As the days grow longer and things altogether seem to be a little more hopeful, I’m starting to make plans to return to my home in the San Francisco Bay Area. This past year I’ve been seeking shelter from crowded Oakland in upstate New York. With more space around me, it seemed a safer place to get through this terrible pandemic. With the luxury of having two homes on different coasts, in the lively years before the pandemic hit, I had the opportunity to get to know two completely different tango communities: one very large and active with different events happening every single day of the week together with many high-profile teachers competing with each other, and the other one being a rather small and more dispersed community with only a handful of local tango teachers who also teach ballroom or salsa or at local schools to make a living.
Tag: felipe martinez
Felipe Martinez and Ayano Yoneda, Oakland, California: tango teachers and DJs
A close tango friend suggested Felipe Martinez for private lessons back in 2011. I immediately took to his teaching style which was very matter-of-fact. And no wonder, he had been a Primary School teacher before becoming a teacher of Argentine tango. I also got a kick out of his football — as in European football — madness. He being from Spain, Madrid, it was no surprise that he was brought up with football. And what a useful thing to be an expert about for anyone who dances tango. Because after all what would Argentine tango be without football? I did wonder, however, why he kept disappearing so quickly after every private lesson. I soon found out that he was dating someone in the tango community: a Japanese girl called Ayano. They would become inseparable, both on and off the dance floor. She learned quickly and turned into a successful tango teacher and DJ on her own. While he would be away for weeks at a time, teaching tango on cruise ships, she would take over their classes and run their otherwise mutual schedule on her own. Each November Felipe and Ayano host the ‘San Francisco Tango Marathon,’ a hugely popular event, especially among the younger crowd. It takes months of intense preparation and once it’s over, they are both completely exhausted.
Photo by Nikolay Chigirev
Fort Bragg — Buenos Aires del Norte
the beaches by Fort Bragg
On a recent flight from the East Coast to California I was sitting next to a top commander of the Coast Guard West Coast. He engaged me in a long and lively conversation about assignments that have taken him around the world, and how he and his wife — a modern and tap dancer — enjoy traveling and exploring. When I told him how my tango dancing has taken me to various places, a surprised look came over his face and he told me how they had just stumbled upon a ‘tango house’ in the middle of nowhere, on a trip up the Pacific coast to Fort — he couldn’t remember the rest of the name, so I finished it for him — Fort Bragg, the Weller House Inn.
He looked even more surprised. Most of my tango friends in the Bay Area have been to the Weller House, I explained. Indeed, I might be the only member of the entire tango community between Portland and Los Angeles who has not been to a tango event at this historic mansion. The tango world is small, I went on coolly, news spreads quickly and tango people travel far to explore exotic and fun places.
But inwardly I cringed, scolding myself for still not having been there.