Rosa 'Darcey Bussell' & Evelyn Hart

 

As a little boy my mother often told me that when she and my father danced the tango in the night clubs on Leandro N Alem people would stop their own dancing to stare at them, they were that good. She further told me, “Alex, one day you will dance as well as your father. You have it in your blood.”

She was wrong and by the time I was I that Austin, Texas  high school I was defining a word not yet in the vocabulary of the day. I was a nerd without any girlfriends as I did not know how to dance. In my all boys Catholic boarding school, sock hops were the way you met girls.

I have a faint memory that Rosemary and I took dancing lessons either in Mexico City or in Vancouver. We ended the classes as we both had about four left feet.

But 20 years ago I decided to “quitarme la espina”, this translates “to remove that thorn from my body” which further means to accomplish something you have avoided for a long time.

I did learn to dance the Argentine tango. I was only an efficient tango dancer. I then went to Buenos Aires and told my godmother/first cousin Inecita O’Reilly Kuker that I had learned to dance. With a big smile she told me that she, her daughter Marinés and her much older friend Dolly would watch me dance at a local bank sponsored community centre. She said they were going to laugh at me. I was then about 60 and Dolly, who was to be my dance partner was in her late 70s. The dance floor was so full that we were not able (thank heavens!) to make elaborate dance steps. Once I had finished and nobody had even noticed me I was presented a bottle of Möet Chandon Champagne and the three did not laugh at me.

I never danced again.

This does not mean that I am oblivious or ignorant about dance. Beginning in 1991 I fell for the dancing charms of that fabulous ballerina, Evelyn Hart. I photographed her many times and had drinks with her at expensive local hotels. One of my lasting memories is that of taking a picture of her hands holding her ballet slipper.

All the above is but an excuse to place here a scan of a English Rose, a red rose called Darcey Bussell. I bought it because it was named after a well-known British ballerina who is now retired.

And I will beat my own drum to state here that I have developed a style of dance photography where I use a slow shutter. I have practiced this technique but especially with my favourite dancer of the moment, Béatrice Larrivée who dances for what is now considered the best dance company in the world, the Batsheba Dance Company. Perhaps my father’s talent slipped into me in just another way.

Béatrice Larrivée and my two left feet