SWANSEA, WALES again!

CROESO I ABERTAWE!!! WELCOME to SWANSEA!

It's our third time in Swansea, Wales, and our hot spot we have for this city is growing! Knowing it is reciprocal love it makes us hope that every year there will be Wales in our itinerary.

We love everything about this country: the nostalgic celtic tunes, the nostalgic green landscape and nostalgically profound people. One would say- perfect tango ingredients. What do we not like about it? Too much WEATHER for too long, too much beer and too much Welsh accent when then speak English ( I am saing that on the behalf of poor poor Victor)

But actually.... each of those features is a virtue at the same time ( it's a voice of Victor in my ear again!): the weather in Wales it's PEFECTLY FITTING WALES and we accept it as a part of Welsh experience. The break from wine is ok and one can exercise the strong will NOT TO ACCPT all the beer invitations from one's tango students, or? Thirdly, after about a week time spent in Wales EVERYBODY INCLUDING VICTOR understands a hell lot of more of the accent than on the first day.... Conclusion: WE ACCEPT OUR WALES AS IT IS, LOVING AND APPRECIATING EVERY TIME WE GET THERE!

This time, our Welsh home is provided by SILVIA.

The incredible serendipity has it, that the very first night of our arrival she shows us proudly the photos she took of our last year's performances feeling sorry she could not download them to the computer for the lack of connecting cable. The matter has been solved immediately and here we go- we can enjoy a litte travel back in time, staying in the same Swansea ( but sunny for a change), entertwined with the photos of this year's visit. As we had a bit of the WEATHER this year, there is hardly any photo taken outside....Well, it's also due to our short visit....

Last year we were invited to perform for the Talliesin TheatreDance Festival/Swansea Days. The variety of dances matches the numerous venues all over the Waterfront area. OUR DEFINITELY FAVOURITE BUT MOST CHALLANGING ( look at the cobble stone ground!) venu was the SWANSEA WATERFRONT.

EVERYTHING WA JUST PERFECT that day- from the weather.....

to RED ARROW AIR DISPLAY JUST BEFORE WE STARTED OUR TANGO SHOW...

too many good things at the same time. It was a real priviledge to dance after the mega air show!
We were so moved when se saw those photographs Silvia took a year ago.... the photos we were not even expected to see one day.

We also found some samples of our performance inside the Waterfront, as the first day of the festival was rainy.....


And even a collection of photos in the Waterfront museum on the first floor, with its impecable wooden floor, where we presented our ' Tangomorphosis' .

We found last year's performance in Dylan Thomas Centre ( Godness gracious me, how much tangos and venues here last year! one forgets so easily... if it was't for the blog...).
The last photos were those taken together, after our workshops in Rugby Club, already bygone, therefore those photos are absolutely historical! Here we are together with Silvia and Heather!
I found it simbolical that the last photo of Silvia's collection was us with our two most important organisers this year! Our guardian angels!

Neither Silvia nor Heather could not dance tango during our this year's visit. Having the most terryfying ordeal for a tanguero/a- problem with leg/foot- they put all their energy and enthusiasm for tango and us ( we could absolutely feel this reciprocal love in this example) in organising, feeding, pumpering, driving, taking care of, driving and SPOILING US SHITLESS during our Welsh DAYS.... Therefore we made ourselves a promise: EVEN if the circle of tango addicts in Wales will get misteriously reduced to a few and even if our reciprocal love will come to and end- if there is SILVIA and Heather ( and our Heather and Janette...) here in Swansea- WE SHALL STILL COME!
Maybe only for the sake of Silvia's gravy?

Welsh cakes?Lovebread? Rossili cliffs? Long chats over tea in conservatory?

Anyway: Monday evening. Brand new tango venu in a beautiful waterfront building: ICE HOUSE. Perfect floor. The newly transformed/rearranged/resurrected club is showing us their new faces. Completely different experience than last year in a rather gloomy Rugby Club with stormy attendence; or in St Methiew's church when Adriana made sure that ' all the sheep of the herd ' were there, in front of the lord of tango. Ice House might bring a fresh breeze to a new tango club, but .... it was like starting it all over again!

It was doing the tango job from the beginning, going one more time over the basics, when we were expecting to see our 3 year old tangueros and do the follow up...

Yes, there were dear familiar faces ( and legs) of Heather and Heather ( the third Heather missing), lovely Janette, our faithful , eager David, John came too, not counting the ' passive dancers' like Patrick, Heather, Silvia....

The Ice House had surprisingly people from other places like Cardiff ( even Bristol) coming for our workshosp.

On Tue we had a different venue: DEMARCO's studio.

NEXT DAY, TUESDAY WAS A GENUINE TANGO MARATHON FOR US. IN A POSITIVE SENSE, but I had my high heels on from 1 pm till 12 pm...

First- our five private classes.

Our promising lovely MAJ:

Then our Heather ( she needed to refresh her tango after 3 weeks in Buenos Aires with us and a week of tango in Italy, lucky girls...). Well done, Heather!

Then the graceful, Italian Felizia:

Then, Heather II( I am sorry, Heather dear for the lack of the pic, I was too enaged in your class!). And finally our hosts, the champions of the Ballroom and Latin dances and the owners of DEMARCO' s studio: sweet Rebeca and Marco ( italian blood makes him almost Argentinean...)

It was their first ARGENTINEAN TANGO class, tango porteno, ( as they have tango argentino within ballroom dances) and we thoroughly enjoy it.

Being dancers with a solid dancing formation they were quick to learn the technical details....but to aquire the flavour of argentinean tango it will take them a long time...

They are however, the direct candidates to come to imerge in tango in Buenos Aires.

The private classes were followed by the group workshop- the photo misssing- were the half of the attendence were the ballroom dancers of Mario's studio. The mix of tangueros and ballroom/latin dancers and the obligatory rotation of the couples resulted in possitive exchange of experience - the ballroomers could feel the REAL LEAD of tango and got totally contaged!

The lovely ambience followed during the milonga part of the evening with our performance.

On the above foto: our hosts and us in tango poses agains teh wall painting of the Boston skyline with... 2 twin towers, artistically added by our host and artist, SILVIA!

We were so inspired ( the people, the place, the guinesses offered) that we danced tango, vals and milonga to the stormy aplauses of the public. For majority of them it was the first live tango show in their lives! Our lovely Keith ( one of the Keith' es) made an artistic recording of our performances, promissing to edit and send them to me. I permit myself to quote one of his mails with all the flatteries ( much appreciated!):

Dear Aisha,lovely to hear from you,do not worry i have not forgotten about the photographs and films which i will send soon. one of our members featured in some photographs is a television personality and wanted to see them first. their a bit sensitive about such things but she is ever so nice. she is away at the moment but should get back to me soon.

Keith - what a wonderful piece of research !! i knew it meant wood but was unaware of the other history you mentioned.

its great that you remember us because you certainly made a wonderful impression on all the Tango dancers here who absolutely loved your lessons and dances. The television person i mentioned said "Aisha and Victor rock !!" Thats quite a statement and i agree !!will get back to you soon as i can.abrazo,

Therefore, there is still a gap for the hilarious photos Keith was taking and the art film of our performance.

When we got back home, we still had a glas of wine ( ENGLISH, a present from Ross tangueros) with Silvia and Heather, toasting for a long succesful day. There will be another one in 2011...

Next morning- our farewell breakfast made with love and care by our professional cook Silvia ( her long time experience running her own hotel in Cornwall are still visible and tangible in her kitchen...) and off we went on the train SWANSEA- LONDON.... GOOD BYE, OUR LOVELY WALES, FAREWELL...