Across the street from Rodrigo’s apartment…
When I woke up today, I would have written off my memories of the night before as a dream had it not been for the fact that I got a text message from my friend Rodrigo telling me he was sorry he was so drunk.
Rodrigo invited me and Susannah (my roommate) and her new beau, Christian, to a party in a casa tomada (taken house, I think we’d call it a squat in English) across the street from his place in La Boca. The new lovers decided to stay at the restaurant and, well, be in love. Of course I was excited to go.
The party was actually a show in an abandoned old Jewish Temple. A series of performances of juggling, acrobatics, magic, dance, and clown skits were set in what would have been the main synagogue of the temple. Young, dirty, artsy types (just like I like ‘em) walked around drinking what we in the States would call a Forty, but what they just call beer here (by the way, most beer in Argentina is sold in large bottles, you rarely see servings for 1).
I was transfixed. Not only were the performances unexpected, they were incredibly well done. A guy juggled fire! Some dude actually made magic look sexy! How can any of this be happening in an deserted house of worship?
There is this type of acrobatics that is done here in Argentina and I have not seen it done anywhere else, though, as Susannah and I discussed, I don’t know if its just because I don’t tend to see acrobatics at all in the States or if it is an Argentinean artform. But women will half dance, half climb two pieces of fabric suspended from the ceiling. It is incredibly graceful, and they will let go of their grip, be it from their hands or feet, and seem to fall and then WOOSH they have somehow prevented the end of their lives by knotting the rope, hanging elegantly from their ankle as their hands strike a pose. All of this is incredibly beautiful. Last night, the woman who did this type of performance was wearing a white top and poofy white pants, exposing her midriff, and they turned off the lights, turned on a black light, and all you could see was a negative space animation, but real life. They threw feathers from the upper balconies and the black lights made it look like it was snowing. Her suspended fabric was black, so when she climbed it, it looked as thought she was flying in a very specific, very seductive way.
I felt like I was watching the best variety show a bunch of friends ever put on, but I am not sure how professional these people were or not. And out of nowhere, in the middle of all this thought, two dogs started to fight. This country doesn’t have Bob Barker compelling his fanbase to spade and neuter their pets, so the streets are home to many independent dogs.
I have heard dogs fighting to the death from my apartment. It is a horrifying sound, especially to a puppy lover like myself. I have yet to see a dead dog in the street, but I am telling you, with that kind of barking, I think they don’t leave the corpses, they eat them.
So, in the middle of this dark, all-too-professional show, two dogs started to fight in the middle of the audience. No one could see, I can only imagine why a dog would choose to fight in this arena, Amores Perros this was not, and the crowd started to move away from the dogs as their barking and gnashing became obviously very real and very dangerous to the people around them.
The performers were awesome about this, too! They just convinced the audience to bring their attention back to the stage. In fact, there was a two person dance going on before the dog fight, and they restarted the whole dance! I thought that was admirable, considering they were more than half done. Admirable, and at the same time, silly. It was strange to see five minutes of dance, which had been completely new to me, seem obvious and dull. A few drunks would also interrupt their show, and the clowns would beckon the eyes of the crowd back to the front of the room. I just, well, was impressed all around. Argentines have a special gift for tolerating people’s right to be weird and, at times, obnoxious, but at the same time, they don’t let it interrupt what is going on. I respect that a lot.
I can’t get over it. Like a dream, I just accepted everything as it came. I never questioned why I would be in an abandoned temple on a Saturday night drinking a large bottle of beer watching a guy do rope magic while a couples made out in front of me, my buddy Rodrigo befriended a wall, and two dogs almost declared war. But that’s the kind of stuff that happens in Buenos Aires. Apparently.
