Berlin...and Tango in Berlin

[Tom Stermitz <Stermitz @RAGTIME.ORG>]

What a great city is Berlin!

I'd been to Germany 25 years ago, but I now wish I had stopped in
Berlin before the wall came down. It is redeveloping so fast that it
is almost a completely different city.

The wall evaporated 10 years ago, and now block after block of city
housing in the old Eastern section called Mitte (middle) is already
full of trendy cafes, puppet theaters, houses, shops, etc. It took
our friends to point out the little details that remind you which was
the Eastern sector (the little running man in the pedestrian light,
the quaint trams which were never taken out in the East).

In particular I liked the architectural use of Hoefe (Courtyards).
Buildings were often arranged in a square around successively deeper
courtyards. The ones near the front containing shops and apartments
that are a little more elegant, the ones toward the back more modest
with perhaps a craft-shop or live-in artist studio or even a tango
school.

The whole city feels sort of like Greenwich Village, but with a lot
of parks and waterways. I imagine (dream) that 1/4 of the 4 million
people are artists, which is nevertheless considerably reduced from
10 years ago. Berlin is more conservative now that the Federal
government is moving in. In fact you don't see nearly as many
piercings and tattoos as you might in Denver, Colorado...yes, we are
a little behind the times.

With museums, street cafes, parks, history, (and tango) I have to put
Berlin at as one of the top cities in the world. Perhaps only San
Francisco, Amsterdam, Montreal, Buenos Aires or New York bubble over
with as much excitement.

The exchange rate these days is quite favorable to those of us with
US Dollars. A nice dinner is $8 to $15. A top end dinner is $30 - 40
including wine.


Berlin Tango.

It is always dangerous for a short-term visitor to make generalities
about a tango city. There is the forest vs trees problem. My wife and
I saw a lot of trees, which may or may not have given us an idea of
the whole forest.

You can go out every night for tango in Berlin, and on Friday or
Saturday you can choose from 4 or 6 places. We went out Tuesday -
Saturday, which gave us a sampling of different tango locations. We
had contacts and made good friends from the circle who hang out with
Brigitta and Angelika at Tanzart, so we had table and dance
companions wherever we went.

We have to send big kisses and hugs to our wonderful friends Linda,
Helga and Fatima, who always saw us to the milongas and the taxi
stands afterward. They are long-term residents of Berlin, but
originally from the US, Italy and Hamburg, which indicates just how
many Berliners moved in from elsewhere.


One difference between the Denver tango scene and what we saw in
Berlin is that people in Berlin tend not to dance around as much. We
only have 150 - 200 regular dancers with over a year of tango so if a
stranger who displays some obvious experience with tango shows up
here, we spot them right off. A buzz goes around the room (little do
they know), and pretty soon they are getting invitations to dance.
Berlin must be 10 times our size, and they get lots of visitors, so
the stranger is not the source of (shall we say) "fresh genetic
material" for the locals.

Or maybe it has something to do with European vs American sensibilities.

Nevertheless, we were made welcome at most of the places we dance. If
people stuck with their friends or partners more than is the Denver
habit, they were frequently happy to dance with us everywhere we went
except at the Gruner Salon in the Mitte neighborhood, which seemed to
have a lot of partners who absolutely stick together whether for
personal or stylistic reasons.

Locals explained that in the Kreuzberg neighborhood, to the SE of
Mitte there are 5 long-term tango schools whose students have a
history of mixing with each other. We did feel that the milongas
there seemed to be more open to dancing around, and we didn't see so
much "I'm here with my partner" energy. Ines the DJ at the Wednesday
Kaiserstein (in Kreuzberg) was very friendly and happy to drop out of
the DJ booth to dance with the visitor from Colorado.

But I have to point out that the friendliness Tuesday at Kalksheune
in Mitte, contradicted what I said above regarding milongas in
Kreuzberg.

The Friday casual milonga at Tanzart (Kreuzberg) was great. Everyone
was so open. We got to teach the class before hand and show people
some of the things we've learned about the internal, connected layers
of tango, and concept of "Tango from the perspective of Salsa".

I liked the Ballhaus Rixdorf, an old-fashioned, neighborhood dance
salon on Saturday in Kreuzberg. The moment I stepped in I noticed
that here was a place where women catch your eye for a dance. The
first one turned out to be a lovely german of turkish background
(explains the eye game!), who melted into the milonguero style like
she'd always done it.


Different Tango Styles?

No general observation from a short-term visitor does justice to the
wide range of styles, personalities and skills in a city like Berlin.

Berlin has a tango scene with 20 years of background, so the ones who
have been working hard at it for 4 or 6 or 15 years are really quite
good, and there are a lot of them. The density of dancers on the
floor is moderate to fairly open as the night progresses; I would say
the floors are rather more open than in Buenos Aires, about what we
in Denver see on a good night at the Mercury.

Those who wish to do big, showy figures, can almost get away with
it...the "almost-ness" was definitely "not-quite-ness" at a few
places. But, like I said, there are many, well-practiced dancers.

While it depends who you watch and what time of night it is, the
Berlin tango vocabulary and style is fancier than what we in Denver
are used to, built more out of a "walking-salon" style than the
rhythmic milonguero style. Like many cities outside Buenos Aires,
people mostly use the salon vocabulary (the 8CB, turns with sacadas
and decorations within the turns).

You also see a lot of influence from Gustavo, and the guys are
frequently leading alterations. With some women I had to lead the
back ocho clearly or the she would think maybe she was supposed to do
an alteration. Despite the salon vocabulary and despite the
introduction of alterations, they dance tango reasonably close. But
even with the Gustavo analysis, the Berlin dancing usually retains
the salon feel and appearance rather than looking like the liquid
distillation of tango that Chicho is so good at.


Different Tango Accents?

I wouldn't describe the general style of dance in Berlin as
milonguero, i.e. in the sense of how tango is danced in a lot of
Buenos Aires clubs. First you don't see much tras pie in the milonga
nor an underlying pulse of the quick, tic-tic-tic rhythm of
D'Arienzo. I found some women who were familiar and comfortable with
close-embrace, but apparently had never seen an ocho cortado. ("Oh
no, don't step back there...crash!"). This surprised me because,
while a guy might only do "his" style, a woman usually has sampled
ALL the different styles in town.

My style is more symmetric and rhythmic than the typical walking
salon (I feel that tango should have a Latin sensibility, more
related to Salsa than to ballroom), and I'm used to a lot of tummy
and body leading. This must not be so typical in Berlin as I managed
to set off a few giggle fits when I used my tummy to lead little
boleos or hip wiggles!


Message in a Bottle.

It is always great to see tango elsewhere. Denver may be a short
plane ride from the West Coast or the Midwest, but basically we are
an island and we receive visitors on occasion rather than frequently.
It is interesting that our tango islands have the opportunity to
develop independently, and then we get to enjoy the differences (and
giggle fits) when we travel.

I wish that silly little things like work and money didn't get in the
way and that I could travel more.

May we all keep developing our tango for the next 10 - 30 years and
have a healthy retirement as tango junkies, finally able to drift
from town to town for new dance experiences, sort of like the polka
caravans the old German immigrants do across the midwest of the US
during the summer.
--

Tom Stermitz
stermitz @ragtime.org
http://www.ragtime.org/ragtime
http://www.tango.org/dance