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The past 48 hours, I had been in this foggy state of mind, effect of fever, a few doses of cold medicine and the shock of the sad news. I didn’t know how to process it. I was in disbelief.

I just got back from a big tango festival in Europe over Christmas, where I enjoyed the delicious variety of beers more than the dance and I had drunk more glasses of Leffe than tandas I had danced. I was planning to write to Andrea after the holiday, asking for their traveling schedule in 2012.

Up till the moment the El Tangauta news showed up on the FB update, I was actually checking flight to Istanbul for the festival in March, in which Javier and Andrea were scheduled to appear, trying to figure out how I could attend a trade show happening in Las Vagas the same week and show up in Istanbul for the weekend.

I had been planning my BsAs trip for 2012 and looking forward to studying with them privately again. When I posted a question a few weeks ago if I should choose tango between Europe and Buenos Aires, Andrea commented ” Buenos Aires Sin duda.”, which reminded me whenever I complained about not getting good tango in NY and the US, she always said half jokingly: “move here(Buenos Aires)”…

I had to stop logging in Facebook for now. Andrea’s photos kept showing up on the updates. Her students around the world (a lot from Asia) have been mourning. It has been really heart broken to read all those messages. I don’t know if any one who has not known her would understand that. I am not a religious or spiritual man, but now I think I could relate to some of the things religious or spiritual followers would do and feel, when their leaders pass away.

So many things had gone through my mind since. From the first time I saw her in person: my first milonga ever in Buenos Aires, dancing right behind Javier and Andrea, before I went for my first private lesson, to my last private class with her in Buenos Aires in 2010, till the last workshops I took with her at the festival of 2011, all those now invaluable advices she had given me… it has been a painful struggle, between trying to remember, to hold on, and trying to block out the memory so it causes no pain.

Guadalupe, her two year old daughter, is fine, out of the hospital and back home with the family. Her husband is out of critical condition and remains in hospital for now. All the other passengers involved in the car accident are doing well, according to the news. Life goes on and must go on for those who live.

For now, I am lost. My bridge to tango is abruptly gone. It is finally time for me to take a break from tango.

I will leave this site as it is for now even it costs to be hosted. I know that despite my sporadic posting in the last year or so, there are still on average 250 reads per day, many first time visitors. I still remembered my beginner years how I searched all over website for tango info. Hope my experience of the past five years could be some kind of reference to some one.

Last words (at least for a while) even sound like cliché: embrace your partner like you will never dance another tanda with her (or him) again. Tango is much easier than many teachers would teach you. In the end, what it matters, after days, years, what you would remember, is how it was to feel, to communicate with each other, in the embrace.

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She looked a little tired. I could sense a bit fatigue too, when she took me aside and demonstrated how the energy should feel with the sequence they just taught in the class. That caused some envy from fellow students (or the new die hard J&A fans, if you will): wow, the maestra worked with you personally.

And that was the end of the last workshop at the festival. She took a seat at a nearby chair and asked: “XXXX (my tango nickname), where have you been? I have been looking for you in milongas. I couldn’t see you.” I was a little surprised by her question. There were close to a thousand dancers each night at the festival milonga.

“Tonight, sit close, where I can see you!”

I smiled. That was Andrea, when you had the good fortune to get to know her, warm, sensitive, subtle, intelligent, classy…

That night, at the last milonga of the festival, I sat and danced among newly acquainted J&A fans, waiting for the right song and the right moment to ask Andrea for a dance. Toward the end of the milonga, a lot of dancers had left and were leaving. While I was out by the door, taking photos with a couple of fellow J&A students, a Di Sarli tanda started. It would be the ideal tanda, but I didn’t want to be rude to rush back to the milonga. By the time I got back to my seat, it was the third song of the tanda. No way I was going to invite her at this point.

Beautiful Di Sarli 40s instrumentals had never sounded so long to me. Luckily, the next tanda was Lucio Demare con Raul Beron. The moment I heard the music, I looked over at the table where the professionals were sitting and saw that Andrea was scanning the room. Our eyes met. I cabeceoed her. She smiled, nodded and remained seated till I walked over to her table (como una milonguera!).

That Di Sarli. I was looking around, where is XXXX (my tango nickname, so fondly called by Javier and Andrea)? She said to me in the mix of English and Spanish. “I like Demare too.” I smiled. We embraced and danced to the beautiful voice of Raul Beron.

In between the songs, she asked me if I liked the dress she wore at last night’s performance. “Javi made it” Her voice was full of pride for Javi. She also talked about Guada, her little daughter. “Guada is going to kindergarten now. She likes it.”

There she was, a tango goddess (how much I hated this overused term, but nobody else, imho, more deserving of it than Andrea ), a generous teacher, an elegant, beautiful and talented artist, a loving mother… every virtue of a perfect woman, embracing a normal tanguero, a student of hers, without reservation, just like the way she and Javi taught us, embrace and dance 100%…

At the end of the tanda, she thanked me, sincerely, the same way most of the tangueras would have said it after a good tanda with me. Of course, I thanked her, just the way I would have said to any other tanguera if I just had a blissful tanda. It was last tanda for both of us at that festival, late spring of 2011.

If only i knew that it would be my last tango with her, the incomparable Andrea Missé.

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altrimenti non si sta ballando.

Found this “new” interview of Javier and Andrea. It is in Italian. But with the help of  Google translator (down the pdf and then have Google translate the file from your saved copy) and my still limited Italian (been to Italy six times. ), I enjoy reading it.

It covers the beginning of J&A’s partnership, their usual and consistent views of tango… which is always inspiring.

Excerpt:

Andrea: Un messaggio per le donne: si permettano di ritrovare il posto che una volta avevano. Una Volta la donna era la ” dea della milonga”. Oggi le donne vengono maltratte con violenza e ridono come se fosse divertente e questa cosa non l’ho mai capita. Ritrovate il posto che avevate una volta…

Have a read.

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” Dancing with women like them is something different. It is not because they weigh 80 Kilos. They don’t weigh 80 Kilos… they ARE 80 kilos… of tango.”— from this documentary.

The first time I danced with a woman who had been dancing for over ten years, I freaked out. She was so different from the other women with whom I had been used to dance. Those women were light on their feet; they were effortless to dance with and they followed me well. But her, despite her average size body, she felt like a giant statue. I didn’t know how to move her, let alone dancing with her. I couldn’t say that I had enjoyed our dance.

Throughout the years, I had danced with many women who have been dancing for over ten to twenty years. They all have a common character: solidly heavy. I couldn’t figure out how, sometimes a petite woman, who weighs less than 100lbs and whom I could pick up with one arm, feel so heavy. After all, I was a three year blackbelt who could flip a guy who was about 50lbs heavier than me and mount him on the his back for two minutes. I felt weak, lack of strength, and therefore nervous, when I embraced them.

A man is like a column…

Andrea told me when I had my first private classes with them. For a few years, when I danced with these experienced women, I still felt wobbly and not grounded.

It was not until recently, when I started to focus dancing with my dantian and moved with my axis, that I realized the reason these experienced woman were felt heavy before was because they danced with their whole body and they were grounded. Less experienced women who haven’t found their own axises are dancing only with part of their body. The movement of a limp feels light, the movement of a body feels heavy.

When I first watched the video on youtube, I didn’t understand what Javier meant: how could a little old lady have 80kilos of tango in her? I guess I understand it now.

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I met Sandra, a fellow student of Javier and Andrea,  this time in BsAs. She is one of the few memorable tangueras whom I had the pleasure to dance with and work with. This is the link to her experience with Javier and Andrea.  She talks about her own discovery of tango.  Excerpts:

Javier and Andrea encourages and inspires me to find myself and the freedom to express it in my tango, to enjoy dancing and not be absorbed into calculating how many degrees my hips should be moving; to understand not how to make an adorno, but why I am adorning; to be selfish, yet giving; to be submissive, yet active.

On the contrary to some foreigners’ view, Javier and Andrea have been promoting nothing but the spirit of traditional tango. For every negative voice, I could probably find five more positive comments. Then again, it doesn’t matter how others think despite their lack of first hand experience or on pure imagination. The most important thing, for me, is that every time I learn from them, I discover something more profound; my understanding of tango is deeper…

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