Providence Tango New Years
12/31/05 - 1/1/06
The Providence Tango New Years
celebration was a great combination of friends, friendly new faces, fun dancing, fantastic music, and amazing food. Ellen and her hard working crew put on a 24 hour marathon tango event with djs Robin Thomas, Jaimes Friedgen, and Ben Bogart. 24 hours! Nonstop music!
I'd never been to Providence before and decided to go to the New Years celebration at the last minute, so walked off the plane on the 31st with no set plan. My idea was to arrive and meet up with the Portland contingent for dinner before heading over to the dance. Standing next to baggage claim in Providence's airport I made a couple of calls and learned that my friends traveling from New York were stuck in a snow storm on the freeway. They were on their way, but it would be several hours before they arrived, so I was on my own for a while.
Rented a car and meandered through the lightly falling snow towards Pawtucket, where I found the only restaurant still open on New Years Eve. Had a very funny conversation with my waitress about the fact that I was eating alone on New Years. She wanted to make sure I wasn't going to be alone all night, and invited me to a party at her sister's house later. When I told her I was going to be dancing tango with friends, she did a little dance with one of the bartenders. Not exactly tango, but very enthusiastic. As I left she gave me her number, "In case that salsa thing is boring."
Walking into Providence Tango is a lot like walking into Nijmegin's El Corte for the first time. Everything is tango, and there's a great friendly vibe to the place. Dropped off my stuff and ran into Deena, my good friend from Seattle who relocated to the east coast last year. Danced my first dances with her husband and one of my favorite dancers, Steve, and began a crazy and fun night of greeting old friends, meeting new people, dancing, and Ellen's yummy home cooked food. Played a goofy joke on Carlos with some good-natured followers, created some new floor moves with Murat (never been done before, I swear!), danced a kick-ass milonga set with Robin that made the whole trip worth it, and watched some beautiful performances.
Around 7a, I crashed. Woke up just after 10a to find a few stragglers still on the dance floor while marathon man Ben Bogart djed. I wanted to dance, but more than that, I needed to eat. After grabbing a bite, and sharing a New Years resolution drive with Christine, we were back for more dancing!
24 hours of tango. It's hard on the body, but when you reach that place, just past exhaustion, it becomes easy and euphoric.
So, here are some pictures from this memorable night. Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time remembering a lot of names. So, if you recognize an unnamed friend or yourself in any of these pictures, please let me know!
Thanks Ellen, Robin, Thuy, Ben, and all of the rest of the Providence Tango crew for a great New Years!
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