it originates from the 20s, and is characterized by a lot of short quick steps. I've got to work on keeping things small, and well grounded, being as big as I am. One thing that Omar suggested that I need to think about is that I should walk in milonga with flat feet, as opposed to rolling on the heels. I think he suggested I'd be better grounded, as well as able to keep things smaller.
After that, since it was on the way home, I went to Steven's Steakhouse for salsa. Sundays are amazing there, and I probably had the best salsa evening in LA yet. I was able to get a lot of dances, and I was in a great mood. Hopefully I'm starting to get integrated in the dance scenes in LA, and getting good dances will only get easier. I met a salsa teacher there who I danced with, named Julia, who was pretty interesting. Hopefully I can trade some salsa lessons for some tango lessons, we'll see.
http://www.cse.wustl.edu/~lu/
He was staying in Laguna Beach, about 25 miles from work, so I racked up 100 beautiful miles. I say beautiful, because that's the nature of California. So, I get to enjoy nature while simultaneously helping destroy it.
On Friday, I went to a milonga in Hollywood called El Abrazo. Pablo Rojas and Makela Brizuela-performed three different dances. The first dance had them both dressed in travelling clothes, Pablo holding a suitcase at the beginning. It was all very Casablanca-ish. Anytime in the song that the word dejame (leave me) was said, they would turn away from each other dramatically. The second was a good normal fun milonga, very nice. The third was more modern, with Pablo opening up his shirt, and both of them slicking back their hair with water and wearing sunglasses. From what they said, they had one hour of prep time for the performance. There was a modern style sketch artist working in the background, and she did a piece for each dance.
After that, I went to an all night milonga at Caltech. I ended up leaving around 4, with my stomach full of waffles and fruit, and my head full of ideas (from Vladimir Estrin) on proper dance frame for open embrace. You see, I always understood that the frame needs to be a solid structure for the woman to work with, while not using muscle, but I don't dance open much, so the structure tends to collapse. It's a habit that will take a while to break. After that milonga I went home, but took another 15 minutes finding the right exit since I kept thinking I had passed it. I was under pretty severe highway hypnosis.
Since I was so tired from such a late night. I'd considered more tango or salsa, but luckily Sara told me they had an extra couple of spots at Orange County's Funnest Person Contest, down in Huntington Beach, http://www.ocfunniest.com/. The highlight of that evening must have been Lola, who had to be at least 70. She had this accent from the south I couldn't place, but it added to her personality. The evening wasn't as good as the improv, but it was worth my time.
Last night, I went to a workshop with Omar Vega, who is famous for teaching milonga with traspie. I had been talking to my friend Christopher from Iowa, who told me that I had to go, so I went down to Westwood for the 3 hour workshop. Omar is a good teacher, although his English is bad, fortunately the teaching was in Spanish. For those of you who aren't familiar with traspie, it originates from the 20s, and is characterized by a lot of short quick steps. I've got to work on keeping things small, and well grounded, being as big as I am. One thing that Omar suggested that I need to think about is that I should walk in milonga with flat feet, as opposed to rolling on the heels. I think he suggested I'd be better grounded, as well as able to keep things smaller.
After that, since it was on the way home, I went to Steven's Steakhouse for salsa. Sundays are amazing there, and I probably had the best salsa evening in LA yet. I was able to get a lot of dances, and I was in a great mood. Hopefully I'm starting to get integrated in the dance scenes in LA, and getting good dances will only get easier. I met a salsa teacher there who I danced with, named Julia, who was pretty interesting. Hopefully I can trade some salsa lessons for some tango lessons, we'll see.
posted by Tango Master at
11:01 AM
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