Broadway, Tango and Guggenheim

April 25, 2012

Last Friday I fulfilled one of my goals which was to take a dance class, in Spanish, in Spain! Check, check and check! The first class I took was Broadway. Broadway style of dance usually involves jazz hands, spirit fingers, exaggerated facial expressions and box steps. I’m all for it, but I couldn’t convince any of my friends to come with me. The first 10 minutes of the class certainly fit that description, until the teacher instructed us to grab chairs from the corner of the room. I was a little confused and assumed it was a different technique for stretching. The moment she turned on Christina Aguilera’s song “Burlesque” and told us to let our hair loose, I knew the chairs weren’t for stretching.

On the academic side, I learned how to follow commands in Spanish as she would shout things like “point your toes”, “kick your right leg”, or “turn our head.” On the dance side of things, I learned how to do chair tricks and the technique behind it. It was just what I needed after a stressful week. At the end of class I thanked the instructor and asked when her next class was because I don’t want to miss it. When I approached her she didn’t even let me begin to ask my question before she asked me if I was classically trained. She noticed how graceful my movement is and how I carry myself. It was a wonderful compliment. I was proud of myself for taking a dance class where all the instruction was in Spanish and my ability to follow it with ease. It felt so good to get back into a dance studio use dance as my creative outlet.

After Broadway, Natalie met up with me and we took Argentine Tango. It was a little slow and a little less engaging than Broadway. The elderly couple teaching the class spent the first 20 minutes describing the history of tango and the theories behind it…. Yawn. Natalie and I looked around the room and noticed that everyone came to the class with their boyfriend, except us. Fortunately the instructor and his music assistant took turns dancing with Natalie and I so we weren’t wall flowers the whole time.

The assistant was around my age and his big ego didn’t match his abilities. He was constantly correcting me and belittling me so he could show off his 2 or so years of dance experience.. When I encounter people like this I demonstrate my 12 years of dance knowledge in a tactful way by asking genuine questions using technical dance vocabulary. Because I don’t have this vocabulary in Spanish, I just kept my mouth shut. At one point I couldn’t handle it anymore and felt facetious. I told him that even though I’m not an expert at Tango, I have enough dance experience to know that looking down at your feet the whole time you dance isn’t proper dance technique. He argued that he was watching my feet to make sure they were correct…. Bologna! He would know if my footwork was wrong, because if it was, I would have been stepping on his feet. Besides, when he demonstrated with the female instructor he was staring at the ground. I’m positive her footwork was correct.

On Saturday April 21 I went with Erika, Geoff, Margarita, Natalie, Danielle, and Michelle to the Guiggenheim modern art Museum in Bilboa. It’s about an hour bus ride from Santander. The museum is designed by North American architect Frank O. Gehry.

My favorite exhibits were The Matter of Time by Richard Serra, Mrs. Lenin and the Nightingale by George Baselitz and Installation for Bilbao by Jenny Holzer. Installation for Bilbao was my all time favorite because it brought tears to my eyes. It wasn’t just a painting on the wall to look at. It wasn’t a stand still sculpture.  It was an experience utilizing LED lights, poetry, and movement through space. You could pass through the 9 columns of LED lights to stand on the other side of the room that was a deep shade of blue. The columns reminded me of a jail cell. The poem was a variation of Arno which is a body of writing originally composed for an AIDS research project. The poem had lines like “I say your name, I save your clothes, I kiss your lips.” Her intention was to evoke themes of intimacy, death, and loss. I read the poem as it climbed up the columns and trickled back down the other side of the room. It was an extremely moving experience reading the poem, with the lights, in that space and it brought tears to my eyes. 

Here's a cool panoramic picture Geoff took of Installation for Bilbao

Bilboa!

We walked through the Parque de Dona Casilda on the way to the Guggenheim

The tiles of Parque de Dona Casilda and my cute shoes

Erika and the fountain at Parque de Dona Casilda

Erika, Danielle, Michelle, Geoff, Natalie and Margarita

Natalie y yo

Fountain at Parque de Dona Casilda

Pics infront of Guggenheim

Geoff, Erika, Natalie, Michelle

Me infront of Guggenheim

The giant flower covered cat outside of Guggenheim which is a symbol of the city

The cat again

Margarita, Michael, Natalie and Oresta

We went to Mercado Este to watch the Madrid v. Barcelona soccer game

Margarita, Nikko, Michelle, Marisol

Celebrating the victory for Madrid at Mercado Este

Michael, Natlie, me and Geoff at Mercado Este