The Enso Gallery and Yoga Studio Half Moon Bay are an institution–art opening, dinner parties, and some of the best yoga teachers around. It’s located right off the beautiful Frances beach. One of the creative spirits behind this place is Mauro Di Nucci, and he will be playing tango on his piano, and making empanadas for the upcoming party on March 21st for Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home.

Q & A with Mauro Di Nucci

Where are you from originally?
Santa Fe province on the river Parana , grew up in Rosario. Thanks to tango there is an appreciation of the Buenos Aires culture, with its Parisian inclinations, but the rest of the country is another story. I gravitate more to that other Argentina, more native, not so European. People think every Argentinian dance the tango and eat beef… i am a vegetarian, i can play some tangos at the piano but i cant dance a step!

Was tango a part of your life growing up? What composers do you like playing best?
My dad was always listening to the old , standard tango , as a rebellious teenager i didn’t dig it, but then I discovered Piazzolla and later the old masters: Gardel , Discepolo , Troilo , Goyeneche ….

When did you learn to make empanadas?
Do you feel these staples of Argentina are properly appreciated here? What are some of the common misunderstandings of them? I learned to cook with my grandma , the kitchen was the warmest room in the house and i could always steal a bite of food before meals.

Sunday March 21st, 5 PM
The Gallery at Enso
131 Kelly Avenue
Half Moon Bay, CA 94019

Beginner’s Tango Lesson with Santiago & Amy
Live Tango Music with Piano Liberation Front
Short Reading, Book Signing and
Tango Movie Trailer Screenings
Wine by Familia Zuccardi
$10.00

The heartbreak competition had a wide variety of entries, and I truly enjoyed reading all of them. Some by highly skilled writers, and then there were very sincere sad stories by people still in the throes of heartbreak. Sometimes, our tales of heartbreak leave us feeling bewildered and wronged, but many people have picked themselves up and moved on. I was told that one entry was by an 11-year old girl. Her grandmother told me this and was shocked that someone this young could have already had her heartbroken. A lot of excellent, very well written entries came from the Stanford Creative Writing Program. And many heartfelt stories came from as far away as Argentina, and across the US from California, to Kansas City, North Carolina and New York City. One woman told me that she was finally inspired to sit down and write the story that she has been meaning to tell. I hope that this experience was cathartic for everyone and I thank you for participating and sharing your story. The winning story was chosen, based on many elements, but in particular for its ability to translate in to a tango song.

The winning story is “The Key” by Cherie Magnus. The judges wrote: I’m often drawn to characters living in the aftermath of their own successes, and I thought the author did a nice job of evoking that quality of nostalgia and regret. The vivid imagery and lyricism makes it suitable for a song.

As I send this, Marlan Barry is hard at work composing a tango song and we hope to have it completed by May.

THE KEY

My old house sits under the full moon of Hollywood as I drive past where I lived so long ago. As always, the street’s ancient cedar trees perfume the air, and in the black night, the glimmering Observatory hovers above like a friendly space ship.

The courtyard gates are locked, but the closed windows shine from within and call to my heart. The drawn draperies glow like a candle in the window lit for me, calling me home.

It looks just the same as when I lived there so content with my husband, my children, my beautiful life—all gone now.

Perhaps inside the wrought-iron gates and behind the cozy golden windows is my old lost life. Maybe if I stare long and hard enough, I can catch a shadow of a vanished time, the comings and goings of a happy family. If only I had the key, maybe I could go in and find it all again.

What if I found the key and opened the door into another dimension, and came home?

Cherie Magnus

Tango heals a broken heart
Enso event features world-traveled author, tango lesson

After only 18 months of marriage, Maria Finn found out that her husband was cheating.

She was devastated. But help was only a few steps away. First she stepped out to travel on an already planned trip to Uruguay and Buenas Aires. While away, she took the next few steps that changed her life — on a dance floor as she learned the tango.

Dancing “was the only time I didn’t feel bad,” she said. “I had my heart broken, so I learned to dance the tango to get over it.”

That story is recounted in her new memoir, “Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home,” released by Algonquin Books. That book, and the signing of copies of it, is the focus of an event at 5 p.m. Sunday, March 21, at the Enso gallery in Half Moon Bay.

The book will be in the spotlight — along with a beginning lesson in tango, live tango music, Malbec wine from Argentina, and fresh empanadas made and live tango music played by Enso co-founder Mauro Ffortissimo.

The book tells Finn’s story of how she threw her husband out, and then on her visit to Buenas Aires — the birthplace of tango — she learned to master the dance step she credits with teaching her about love and loss, how to follow and lead, and to live with style and flair — and to risk loving again.

She also credits the sultry dance with once dictating fashion and launching the cocktail in the United States, as well as growing into prominence overseas in Finland and Turkey.

“The music, the touch, the feel of another person’s heart, teaches you how to trust again,” she said.

“A lively debut memoir, brimming with tango history and lore,” wrote Booklist.

But neither the book, nor tango itself, were Finn’s first brush with literary fame.

Originally from Kansas City, Mo., she earned an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and then went on to teach English and design a study-abroad course in nonfiction at Casa de Las Americas in Havana, Cuba.

She has edited two anthologies, “Cuba in Mind” and “Mexico in Mind.” Following the example set by her grandmother, an avid gardener, she wrote a book on edible gardening, “A Little Piece of Earth: How to Grow Your Own Food in Small Spaces,” which spawned a blog and weekly gardening newsletter.

She has also written essays for “The Best Food Writing 2006” and “Best Women’s Travel Writing 2007,” written for publications around the country, and been a finalist for many fiction-writing awards.

Prior to graduate school, she lived for a while in Alaska, working in the commercial fishing industry, where she was also a commentator for Alaska Public Radio and covered news and culture from Latin America and Hispanic communities in the United States for ABC News. She also worked as a crewmember on all-female commercial fishing boats.

She now lives on a houseboat in Sausalito, a community she describes as “perfect” with its proximity to San Francisco and its nearness to nature. But she does not stray far from the Latin experiences that shaped her life.

Latin America, she said, “literally drew me in. It is poetic, beautiful, political and passionate. I’ve been accused of having a Latina soul.”

For information, contact Enso at (650) 726-1409.

My last stop before heading home to California was the Tucson Tango Festival. It was a wonderful event. The dancering, dj’s, were great. The hosts, Rusty and Joanne, could not have been more gracious and welcoming to everyone, and there were some unexpected surprises.

I met and saw Momo Smitt perform tango hip-hop. Check out his song:Welcome to The Tango World

As well, I was given a great bag for carrying my tango shoes by Totally Tango.

As a birthday present to myself, I bought a new pair of Comme Il Faut shoes.

Now I’m headed to El Paso to see my brothers, sisters-in-law and nine nieces and nephews to celebrate my birthday. I bought sparklers at a roadside fireworks stand, and they’ve promised a pinata for a birthday pachanga. Then I’m flying back to my little Shang-ri-la in Northern California.

Tonight at 7 PM I will be at Antigone Books in Tucson Arizona for a book discussion, dance demo, and refreshments.Private Dance Lessons to be Raffled Off!!!

ANTIGONE BOOKS
411 N. 4TH AVE.
TUCSON, AZ 85705
Ph: 520-792-3715

Afterward, I’m headed over to the Tucson Tango Festival.

Last night, fellow tanguera and journalist Emily Crawford was invited to talk with me about tango, love, and finding harmony and balance in a chaotic world. It was a really fun way to do a book presentation, and the new relocated  Collected Works Bookstore, on the historic plaza in Santa Fe, is just gorgeous. After the talk, Matt Cohen stepped up to the plate and danced tango demonstrations with both of us.

Last night the tango dancers literally “Cut a Rug” as they braved a carpeted floor for the tango and milonga demonstration at Bookworks, a great Indie bookstore in Albuquerque.

Karen Reck and Paul Akmajian demonstrate a bookstore tango.

Paul speeds it up a little here with Leslie Jones dancing a milonga.

Tonight at Bookworks, Karen Reck and Paul Akamjian will be performing a tango, despite the shelves of books and carpeted floors in this excellent independent bookstore, these two are Albuquerque’s tango ambassadors par none. They dance, teach, and promote tango. As well, Paul is a much sought after tango DJ and will be showing his stuff at the Tucson Tango Festival this coming weekend.

To learn more about them, visit Downtown Tango.

After the book presentation, we are going to have a glass of Malbec next door at the Flying Star, and then we are off to the milonga organized by the Tango Club of Albuquerque at Lloyd Shaw Dance Center, 5506 Coal SE(Located two blocks south of Central; 2nd block east of San Mateo)

We met in tango. You were the first person I really danced with. I didn‘t even know how to do a cross, which – among other things – I learned from and with you. But the real secret of tango could not be told, but had to be experienced: Two steps, one to the side, one to the other, were my first real tango steps, were I felt a connection to you and the music.

We both were far away from our homecountries, and we found a home in our embrace. But I was only a visitor at this place, where you had already spent years. And I had a boyfriend waiting for me to come back. Still, we fell in love and lived this love for two beautiful months. A weekend-trip to buy tangoshoes was one of many happy experiences.

It was painful to go back to my life without you. We said goodbye in your homecity, and then again in mine. I realize now that one cannot force oneself to forget strong feelings. My body refused to comply with the plans of my reason. I‘m still learning how our experience changed my life…Meanwhile I keep dancing.
Claudia

I anxiously await the burst that will surely stain my face with salt, but maybe tears can run out. My body feels numb to anything other than this seething fury. I am determined to release this anger, but where can it go? It will be a box under your bed no matter where you sleep. Every time I close my eyes I see nothing but what I imagine happened that night. You a) unzipped her pants b) kissed her neck c) grabbed her breasts d) you know the rest. I have wasted enough on you, my heart, dignity, sleep, love, virginity. Now I can rise up. We were two kids pretending to fit the wrong puzzle pieces, the ones we hoped would make the picture in the end.
I will try and remember the days that seem so long ago, the days I know years can’t erase. But by then they will be buried, with dust or whatever fades recollections beneath the layers of my future. I feel the salty streams flow from my blurry eyes. About time. I don’t like this feeling, but I guess it’s better. In time I will have so much love someone will need it.

Brittany