In this section of my blog, I will be presenting tango lyrics with their translation. Note: I translate these myself, with the help of my argentine friends, these are NOT literal translations, but very close translations to the originial focused to transmit the meaning and the feeling of the song. In order to fully experience it, I would recommend read both spanish and english versions several times, then listen to the song with eyes closed and try to hear the emotion that the singer puts into the song with every line and their meaning.

Second one up, and thank you Laura Mingo and Barbara Thomas for your help, is “Lo Pasado Pasó“, Di Sarli with Rufino, 1940.

Click here to download the song: Lo Pasado Paso.mp3

Lo Pasao Pasó

Lo pasao pasó—no te atormentes
de que importa mi pasado!
Son cosas muertas que se han ido
y entre tus brazos he olvidado.
Lo pasao pasó y en mi corazón
son cenizas los recuerdos,
y entre las sombras del ayer
más radiante, brilla más
el sol de tu querer…

Hoy yo vivo por tu amor
añorando tu pasión;
sos un remanso en mi vida
y en tu pecho me adormeceré…
Es necesario olvidar
y así encontrarás la fe perdida,
y sólo mía será tu boca
cuando borres el pasado aquel…

What’s Passed is Past

What’s passed is past, do not torture yourself,
Forget my past,
Those are dead things that have gone away
And that in your arms  I have forgotten.

What’s passed is past, and in my heart
memories are now ashes
And among the shadows of yesterday
The sun of your love shines more radiantly.

Today I live for your love
Yearning for your passion
You are an oasis in my life
And in your bosom I will fall asleep…

It is necessary to forget,
That way you will find your lost hope
And your lips will be only mine once you erase that past.

First one up, and thank you Barbara Thomas for your help, is “No Mientas“, D’Arienzo with Echague, 1938.

Click here to download the song.

NO MIENTAS

Música: Héctor Varela / Alfredo Lattero
Letra: Héctor Marcó

Fueron tus palabras la canción de mi esperanza
y en tus tibias manos se durmió mi corazón.
Era tan feliz y fue tan ciega mi confianza,
que jamás la duda vino a mi razón.

Pero hoy solo siento que tus lágrimas me queman
y ese llanto impío que me quiere convencer.
Es la carcajada de tu voz, que me condena
a vivir siempre engañado en tu querer.

Solo quiero verte con el alma descubierta,
afrontando todo por tener sinceridad
Para que al marcharme con mis pobres flores muertas,
lleve al menos de tus labios la verdad.

*********************

DON’T LIE

Your words were the song of my hope
and in your warm hands my heart fell asleep.
I was so happy, and my confidence was so blind,
that I never came to doubt you.

But today, I just feel that your tears burn me
and that cruel weeping wants to convince me.
It is the laughter of your voice that condemns me
to live forever fooled into believing in your love.

I only want to see you with your soul bared
Facing everything in order to have sincerity
So by the time I’m gone with my poor dead flowers
at least I take the truth from your lips with me.

Janey Lynn Smith brings you the Second Annual Kansas City Spring Fling.

This is a community building event, with an amazing cast of DJ’s and instructors and a weekend full of beautiful tango connections.

Spring is green. So is Spring Fling. all GREEN!

Spring Fling features:

• Chacarera Class with Adam and Ciko
• Beginner BootCamp with Janey on Sat and Sun
• Mixer Milonga on Saturday with Mitra and Stefan
• Colorful Milonga Saturday night with performances!
• Great classes and hours of dancing all weekend long!

Instructors:

• J.Abling and Mary Fu
• Stefan Fabry & Mitra Martin
• Adam Hoopengardner & Ciko Tanik
• Mauro Peralta and Marika Landry

DJ’s:

• Eli Lezerowitz
• Jessica Schilling
• Mark Dy-Liacco
• Robert McKenney
• Varo Boyajyan
• Viju Rao

Bring is to Kansas for the Spring Fling! See ya there!

www.TucsonTangoFestival.com

Rusty, Joanne and the Tucson crew bring you TTF 3.0 – bigger and better than ever.

I have been part of this festival from day one, seing it grow, transform and emerge even more beautiful every year.  This year Tucson Festival is even bigger, starting on a Wednesday night and going till monday.

New additions:  TangoAllure Show – Live music with QTango and performances from the festival and local instructors. Tickets and more info at: http://tangoallure.com/

Regular and amazing events:

1. Guerilla Milonga – flashmob at various Tucson locations, that in the past included the mall, the airport, a nursing home. Most amusing was the one in the mall where they had forbidden us to dance. We showed up, went inside the circle, bumped up the music and danced. However, it only took one unhappy security guy screaming and all the 60 tangueros ran for cover! Here is a pic of Murat and Michele outside Congress hotel at Guerilla Milonga of TTF 2009.

2. Great Weather – make sure to check out the hot tubs at the hotel. The weather is usually awesome in Tucson this time, and every year I make sure to soak in and relax in-between classes. Who know, you might find a couple of the festival instructors in the hottub doing tango (I promised Naomi not to publish THAT photo) or telling you the stories of their travels.

3. Breakfast at like 4 am Saturday night – the hotel serves amazing breakfast at 4am that is free for hotel guests. You can use this opportunity to try your new moves on the lighter dancefloor to Sabah’s great music or run out and get some yummy food to fuel you for a coupla more hours of dancing.

4. Socktango – make sure that when its 3 am and your feet are dead, to take them shoes off and do a tanda with your partner in socks. Here is more info on that: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sock+tango

5. Finally, just come and enjoy this amazing festival that the organizers put their heart into.

Here is the cast:

Instructors:

• Murat & Michelle Erdemsel
• Jaimes Friedgen and Christa Rodriguez
• Gustavo Benzecry Saba and Maria Olivera
• Jorge Nel
• Varo Boyajyan & Naomi Hotta
• Santiago Croce and Amy Lincoln
• Vladimir Estrin & Emily Ortiz

DJ’s:

• Sabah Chammas
• Maria Olivera
• Varo Boyajyan
• Paul Akmajian
• Larry Richelli
• Martin Rabcynski
• Derrick Del Pilar

See you in Tucson next weekend!

By clicking on the link below you can download and print the playlist for the CD that I made for the class this quarter.

PLAYLIST

Clay Nelson brings you the Thanksgiving solution again  - Ashland Turkey Tango Festival. November 25-28, Ashland, OR.

Instructors:

• Christopher and Caroline
• Homer and Christina
• Korey and Adeline
• Santiago and Amy
• Varo and Naomi

Tango DJ’s:

• Christopher
• Joe Leonardo
• Korey Ireland
• Mike McCarrell
• Momo Smitt
• Santiago
• Varo

For more info and details: http://www.claysdancestudio.com/ATT10/index.shtml

So I fly back from Playa Del Carmen after a week of wonderful vacation in a paradise. First stop is Newark Airport in New Jersey. I have been told (quoting Duygu) that people on the East Coast are meaner than in LA, but they are real. This wasn’t in my mind at the time. So I have 3 hours of layover in Newark and cannot catch an early plane. I settle at a coffeeshop to read or check email and I meet a fellow salsera. She had dropped off a friend and was getting sober in the airport (they had some drinks before the friend took off). This is 5pm in the afternoon (sunday afternoon buzz is the best). So we chit chat…I got to practice my newly acquired and seasoned spanish. I never stop being amazed how many people love to dance…dance is soo universal. After some salsa chat she took off and I continued my quest of the east.

I decided to eat. You would be amazed as to how many Subway restaurants I saw in Playa…at least 3 within a mile of where we stayed. I did not touch American food while I was on the Mexican land so now I was hungry for a subway. Turns out they only have wheat bread (out of the usual selection of 5 breads) but they put double the chicken in my sandwich-I did not mind. At the end i asked for salt, she took the shaker with the dark stuff and after re-confirming with me that its salt-she put pepper in my sandwich. Great I thought…but the sandwich later was going to save my life. They did not have chocolate chip cookies, so I ate half of the sandwich and had a Soda and took the other half with me.

The security scanner in Newark was a novelty. After taking off my shoes and [ulling out my laptop out of the bag, I walked into it and the computer voice says: FIRING JETS! I’m like, I paid for an airplane trip and I’m only flying to boston…no jets please.Then the scanner blows jets of air from top to bottom. They said it was an ionizing scan: I am still alive, they couldn’t ionize me!

The flight was delayed…we were told that an indicator is going off so they have to fix it. While they are fixing it there can be no AC…the airplane got hotter than Mexico…and I thought I was enjoying the cool 90 degree weather Jersey. We sat in the airplane for two hours, the first hour hot as hell, the second hour was with AC but we could not take off because the runways were busy. So the plane rolled around the airport at like 2 miles an hour and it seemed like we were going to drive the plane to Boston. Finally  it took off and before I finished my OJ and the next hundred pages of my next Grisham novel, we landed. I got to the hotel uneventfully, checked in…luckily the hotel has free wireless so I checked my email, uploaded the pix from mexico and went to sleep.

Day 2:

I wake up bright and early after a decent sleep and a definite appreciation for air conditioning (in Mexico I had a fan and its hot at nights). I caught the bus to the train station from where the two trains would take me to Harvard. The Harvard Medical campus is beautiful…their Dental School is tiny compared to UCLA. However, after meeting all the residents and students, i feel like its is a small tight family and very friendly. I got to observe a couple of complex dental surgeries and decided to look for tango in Boston.

I had my scrubs on me, a pair of jeans and dance sneakers in my backpack (ready to tango at any point after a week of withdrawal). Turns out I just missed the Boston Tango festival the week before and the only tango in the area is in Providence, Rhode Island. My adventurous self could not resist…i checked the Greyhound schedule and caught a cab to the station to board the Bonanza bus down to RI on the last minute. That is when I remembered the I did not take the address to the milonga…On my way to travel 60+ miles in an unknown territory and I didn’t get the address! Luckily I had my cell and a call to my friend (thank you!) got me suited with the location. The city is called Pawtucket (pronounced Puhtucket) 4 miles away from Providence where my bus was headed.

The whole trip on the bus did not last long, I was deeply involved in a conversation with a passenger who had just visited the dentist. The guy knew what his periodontal probings were and knew all about periodontology. I got off 2 miles early to be closer to Pewtucket…I decided not to take a cab and walk to find the place.  I asked a passerby lady where South Bend street is…she didn’t know. She happened to be a respiratory therapist and the bond between medical professionals was immediate. Apologizing for not being able to help, she left. After I found a bus stop in Pewtucket, a girl comes up to me and asks for directions…I said ive been in this state and city less than 5 minutes

While I was waiting for the bus, the respiratory therapist lady comes back in her car and she is on her cell phone talking to her friend who knew where the street was. While they were trying to explain it, the bus came and the lady told me I need to go somewhere near Memorial Hospital and the baseball field. I said thanks and hopped on the bus. The driver did not know where South Bend is, but he dropped me off to another bus that would take me to the hospital. At the hospital I stopped a police car and got directions to South Bend and with the help of the homeowners on my way found the streey, found McCoy baseball field (home of the PawSox and the longest baseball game).

Providence tango was nearby…Ellen and Robin were teaching a beginner class.The studion was nicely decorated with chairs, tables, sofas and other great pieces of furniture I cannot name; this created a perfect combination of elegance, comfort and warmth-a perfect place to tango. I met Ellen and Robin who were teaching the class that night. After the class the practica started. Morgan, one of the twin sisters I met at Providence Tango was DJ-ing. There was a young salsa and ballroom teacher who was learning tango, Morgan’s twin-a swing dancer and many interesting people who had one thing in common-TANGO. T

he practica was great and the dancing was nice…after a 10 day break it felt different to me. I had a great time at the Providence tango and the eveing was worth the travel. Apparently, the twin sisters had driven from Connecticut to tango that Monday night; that made me feel less crazy for traveling 60+ miles and across a state line to tango.

The milonga was great, everyone was nice and the music was fantastic. This time I got a ride to the Providence station and caught my Greyhound bus to Boston. The driver had lots of attitude and no change for my $10 (the trip costs 8 bucks). I sat in the 2nd row and was chatting on the phone. Suddenly, while driving, the driver turns on the light in the cabin and yells in the microphone, “Is there someone in row 3 or 4 talking on the phone?” I say, YES. She replies, “You are LOUDER than my music!” haha

So i crawl back to a seat in the back so I could talk. In Boston, she lost the direction and could not find the station. YOU ARE A BUS DRIVER, how can you not know where the station is??? She yells in the mic, DOES anyone know where the station is? I don’t, but I decided to relocate back to my seat in the front so I can see whats happening. She turns, sees that I came forward and sat down and asks me, “SO you just came to watch?” I said, YES! She goes like, “Gee, thanks.” (Shes the lost driver and shes giving me attitude as if its my fault). By the time she found the station, the last train had left, so I caught a cab back to my hotel. Having had no food since noon, I gladly finished the flattened half of my footlong subway from the Newark Ariport with some soda from the vending maching and went to sleep.

In summary, the monday milonga in Pawtucket cost me 4 hours of travel, 120+ miles and 67 dollars. Tell you what, it was ALL WORTH IT!

Day 3:

I woke up and spent the morning at Harvard. I left Harvard at lunch and headed to Tufts. Tufts dental school is located in the heart of  Chinatown. I was craving for lunch, but no way in hell I could do Chinese for breakfast. The only option left was Ronald Mcdonald-a big mac with no onions, extra pickle and a $.50 slice of tomato, fries and a lemonade were my 1pm breakfast.

Tufts dental is close to Washington street, so once I came out of the subway I saw this couple and asked them, “Excuse me, do you know where washington is?” They gave me this weird root, then the wife says to me, “Oh, you mean the STREET?“  I said, “I wasn’t planning to walk toWashington DC!” They said, “Oh we are from Washington D.C., that’s why”.

Tutfs dental is HUGE…their dental class is 180 and they take 7 perio residents a year. I meet some students and observed coupla cool surgeries and out for the day from school. The plan was to go to Carlos and Tova’s tango class which was 5 minutes away from Harvard Dental. I called them and they told me it is okay to go. So I went home, changed, looked at the map once and went back to Longwood. This time, after scouring the area for 1 hour, I did not find the class (I wish I had the iPhone with google maps). I could not believe my luck…I found providence tango in another state, but I couldn’t find this class 5 minutes away.

So I trotted down to downtown, ask directions to the subway from two people, none of which was from Boston. Barnes&Noble bookstore lured me in and I left there with a couple of books to read, picked up some strawberries and a KitKat and headed home to do some reading.

So I go to tango class and it is an awesome dancing experience. Not only because it is tango, but also because its one of those days when gods have bestowed you with the glow. This means that it is your day, the wind blows where your breath goes and the earth revolves around you. That was my day…i had a blast at tango, danced and played with the music, connected with my partners in ways I had never connected and carried through the class on the high note.

We played the tango russian rulette game…gentlemen closed their eyes and women walked past them…when the music stopped, the women stopped too and partnered up with the gentlemen next to them. So we danced….gentlemen with their eyes closed, trusting their senses to guide them and the connection with the partner to protect them. And this happened with 5 different partners. I had to sharpen all my other senses to compensate for the temporary loss of vision.

My hearing was on high gear to listen to the music and to the breath of my partner. My smell gave me hints as to who my partner might be…I recognized my first parnter by the perfume. My touch was raving, my touch was extremely sensitive…to feel the presence and the whereabouts of my partner, of my surroundings and the vibrations of music.

So i carried on with five different partners, with my eyes closed, with my other senses taking over and my being concentrated on channeling the energy to and receiving from my parnter. It was an unforgettable experience, a spell I did not want to be broken.

After the excercise I was on a roll, just like the whole day. I enjoyed every single dance, I enjoyed connecting with the partners and laughing to tears while dancing and trying crazy stuff (I even managed to somehow incorporate a salsa drop into the tango-much to the surprise of my partner, who is a salsa dancer).

I went to Boba Loca after the class…its been fifteen minutes the class is over..and gradually I feel this warmth fill me up, I feel my face giving way to a smile and my mind sailing to contentment. I sit there, enveloped in this aura of happiness and satisfaction. I have a grin that gets wider every second and my mind is basking in the glory of joy. Nothing has a grip on me, no instincts can filter though this enveloping state of peace and relaxation. I feel free of any desires, free of any longing.

With every breath a shiver passes through my body…with every breath the shiver gets stronger and takes me closer to this mental climax, to this peace of mind, to this source of contentment that I have finally discovered. And I understand that dance is my destiny, dance is my passion and dance is my life. I know that I have been granted to experience what I am seeking, I have been blissed with this moment of revelation, I have discovered the path I must take and I have been allowed a teaser bite from the fruit of Nirvana, attaining which is the goal of my life. So i shall carry on the dance, I shall carry on with me this experience to aid me on my path, to remind me of the joy and elation, to keep me on track and guide me towards the truth. There are many paths that lead to peace of mind…I have discovered mine: DANCE!

“Nirvana is not a place nor a state, it is an absolute truth to be realized, and a person can do so without dying. In Buddhism, it is basically a blissful spiritual condition where the heart extinguishes passion, hatred and delusion. It is the highest spiritual plane one person can attain.”