Motto: “We teach best
what we most need to learn.” (Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah)
I’ve met Lucia and Deniz through a Facebook
group called Tango accommodation exchange (thank you, Luciana, for the
initiative!). They were coming to a tango event in Bucharest and looking for a
place to stay, so they ended up sharing our apartment with me, my roommate and
3 cats. And, yes, they survived! : )
The first thing that came to my mind when I met
them in person was ‘’My God, they are made for each other!’’. I was surprised
(in a most pleasant way) to see such a compact, easy going, fun and beautiful
couple. Now, you may think I’m buttering them up, but wait until you read their
story and meet them for yourself.
We spent an entire weekend together and it felt
like we’ve known each other a life time. I’ve listened to their amazing story,
I loved it, it made me believe that fairy tales are still possible and I’m
happy that they agreed to share some of it with all of us.
Here goes (I have to mention that Lucia and
Deniz answered separately to these questions, therefore it’s a surprise they
made each other):
Corina: What
led you to tango? Why Tango?
Lucia: It is funny, because I really don’t know
why tango! I wanted to dance, I missed dancing since I’ve had to finish dancing
ballroom dancing because of my high-school. I wanted to dance something,
anything, the only condition was – it should be a dance without a partner : ) I
knew how hard these relationships could be, so I wanted to avoid it from the
beginning. Finally I ended up in a tango class, please don’t ask me why! : )
Deniz: Tango music, without knowing anything
about it - other than my father`s old Turkish tango LPs. I was listening to the
music and I tried once to dance but it did not go well at that time (in
Istanbul). Then 5 years passed and I started to dance in Bratislava, Slovakia.
A few trials in few weeks till I found Lucia and then we started together.
Tango was waiting for us.
C: How
did you two meet?
L: In our first tango class. A friend helped to
arrange our meeting, because we both were looking for a dance partner.
D: In
our first lesson on 2nd December day ; ) I was sitting in the only local milonga
when a lady approached me asking why I am sitting. I said I don`t have a
partner and I am a beginner (I was too shy to say I can`t dance yet). She was
surprised and she said “I will find you a partner” and few weeks later she
called me saying she has a beautiful partner for me. She found me Lucia ; )
C: What
was your first ‘tango crush’ experience like?
L: I didn’t experience a tango crush. I’ve met
Deniz in the first tango class of my life, and at that time it wasn’t a crush,
because I didn’t know anything about the embrace back then. I think a tango
crush can come only with a nice embrace. Besides, I am not allowed to talk
about tango crushes anymore... : D
D: I can`t say I had a tango crush – with your
terms in your last article. My crush in tango was different. I had just finished
a long-term (10 years) relationship before I started tango and met Lucia. Tango
was the white light at the end of the tunnel, after the crush in my private
life. It fitted me a lot: Tango is including regrets, love, heartbreaks, being
homeless and away, loneliness, hope, beginnings… Whatever I was feeling that
time was in tango ; )
C: What
was the most difficult tango-related decision you had to make?
L: Good question! Actually, there were no
difficult decisions since I have tango in my life. Everything seems to go
smoothly, as it should... Things evolve naturally. Maybe one thing: when we’ve
decided to teach tango. It was a hard decision for me, not based on our
enormous experience or perfect dancing, but on the fact, that we want to give
to people „our” tango, the way we see and feel it. It is a kind of mission we
feel we have to accomplish here and now.
D: I think the most difficult was/is to start
teaching tango. We know we are not 100% ready to teach as we are in our
learning curve but on the other hand, we also know that if we want to expand
tango in Bratislava and have a nice community, we have to. Our friends
encouraged us, people started to come and asked to teach and Christine
Denniston was telling in her book “I started to teach not because I know
everything but I know little bit more than others… Today all over the world
there are people starting to teach because they know little bit more”. And we met our mentors Mariana and Dimitris who supported us a lot.
All encouraged us and we made this decision
which was really hard and took almost 1 year to decide and be ready.
C: What
is your happiest memory in your tango life so far?
L: That I found tango... somehow it came into
my life, my world and changed it totally. I am happy just to have it! And also
the moment we have discovered Tango Natural in Belgrade and then continued to
meet wonderful people, including you! These all are happiest memories!
D: Happiest memory yet to come. But I think I
was feeling very happy when I was in Belgrade Encuentro for the first time to
see that tango is something much more than what I knew, more social, sharing,
full of love and friendship. Let me be the romantic side of the couple: I am
always the happiest guy when I embrace and dance with Lucia.
C: How
do you manage the idea that your partner has such intense feeling in somebody
else’s arms?
L: I also do J, so I wish the same for him. I
think it is good. It’s strange, but I am not jealous, we even talk about the
feelings we had in a milonga. Maybe later there will be a kind of emotion that
I will be jealous of... If I thought of this kind of embraces in connection
with my man in the past, I would be jealous for sure, but now I am not.
D: Once I heard it from Sebastian which is
fitting the definition a lot. When you dance with a woman, you don`t dance with
that woman only but also you dance with your love, wife, girlfriend, sister,
mum. Simply she is all the women of your life, represented in that woman in
your embraces. It is same for the other side. To know this and understanding it
make you see tango different. So she is also dancing with me even if she is in
somebody else`s arms. (fuhaaa, such a tricky question it was : D )
C: What
does tango mean for you now?
L: My life!
D: Tango is life, life is tango. TangoVida : )
C: What’s
the story of ‘Gancho’? How did you get the idea to make a magazine? Why the
name ‘Gancho’?
L: It was Deniz’s idea, he is the initiator of
such activities in our couple. I am the doubtful one, especially in the
beginning. He is hot blooded : ) We decided to do something for our
small community, to let it know more about tango. It was a very innocent start,
we just wrote a few articles related to tango, collecting information basically
on the internet. Later, we’ve started to add some personal experience from
tango travels, interviews etc. Then, our dear friends gave it a real drive and
we have our new web-based version, which we are really proud of.
Regarding the name, I hope Deniz will answer. I
had doubts again, especially, because I am translating gancho into Slovak and
my „hard times” started with the name... : )
D: After first Belgrade Encuentro, we started
to feel that tango is all about sharing so we need to contribute this sharing
as well. We can`t only take but we need to give. When we look around we saw
that there are magazines on local levels but nothing in English international
in gancho`s concept. We said let`s start with baby steps, let`s make a simple
pdf e-magazine which people can read or print and put on their tables during
milongas and people may enjoy it. It should be the only allowed gancho in a
milonga : D Name of gancho represents this fact: hooking people to each other
and hooking them to tango. So gancho is touching all parts of tango (fashion,
dance, music, CDs, books, travel, people, DJing etc.) and hooking people
together.
C: Where
do you see ‘Gancho’ in another year?
L: We do not make further plans, we will
continue to try to give our best and manage it time wise and make it interesting
and attractive and, at the same time, instructive. And of course, we want to
reach more people.
D: We started gancho in English and in Slovak
(to be responsible to the community we are in). Thanks to our friends Andreea
and Andrei to open our minds and carry the target- bar higher. We had a big
step change on our e-magazine concept. We have switched to web format after 1
year, but still we keep our pdf format (may be little bit limited version) in a
new template. We started to use more visual e-mail letters.
What is next? Target is to be globally local.
So we will have local volunteer authors who will maintain local news,
translations and events, in parallel global concept will continue. Now we are 5
people and we hope to be more. So next 12 months you may see the link
ganchoRomania, ganchoSlovakia, ganchoTURK, ganchoITALY links on www.gancho.info. So this is an open invitation for everyone who
wants to join us ; )
C: What
are your plans for the future?
L: Tango, tango and more tango. And to find a
way, how to be able to travel more for tango : ). No seriously, my inner wish is to
enlarge our community and to have a nice group of people who love tango, who
will feel tango and dance it with their hearts, so that every milonga will be a
pleasure and people abroad will like to come here to dance with our tangueros
and tangueras and it will fill their embraces with love and the feeling, that
life is worth it. I became more romantic after meeting Deniz...
D: We want that gancho will be the unofficial
GLOBAL TANGO E-MAGAZINE for everyone where they think first gancho when it is
said tango magazine and where they want to take place in one of the news ; ) We
have a dream.
C: Any
word of advice for tango dancers and your readers?
L: Always do what you feel in your heart, be it
dancing, working, loving, whatever. Follow your intuition, only then life makes
real sense. And regarding tango: try to feel tango rather than learn some steps
or sequences. When you manage to feel tango, it will create sequences of its
own, you will be wondering...
D: I cannot give any advice. The biggest
support and gift for us that they read gancho and give us feedbacks to improve
it to a better level and help us to spread it by inviting their friends to
subscribe us. Just print few copies every month to leave on your milonga tables
so that people can read us more. Be a part of gancho-team, by writing, reading,
spreading. Thank you for the interview.
When they told me their story I learned that true
love is still likely to happen in our days (and listen to me: when you meet
them, ask them to tell it! It’s worth it!). Then, as they were going on about
their plans with Gancho and their plans with TangoVida – the school – I knew that
the passion inside both of them is something I want to honor. I learned that in life, as well as in tango, everything
is better done passionately and in two : )
So, dear readers... what have you learned?...
