TRANSCRIPT ~ EPISODE 8

EPISODE 8: Toward a culture of listening, with Heyni Solera

Producer/Host: Liz Sabatiuk | Music: "Flores Negras" by Francisco de Caro, arranged by Astor Piazzolla and performed by Heyni Solera | Image Credit: Nikos Zacharakis

[MUSIC]

LIZ ID INTRO:
I'm Liz Sabatiuk and this is Humans of Tango, where we explore what tango has to teach through the experiences of those who dance it.

HEYNI:
I am Heyni Yanin Solera, and I am a curious person.

Uh, the plan was never to be a musician. I've been playing piano since I was four, but it was pretty much understood as an immigrant and a child of immigrants that art is not a feasible profession. 

LIZ SCRIPT: 
For a long time, Heyni thought she wanted to be a doctor, but after working in a hospital as a respiratory therapist, she set her sights on nursing instead. She earned bachelor's degrees in music and nursing, and a master's in nurse anesthesiology. And then, suddenly, Heyni found herself with some time on her hands. 

HEYNI:
Imagine this long trajectory, this dream of, like, being in healthcare since I was eight, finishes at 28 - 20 years later - and then it was like, "now what do I do with my life?" And also, everyone at this time is pressuring me, my- he's now my husband, but at that time he was my boyfriend of, like, five years, and everyone's pressuring me, "why aren't you getting married?" My husband and I break up for, like, six months. I am heartbroken; I am crying every day. I didn't want to come home and just be very lonely and sad and depressed. I wanted to play music again, because during all this time, I literally had stopped playing music for, like, six years.

So, um, I- during getting my bachelor's of piano, classical piano, did an independent study with a Brazilian percussionist, and he taught me about Afro-Cuban rhythms and music from Zimbabwe, and just really taught me how different cultures think of music. I just found it fascinating. So I wanted to learn how to play Afro-Cuban music, so I went to Google. In this Google search, by accident, I found the DC Tango Community Orchestra. And I was like, "oh, I like Piazzola." [LAUGHTER] So I go to rehearsal, and they're open rehearsals, and I go as a pianist, and it's the first time I hear the Golden Era music, from the 1930s to '40s, and I remember thinking, "what is this?" It sounded like old people's music, to be honest. But the people were so nice, and I was going through some serious heartbreak, and I just kept going. Um, I remember my first milonga that we played at, oh my God, I was like, "what is this? What are people doing?" And I'm more- I danced salsa at that time. Like, a lot of people will tell me, like, they just fell in love, and I just thought the whole thing was really weird - but I just kind of went with it. 

During rehearsal, I was just sitting half of the time, and I would watch the bandoneon, and I'm like, "oh, that looks cool." And they would explain to me, it's difficult to learn, because the left hand and right hand are different. When you hit one button going in and going out, it's different, so it's very complicated, and you can't see your hands. And so at that time, the bandoneon players could only play the right hand, which is where most of the melodies are. They couldn't play the left hand, which is where the accompaniment is, because it's very difficult to learn the instrument in the United States. There's not a lot of teachers. So I'm like, "oh, I'll learn the left hand. I'll learn a couple chords." That was it. My goal was to be fourth bandoneon in my local tango community orchestra.

What really got me into tango, like, really hooked me in was, around this time, tango festivals for musicians started to pop in the United States, where people from Argentina would come for a week and teach musicians how to play tango. Brett Lemley, the director of the DC Tango Community Orchestra, convinced me to go to "Tango for Musicians" in Reid, Portland. So I go to Reid in 2013, and that's when they tell me I have the wrong bandoneon. It was a different keyboard system, because there's different types of bandoneons. I almost just quit. But I tried again. I found the bandoneon that they use for Argentine tango, and I tried to pick it up.

Reid happens again in June of 2014. I decided to go this time as a pianist to get more out of it, 'cause I had more facility on that instrument. And like a good student, I google all the piano professors, and there was going to be this composer, Diego Schissi. And so I put in Spotify, "Diego Schissi."

[MUSIC - Diego Schissi's "Astor de Pibe"]

The first track, "Astor de Pibe," I hit play. And I have a handful of albums that this has happened to me, that within 30 seconds, I immediately fall in love. And that happened with this track. Within 30 seconds, I'm like, "what is this music? Who is this man? I need to go meet him. We will be friends."

So I go meet him. We become friends. He convinces me to go to Buenos Aires my first time, December of 2015. The only bandoneon player I knew at that time was Ava Wolf, who I met in Reid. She- her husband was donating a kidney, so obviously it was not a good time for her to give me a lesson. So she recommended Santiago Segret. And Santi, I knew who he was, because he is Schissi's bandoneon player. And I was a huge fan. And I knew he was very young, and most young bandoneon virtuosos do not want to teach beginners. So I said, "Ava, I can barely play this thing. Are you su-" She's like, "no, he's very serious. I'll tell him about you." So I had three lessons with him. And the last lesson is what changed the course of my life. I've never told him this. I told myself that "if I learn anything with this guy, I will not sell it." I was about to sell the bandoneon.

And so my last day in Buenos Aires is my last lesson with him. He's like, "Heyni, what are we going to do now?" And this is before the days of Zoom. This is before online learning for tango musicians. They just weren't open to it at the time. I'm like, what do you mean we're going to do something?" I'm like, "you don't do online lessons." He's like, "no." And he's like, "this is what we're going to do. I'm going to give you eight exercises. Every three to four weeks, send me these exercises. One exercise. But you can't send me these videos until there's no mistakes. It has to be perfect."

He also told me, he's like, "Heyni, this will be the most boring, tedious, painful method. But if you do it, you'll learn the keyboard system." I sent that man videos for four years. I never once faulted on those three to four weeks.

[MUSIC]

LIZ SCRIPT:
Since that first trip to Buenos Aires, Heyni has cultivated a passion for bandoneon that now has her recording albums and performing across the United States and beyond. But Heyni's passion for tango isn't limited to music making. In fact, we first connected when Heyni interviewed me for a research project on women dancers who lead in our local tango community. She was working on a Master's degree in ethnomusicology while I was exploring the prospect of launching a Queer Tango program with DC non-profit Tango Mercurio.

Almost four years later when we spoke for this podcast, Heyni told me that the focus of her research had shifted based on conversations with me and two other dancers from our DC community, Olga Liapis-Muzzy and Ioannis Markakis. Both Olga and Ioannis would become friends and core collaborators as I started teaching and organizing queer tango in fall of 2018, as would Jose Otero, who continues to organize queer tango classes and events in DC since I relocated in 2020.

Meanwhile, Heyni would make a surprising connection between her artistic journey and the insights of her Master's research.

HEYNI:
Mercedes Liska, who's an ethnomusicologist in Buenos Aires, wrote a book on queer tango in Buenos Aires. In one of the chapters, her argument was that queer tango in Buenos Aires blossomed because of networks of solidarities amongst key cities in Europe and Buenos Aires. And through these conversations and these networks of solidarity, it built up to what it is and now it's rare to go to a milonga in Buenos Aires and not see a queer space. It's becoming now the norm. And so these networks of solidarities among cities in Europe then transmitted into Latin America, Central America, then to New York. And my argument when I presented at that student conference - this was before you and Olga had really started queer tango in DC - was that at that time, DC had not become part of that network of solidarity. And I was saying it will become a network of solidarity. So it's been very interesting for me, as an academic, to see what you've been doing.

So I'm saying that the networks of solidarity that Mercedes Liska saw amongst queer tango organizers in key cities internationally, I am seeing the same networks of solidarities happening among women in music and the dance. And it's creating an insane amount of change. It's very exciting. It's very exciting to be part of this time and to be part of this freaking story. I just can't believe it. I'm like "How did I end up in all of this? This is great."

LIZ SCRIPT:
When Heyni says, "in all of this," she means in all of this. She still works in healthcare and she also tours, records, and gives lectures and workshops on tango culture, music, and dance. And Heyni's engagement with all these different aspects of tango has engendered a new passion, bridging a rupture she perceives between tango musicians and dancers.

HEYNI:
Where the rupture has occurred and why musicians have a tendency to not be interested in playing for dancers is that we're constantly in a museum. And the majority of musicians who really want to explore tango, like, really want to find a voice in it, a creative voice, it's not the stuff people want to dance to. So you're finding artists who just feel no support in the things that they're passionate about and that's discouraging.

Uh, I've been very fortunate that the D.C. tango community has not been that way with me and Max.

[LIZ ASIDE] That's Maxfield Wollam Fisher, the cellist with whom Heyni created the duo Arco y Aire.

HEYNI: The D.C. tango community has supported us from day one, they go to our concerts. But that's not a lot of communities, you know what I mean? And so a lot of the frustration amongst tango musicians is that the tango dancer needs- doesn't need, I don't like telling people what they need to do. What we would like is for them to stop seeing it only in terms of the dance and as a culture because then that means that you don't have to go dance all the time. I want people to get used to listening. Which means go to a concert and sit down. Um, that's what I would like.

I went to Buenos Aires in November to record a Bach album for two bandoneons. And everyone was very surprised, "Why did you do an album on Bach? Why is your first composition a prelude and fugue?" And there's many reasons to this answer. Number one is I just like this music; I love Bach. I could play Bach all day, he makes me so happy. The other thing was I wanted my first full album to not be tango. Because I wanted to show my friends and followers - because the majority of people who follow me are tango dancers - is to show them I'm not stuck in what this idea of tango is. I'm not stuck in this idea of what this instrument is. And I love it. I love tango, I love dancing. I'm not coming from a place of indifference it's coming from a place of love. So I specifically chose Bach, something that's very old, to bring it into a new context as well. And everything- every project I do, I try to incorporate some of that philosophy.

I like to show that tango is a continuation. It has never stopped being created and it's still being created and transformed and changed. It has never been in a museum. It has been the imaginations of others, because again it goes back to sense of nostalgia, has put it into a museum. And I'm not denying that the dance is nostalgic or that the music is nostalgic, because almost everyone I talk to talks about it that way. People from all over the world, Argentines, but my experience with the music and with the dance I have never once felt that way. Not once. I don't understand this nostalgia that people are talking about with this music. That's just me. I'm not denying other people's experience, but you're asking me.

LIZ: [LAUGHS] Speak your truth.

HEYNI: And I think it has a lot to do with- 'cause I've thought about this - is that I have no roots, Liz. I was born in Panama to a Costa Rican father, to a Panamanian mother, who decided to leave Panama for better opportunities for their kids to the United States when they were 30, spoke no English, had no jobs, and they just risked it. And it was just the four of us. There was no family in the United States waiting for us. And because I always had a very good memory I remember very distinctly that trip.
I remember very distinctly the stress of my parents trying to hide it from us. I just remember the first 10 years were hard. I think that's an immigrant story. Anyone who's ever immigrated somewhere else - you've immigrated to Spain - it's hard to leave your country and start anew. And so that was very impactful for me at a very young age. We moved around a lot. The longest I've ever spent in the same building or the same apartment is six years. And you're talking about my house - this house. So you're talking about- only in my late 30s have I experienced living in the same place for an extended period of time.

So I got really used to not feeling belonging anywhere. I got used to having to go somewhere and starting [afresh anew].
I didn't like it in the beginning. Who wants that as a little kid? Looking back, I realize that because I have no sense of roots I have no real nationalism to anything or any attachment to any culture. Why is that nice? Because I never found it strange that some random Panamanian American woman wanted to learn bandoneon. I didn't think it was weird. Other people found it weird. The reason why I have a tendency - not to reject, because it exists, the nostalgia of tango exists - the reason why I have a tendency to not really focus on that is that A) most of that nostalgia is imagined, like most nostalgia. Most of humanity's past, quite frankly, is dark and bleak. And me as a female tango musician, it's not that we didn't exist in tango's past - we do and people are- academics literally are right now trying to uncover that and tell that story. But until that happens, I don't see myself in tango's history. So why am I gonna emphasize a history that is not my culture and that I don't see myself reflected in it?

There's a reason why I specifically chose a humanities that didn't look backwards. I chose ethnomusicology, which although there are ethnomusicologists who do historical work, the majority of us do contemporary work. I care about what's happening
now. I want to know what's happening now. And so for me tango has never been nostalgic. Notice that the thing that made me want to learn bandoneon wasn't the golden era music. It was Diego Schissi. People have always asked me, why did you throw yourself so hard at bandoneon? Because they see me play the Golden Era stuff, which I like, which is beautiful music -
it's stunning. Because I have to learn that tradition, I have to learn that style because if I don't learn that, I can't play what's new. But the view that has never been taken from me when I started this journey is I want to play music that's happening
now. And for its own sake. I don't look at it for its purpose or what it's going to be. I don't look at it, "is this for dancing
or is it for listening?" I don't know. I want to play the music that I want to play. And so that is what tango is for me. Tango is now.

[MUSIC]

HEYNI:
One of the biggest frustrations I usually hear from the role of the follower, and the majority of them still happen to be women, is that they feel like they can't express themselves, that the role of the follower is very passive. I want a culture of listening to
happen to the tango dance. In order for the dance to evolve and for the role of the follower to feel empowered, the key, for me, in my opinion, is the music. And not the music that you've heard a hundred billion times in the milongas. Music that is happening now. Music that is complex. Music that was written not for dancing. Go to concerts and then you'll see your dance
change. And I can say that 'cause it happened to me. I swear- how I started to change my dance in my role as a follower, is that I would make suggestions, because this is a communication. This is not me taking over. This is me, "this is what I want to dance in the music." If I know, for example, that there's a beautiful violin melody coming, and I don't want to do the sharp articulations of the bandoneon, I suggest to my leader I do things with my tone, in the way I walk. What's been very pleasant is that one of three things happen. One, they're not listening and then I just give up. Or two, it's someone like Juan-

[LIZ ASIDE] That's Juan Cantone, who happens to be featured in episode six of this podcast.

HEYNI: -who has the facility to understand what's going on and then adjust, and then it's a real conversation. And then it's effing beautiful and that's why this dance is so beautiful and why I love dancing this dance. Or three, it's leaders who feel what I'm doing and don't understand how I got there. And what is happening now is that I'm having conversations that I'm hoping will bridge this rupture between musicians because I'm able to do these things. Not because I'm an amazing tango dancer. It has everything to do with because I understand what makes tango a tango and therefore it doesn't matter what decade you give me. It doesn't matter if you give me an orchestra that I've never heard of because it's the same genre. I know the códigos, so I can - not always but for the most part - predict what's going to happen.

LIZ SCRIPT:
The ability to predict what's going to happen in the music, as Heyni describes, isn't only a question of a dancer's musical prowess. It can also depend on the music itself. Music that's easy for dancers to predict and interpret is often referred to
as danceable. But for Heyni and many other folks, danceability is ultimately a matter of interpretation.

HEYNI:
When I hear people say this music is danceable, what they're referring to most of the time is if there's a steady beat,
there's not huge changes in tempo, not huge changes in dynamics, and not a lot of layers of complexity. Steady tempo, not huge changes in dynamics, not a lot of layers of complexity. Why? Because when you are just learning anything new as a beginner, being given too much information is overwhelming, right? So if the music has a lot of information, you're going
to be overwhelmed by learning a dance that is already hard - tango's already hard, and now you're gonna give them hard music? Oh my god! Come on! Give it a break! Give the ear a break! So it doesn't surprise me that music from the 1930s to the 40s is what's most popular in milongas, and that it should be. I, in my opinion, I think it should be. Canaro is a metronome.

[MUSIC - Francisco Canaro's "9 de Julio"]

People have to remember that tango was developing as a genre, like all genres. The same thing happened to swing, the same thing happened to Afro-Cuban music, samba, all danceable genres evolved. Every last one I talked about eventually evolved to concert levels. So the question isn't "is this danceable?" It's "do you have the ear to dance to this?"

LIZ: So it's a collective answer.

HEYNI: Yeah... Right, right.

LIZ: It's about what the collective can do and what works well in that collective experience.

HEYNI: You have to train your ear to feel changes in tempo. Then you have to train your body to feel that change in tempo, and then you have to transmit that change of tempo to your partner, meanwhile having a comfortable embrace, meanwhile managing the floor. Can a beginner do that? No! That's too much information. Let's be honest.

Salgán. A lot of my musician friends tell me, I don't understand why people don't dance to Horacio Salgán. He's super danceable. And I'm like, yes, to a musician's ear, he's crazy danceable, because the tempo is almost always fixed. However-

[MUSIC - Horacio Salgán's "Como Abrazado a un Rencor"]

-the rhythmic section, which is usually the piano and the bass, are not usually unison. The violin is doing a very complex melody, versus the bandoneon is also doing a very complex melody. The pulse is usually not actually touched. It's felt. Very syncopated music, very rarely do you get a downbeat. So for a dancer to dance to that music, that dancer has to have a very innate sense of pulse. That's something that is trained. Some people have it naturally more than others.

So, as you get a music where things get more rhythmically challenging, there's more textural change, there is dynamic change, there is tempo change, it becomes more and more and more complex, and that requires more and more ability to listen, actively listen if you're going to interpret that music. And so, that's where I want people to start talking about, it's like, whenever you go to workshops or festivals and you see musicality classes offered, notice that the musicality class is always for all levels, versus other kinds of technique is taught at different levels, but musicality is just one. I argue that, no, musicality is also based on level.

LIZ: Yeah, that's really interesting.

HEYNI: I'm getting more- from very advanced dancers, they're getting bored with what they're hearing in the milongas. They want to dance to Schissi, Peralta. They want to dance to some really contemporary stuff that was not meant for dancing. And I've had people say that they're frustrated and I'm like, this is something that has to be culturally changed within the milongas. We need to get away from, "is something danceable or not?" And we need to start talking about "where are you, musically speaking? Where is your understanding of how this music works and where are you in it?"

And then the most important question that comes down to is, at the end of the day, "do you want to dance to it?" I don't want to dance to Schissi. I want to listen to Schissi. [LAUGHTER] And so there's that. There's also desire, leaving room for that, that maybe we don't need a dance to this. Leave it alone. Just go to a concert.

[MUSIC]

HEYNI:
I love the dance. I love milongas. I love everything about milonga culture. I like to have a table. My friends make fun of me for this. I like to have a table, Liz. I know people like to stand up and try to get dances that way. Not me. I like to sit. I like the conversation of, "do we need to reserve a table?" to have a table with my friends. I like having to plan: I need to get ready and look at my outfit and take a shower. And the whole process, the whole, uh, performance of getting ready for the milonga, effing love it. I like looking at myself in the mirror and say, "I look beautiful." I love wearing clothes that I would never get to wear anywhere else because it would look ridiculous. I like climbing up the steps or whatever the venue is and slowly hearing the quiet sound of the music. And it gets louder and louder as you walk in. Effing love that.

The whole ambience, there's something very beautiful about- there's beautiful music in a space that, for the most part, I feel pretty safe. I know that there are issues that we are addressing. But for the most part, I feel pretty safe in most milongas that I go to, where I get to look pretty, I get to hang out with my girlfriends, and, um, and then I get to partake in a physical activity that is fun and playful. Who wouldn't like that? That's freaking awesome.

LIZ: It sounds like you have it in perspective. [LAUGHS]

HEYNI: Love it.

LIZ: Seems like the people who suffer the most maybe get caught up in other aspects of it, right? That are not so playful maybe.

[LIZ ASIDE] Like yours truly at various moments in my tango journey.

HEYNI: Yes, because...yes. Look. Because I don't see tango as a dance, I think that's what helps me. I see tango as a culture. Because I see it as a culture, I partake in all aspects of what makes a culture. Which is the music, the dance, the poetry, the social norms, the, uh, the clothing. It's all of it. You can't separate it. And because I engage with all aspects of it, I think that's why I don't get, uh, disillusioned as I see some people get after a few years. I also didn't have the whole, like, people would tell me that they like would have to go dancing every night and it became, like, an addiction for them. That didn't happen to me. A, out of necessity. At the time I was working full-time as a nurse anesthetist and I did four 10-hour shifts. I would wake up at 5.30 in the morning to go to work. There's no way I'm going to be out every night. I need to take care of people while they're sleeping. So, fortunately, because of my profession, it prohibited me from getting this addiction.

And then I found bandoneon and that became my obsession and then the dance became more like a hobby. Like, "oh, this is fun." And then bandoneon is this crazy thing I decided to jump into. So the dance for itself has always been kind of playful and fun for me because I've gotten to engage with tango in other ways, versus I think people who become disillusioned, they get- they go all in hard and fast and they think tango is going to fulfill something that a dance can't do. And I'm guilty of this too, Liz, I'm sure. I have no doubt that what I'm saying is applicable to me. I've always, I've always been looking for something, trying to find something. It's this constant busqueda.

[LIZ ASIDE] Quest.

HEYNI: People say you're inquieta.

[LIZ ASIDE] Restless.

HEYNI: But I just, I don't know, I guess I never expected an activity to give me that answer. I think an activity or a passion is a conduit to that answer. But it's not the answer. So I don't know. I just, I don't get disillusioned by the dance because that's not the answer. It's just part of the journey.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Here's to building a culture of listening - whether we dance or not.

Thanks to Diego Schissi for the clip of "Astor de Pibe" and to the Internet Archive, where I found the clips of Canaro and Salgán included in this episode. More details in the show notes. And thanks to Heyni for her curiosity, passion, and music, including her interpretation of "Flores Negras," written by Francisco de Caro and arranged by Astor Piazzolla, which  accompanies this episode.