“The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that. Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites at other people’s expense, whether whites know/like it or not. Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person who likes black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you. Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on. So while I agree with people who say no one is born racist, it remains a powerful system that we’re immediately born into. It’s like being born into air: you take it in as soon as you breathe. It’s not a cold that you can get over. There is no anti-racist certification class. It’s a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it. I know it’s hard work, but it’s the price you pay for owning everything.” ― Scott Woods - Writer/Poet
I always find myself wishing these were done with Golden Age music...otherwise, very well done...a great representation of what tango uh, "represents"...(grin)
For this 3rd edition, the theme of temptation is symbolized by the apple. Angels Tango Marathon takes place in Italy in a charming city near the Adriatic Sea in the city of Fermo. The event is located in a 3 star hotel. The atmosphere is friendly and the food is excellent.
Filmmaker Susan Kucera captures the story of a blind man’s journey into the intoxicating, complex world of Argentine tango and explores the impact tango has had on the lives of professional tango dancers, teachers, performers, and enthusiasts. In the end, beyond the fancy footwork, beautiful dresses, high heels, and dazzling performances, tango is about discovering of oneself. Shot on location in the United States (Hawai‘i, New York, Seattle, Portland), the Czech Republic, Germany, and Canada, For the Love of Tango reveals how we can communicate with one another beyond all barriers of race, language, age or physical limitations.
Bonus Dance Material included
For more information: Loveoftangomovie.com
Professional Tango Performers and Teachers Featured:
Jorge Torres and Maria Blanco
Natalia Hills
Gabriel Misse
Mayte Valdes and Carlos Barrionuevo
Alex Krebs
Ilana Rubin and Tony Fan
Astrid Wieske
For the Love of Tango..... Through the story of one blind man we explore the intoxicating, exciting and complex world of Argentine Tango. How did a blind person become involved in this dance, how does he navigate the dance floor full of other dancers when he can’t see and how does he asks someone for a dance? By accompanying him on his journey we learn about and experience a whole other world.
We delve into the lives of professional Tango dancers and teachers, including Tango Master: Jorge Torres of Broadway’s: ‘Forever Tango’, world class Tango performers like Natalia Hills & Gabriele Misse, Mayte & Carlos Barrionuevo, international tango teachers like Alex Krebs, Brigitta Winkler, Tony Fan and Ilana Rubin among others, as well as ‘regular people and lovers’ of the dance whose life has changed as a result of being immersed in it.
As Suki Schorer, (she danced with the NYCB under Balanchine 1959-1972. Promoted to principal in 1968 by Balanchine. She joined the faculty of SAB as a full time teacher in 1972. and now holds the Brown Senior Faculty Chair), reminds us: ‘It is an addiction.... but a healthy one.’
Tango challenges everyone who enters into its world from the relationship between the sexes to exploring our limitations; our ability to surrender and let go, to finding confidence and grace in our bodies and minds. It shows how we can communicate with one another beyond all barriers of race, language, age or physical limitations. It is truly a universal language that can inspire and connect us beyond the surface.
In the end we see that beyond the fancy foot work, beautiful dresses, high heels and dazzling performances Tango is....... really about the discovery of oneself.
from the creators:
Life is like a dance - I knew nothing about the Tango, other than what most people know of it if they haven't danced it themselves, dancers in perfect rhythm, legs flashing, alluring costumes, the characters of the professional dancers' persona on stage - but as I entered this journey with a film makers eye, interviewed and edited, I discovered what all the passion is about for those who try to learn the dance themselves. It has all the flavors of life and I could see clearly why my partner, Gawain Bantle loved it to such a degree.
The film is about the inner essence of Tango and it's parallels to what life is - full of joy, frustration, attraction, love, narcism, humility, fear, balance, human interconnectedness, and the mastery of the art of Tango. As in any art, the artist has to bring forth what he or she feels inside balanced with good training in order to do the dance well. You have to know the rules, but then you have to let go and really feel! Life is like a dance, we come together, share special moments, and ultimately part: as the great dancer, Jorge Torres remarks, to dance Tango… to really dance Tango… you must discover yourself.
The film exists because of Gawain Bantle's enthusiasm for the dance and he and I have been on location in several countries and unusual locations doing principle photography for a few years. We've produced the film ourselves shooting it in between other projects. The inimitable dancer Jorge Torres, a true professional and one of the most amazing human beings I have ever met signed on as Executive Producer and together we have worked to finish "For the Love of Tango". With some last minute post-production costs, we're almost there.
- Susan Kucera - director, producer, cinematographer
One of my photos...along I-35 near New Braunfels...heavily edited...
I like this...hat-tip to Jessamyn...a fb post from a friend of hers...
5. It requires the continual practice of radical empathy, theory of mind, self-reflexive critical thinking, and an intersectional perspective on structures of power to navigate ANY relationship...
Wendy Chin-Tanner
July 24 at 10:51 AM
I am a woman of color who is deeply committed on every level, with every fiber of my being to feminism, anti-racism, and social justice. I have also been partnered with a white man from a privileged background for fifteen years. I don't often share much about the inner workings of my marriage, but suffice it to say that we work on it together and we work on it individually on a continual and sustained basis in order to make this marriage work. This morning, we were talking and I wanted to share a few things from that talk, in case they're helpful to others who may be in similar relationships:
1. To be equal in your house, you have to agree on the fact that you are not equal in the world.
2. He said that the most difficult thing for him as a privileged white male is to acknowledge that he cannot rely on his own perspective or experience to understand the world as poc and women do. Listen to your partner. Believe what they say. Act accordingly.
3. Your objective reality may not be your partner's objective reality. Stay curious about each other's realities.
4. He said, "When it comes to issues of race and gender, if it's your problem, then it's my problem." Be on the same side of the problem.
5. It requires the continual practice of radical empathy, theory of mind, self-reflexive critical thinking, and an intersectional perspective on structures of power to navigate ANY relationship, but especially a relationship with disparities of power.
6. When you do harm, acknowledge it, repair what you can, and do better going forward. Ask your partner what they need, as those needs, like people and relationships, are ever-shifting.
I AM is an utterly engaging and entertaining non-fiction film that poses two practical and provocative questions: what’s wrong with our world, and what can we do to make it better? The filmmaker behind the inquiry is Tom Shadyac, one of Hollywood’s leading comedy practitioners and the creative force behind such blockbusters as “Ace Ventura,” “Liar Liar,” “The Nutty Professor,” and “Bruce Almighty.” However, in I AM, Shadyac steps in front of the camera to recount what happened to him after a cycling accident left him incapacitated, possibly for good. Though he ultimately recovered, he emerged with a new sense of purpose, determined to share his own awakening to his prior life of excess and greed, and to investigate how he as an individual, and we as a race, could improve the way we live and walk in the world.
Armed with nothing but his innate curiosity and a small crew to film his adventures, Shadyac set out on a twenty-first century quest for enlightenment. Meeting with a variety of thinkers and doers–remarkable men and women from the worlds of science, philosophy, academia, and faith–including such luminaries as David Suzuki, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Lynne McTaggart, Ray Anderson, John Francis, Coleman Barks, and Marc Ian Barasch – Shadyac appears on-screen as character, commentator, guide, and even, at times, guinea pig. An irrepressible “Everyman” who asks tough questions, but offers no easy answers, he takes the audience to places it has never been before, and presents even familiar phenomena in completely new and different ways. The result is a fresh, energetic, and life-affirming film that challenges our preconceptions about human behavior while simultaneously celebrating the indomitable human spirit.
The pursuit of truth has been a lifelong passion for Shadyac. “As early as I can remember I simply wanted to know what was true,” he recalls, “and somehow I perceived at a very early age that what I was being taught was not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” He humorously describes himself as “questioning and searching and stumbling and fumbling toward the light.” The “truth” may have been elusive, but success wasn’t. Shadyac’s films grossed nearly two billion dollars and afforded him the glamorous and extravagent A-List lifestyle of the Hollywood blockbuster filmmaker. Yet Shadyac found that more – in his case, a 17,000-square foot art-filled mansion, exotic antiques, and private jets — was definitely less. “What I discovered, when I began to look deeply, was that the world I was living in was a lie,” he explains. “Much to my surprise, the accumulation of material wealth was a neutral phenomenon, neither good or bad, and certainly did not buy happiness.” Gradually, with much consideration and contemplation, he changed his lifestyle. He sold his house, moved to a mobile home community, and started life—a simpler and more responsible life – anew.
But, at this critical juncture, Shadyac suffered an injury that changed everything. “In 2007, I got into a bike accident which left me with Post Concussion Syndrome, a condition where the symptoms of the original concussion don’t go away.” These symptoms include intense and painful reactions to light and sound, severe mood swings, and a constant ringing sound in the head. Shadyac tried every manner of treatment, traditional and alternative, but nothing worked. He suffered months of isolation and pain, and finally reached a point where he welcomed death as a release. “I simply didn’t think I was going to make it,” he admits.
But, as Shadyac wisely points out, “Death can be a very powerful motivator.” Confronting his own mortality, he asked himself, “If this is it for me – if I really am going to die – what do I want to say before I go? What will be my last testament?” It was Shadyac’s modern day dark night of soul and out of it, I AM was born. Thankfully, almost miraculously, his PCS symptoms began to recede, allowing him to travel and use his movie-making skills to explore the philosophical questions that inhabited him, and to communicate his findings in a lively, humorous, intellectually-challenging, and emotionally-charged film.
But this would not be a high-octane Hollywood production. The director whose last film had a crew of 400, assembled a streamlined crew of four, and set out to find, and film, the thinkers who had helped to change his life, and to seek a better understanding of the world, its inhabitants, their past, and their future. Thus, Shadyac interviews scientists, psychologists, artists, environmentalists, authors, activists, philosophers, entrepreneurs, and others in his quest for truth. Bishop Desmond Tutu, Dr. Noam Chomsky, historian Dr. Howard Zinn, physicist Lynne McTaggart, and poet Coleman Banks are some of the subjects who engage in fascinating dialogue with Shadyac.
Shadyac was very specific about what he was after, wanting I AM to identify the underlying cause of the world’s ills – “I didn’t want to hear the usual answers, like war, hunger, poverty, the environmental crisis, or even greed,” he explains. “These are not the problems, they are the symptoms of a larger endemic problem. In I AM, I wanted to talk about the root cause of the ills of the world, because if there is a common cause, and we can talk about it, air it out in a public forum, then we have a chance to solve it.”
Ironically, in the process of trying to figure out what’s wrong with the world, Shadyac discovered there’s more right than he ever imagined. He learned that the heart, not the brain, may be man’s primary organ of intelligence, and that human consciousness and emotions can actually affect the physical world, a point Shadyac makes with great humor by demonstrating the impact of his feelings on a bowl of yogurt. And, as Shadyac’s own story illustrates, money is not a pathway to happiness. In fact, he even learns that in some native cultures, gross materialism is equated with insanity.
Shadyac also discovers that, contrary to conventional thinking, cooperation and not competition, may be nature’s most fundamental operating principle. Thus, I AM shows consensus decision-making is the norm amongst many species, from insects and birds to deer and primates. The film further discovers that humans actually function better and remain healthier when expressing positive emotions, such as love, care, compassion, and gratitude, versus their negative counterparts, anxiety, frustration, anger and fear. Charles Darwin may be best known for popularizing the notion that nature is red in tooth and claw, but, as Shadyac points out, he used the word love 95 times in The Descent of Man, while his most famous phrase,survival of the fittest, appears only twice.
“It was a revelation to me that for tens of thousands of years, indigenous cultures taught a very different story about our inherent goodness,” Shadyac marvels. “Now, following this ancient wisdom, science is discovering a plethora of evidence about our hardwiring for connection and compassion, from the Vagus Nerve which releases oxytocin at simply witnessing a compassionate act, to the Mirror Neuron which causes us to literally feel another person’s pain. Darwin himself, who was misunderstood to believe exclusively in our competitiveness, actually noted that humankind’s real power comes in their ability to perform complex tasks together, to sympathize and cooperate.”
Shadyac’s enthusiastic depiction of the brighter side of human nature and reality, itself, is what distinguishes I AM from so many well-intentioned, yet ultimately pessimistic, non-fiction films. And while he does explore what’s wrong with the world, the film’s overwhelming emphasis is focused on what we can do to make it better. Watching I AM is ultimately, for many, a transformative experience, yet Shadyac is reluctant to give specific steps for viewers who have been energized by the film. “What can I do?” “I get asked that a lot,” he says. “But the solution begins with a deeper transformation that must occur in each of us. I AM isn’t as much about what you can do, as who you can be. And from that transformation of being, action will naturally follow.”
Shadyac’s transformation remains in process. He still lives simply, is back on his bicycle, riding to work, and teaching at a local college, another venue for sharing his life-affirming discoveries. Reflecting Shadyac’s philosophy is the economic structure of the film’s release; all proceeds from I AM will go to The Foundation for I AM, a non-profit established by Shadyac to fund various worthy causes and to educate the next generation about the issues and challenges explored in the film. When he directs another Hollywood movie, the bulk of his usual eight-figure fee will be deposited into a charitable account, as well. “St. Augustine said, ‘Determine what God has given you, and take from it what you need; the remainder is needed by others.’ That’s my philosophy in a nutshell,” Shadyac says, “Or as Gandhi put it, ‘Live simply, so others may simply live.’”
Shadyac’s enthusiasm and optimism are contagious. Whether conducting an interview with an intellectual giant, or offering himself as a flawed character in the narrative of the film, Shadyac is an engaging and persuasive guide as we experience the remarkable journey that is I AM. With great wit, warmth, curiosity, and masterful storytelling skills, he reveals what science now tells us is one of the principal truths of the universe, a message that is as simple as it is significant: We are all connected – connected to each other and to everything around us. “My hope is that I AM is a window into Truth, a glimpse into the miracle, the mystery and magic of who we really are, and of the basic nature of the connection and unity of all things. In a way,” says Shadyac, a seasoned Hollywood professional who has retained his unerring eye for a great story, “I think of I AM as the ultimate reality show.”
Written & Directed by: Tom Shadyac
Producer: Dagan Handy
Editor: Jennifer Abbott
Co-Producer: Jacquelyn Zampella
Associate Producer :: Nicole Pritchett
Director of Photography: Roko Belic
Executive Producers: Jennifer Abbott, Jonathan Watson
Media and PR Coordinator: Harold Mintz
Graphic Designers: Yusuke Nagano, Barry Thompson
Release Dates: March 11, 2011 – Los Angeles, March 18, 2011 – New York
Running Time: 80 minutes
Rating: Not rated
This is from La Tanguera on her blog...verbatim...it goes to my earlier post
On Connection, Quality vs. Quantity and Learning to Feel *It*
As I've learned and moved ahead on my "Tango Road" over the last 3-4 years, I have also become gradually more selective regarding who I dance with. The reason is simple: it is more likely that I will have a blissful Tanda with those leaders with whom I have already developed a good connection, have similar sensibility to mine and are skilled enough to interpret the music and really dance. But, recently, the words of a Tango Teacher and the observation of a really good Tanguera in my community have made me wonder...
Could I, by being selective, lose my ability to connect?
Hum. *That* is a thought.
So, now you'll ask me: OK, Tanguera; How did you even come up with *this*? After all, prefering Quality versus Quantity is a sign that one has evolved enough to truly value the connection and the quality of the dance. No?
Well, Yes. Or so I have been thinking so far... In fact, I will admit to the fact that it can be quite hard for me to dance with some people, not so much because of their actual skill level (although in some cases it can definitely cause trouble), but because of their emotional understanding of the music. To me, it is important that we both are in the same wave, that our sensibilities are compatible--that the intensity which we feel the music is similar, that it is natural for us to move with more dynamic energy at one point, or slow down at another. This sense of emotional connection and telepathy is what can make this dance such a powerful encounter.
But I'm starting to think that being too selective in choosing the leaders I dance with also entails the following risk: that I am putting *my* sensibility and understanding of the music as a benchmark of what it *should* be, instead of giving myself the opportunity to understand the *his* sensibility, even if completely different from mine. Taking things to an extreme, it means that I'm actually prefering to stay in my comfort zone--dancing mostly with those who interpret the Tango World like I do--rather than venturing on a trip to a very strange and unknown place, which I may not understand at first, but that I may eventually come to value and enjoy. Moreover, as I stay farther away from those people who seem harder for me to understand, it is likely that it will also become more difficult for me to open up to them.
There is a Tanguera I know who seems to have mastered this ability to open up I am talking about. She is regarded as one of the best dancers in my community, and yet she is one of the least "choosy" followers I've ever seen. Watching her, I am amazed at how she moves seemingly without any trouble from dancing a Tanda with a visiting Tango Teacher or a Hot Shot to dancing the following Tanda with a mediocre leader with poor musicality. The surprising thing for me is that she seems to enjoy it every single time. And I don't think she is pretending, because she dances with that same mediocre leader at the next week's Milonga. So, she must be onto something there.
Quite frankly, I had always been a bit puzzled by her seemingly odd choices, until I had a discussion on connection with my Tango Teacher during a private lesson. He commented that, in his view, one of the best exercises to learn how to connect was to dance with more people, even if they were not regarded as "good" dancers, and the emotional understanding of the music was less than perfectly compatible. He argued that it was possible to learn to enjoy a dance with almost anyone, if one focused on paying attention to them and listening to what they were trying to say.
To be honest, I was quite skeptical about how much I could ever enjoy dancing with someone who is in a completely different mental wave than me about the music, technique issues aside. And still, watching this Tanguera in action, I have to admit that perhaps there is some truth in all this after all. While I am still convinced that there must be limits to it, maybe one can really learn to open up even beyond what we are willing to think possible. And, perhaps, giving ourselves this chance can take us to some beautiful places we would have never seen otherwise.
