Well, my dear friends and readers, this post has been a long time in coming. There's a new love in my life. I have been waiting to try and talk about this because every time I do, I just get so tongue-tied. Fluttery. Giggly. How can I put this feeling into words? It's too good even to talk about...
Friends, I have fallen for tango. A wonderful, serendipitous set of circumstances sort of fell into my lap (okay, mostly via Nikki) and suddenly I am a TA for a set of (for me) FREE beginner tango lessons, my foot in the door of Buffalonian tango culture, and all set to fall truly, madly deeply in love.
Where I start to blush and stumble, however, is not explaining my luck in discovering tango classes and dances, but trying to explain WHY it is that I am so smitten or even try to describe what it is like to be out on that floor. The feeling of tango, the "ness" of it, this is what eludes even the grasp of my poetic tongue. (Seriously, guys, I have been a writer all my life, but I have consistently found a great deal of difficulty in trying to actually write about dancing. Is this an ironic fate: that two of my greatest passions are never to be fused in one magnum opus? Unless I found a way to dance about writing...hmmm, there's a thought!...But I digress...)
This embarrasses me, as love is apt to do, but my muse in this attempt is this excerpt from *ahem* Wikipedia:
"Argentine Tango relies heavily on improvisation; although certain patterns of movement have been codified by instructors over the years as a device to instruct dancers, there is no "basic step."...Argentine tango is a new orientation of couple dancing. As most dances have a rational-pattern which can be predicted by the follower, the ballast of previous perceptions about strict rules has to be thrown overboard and replaced by a real communication contact, creating a direct non-verbal dialogue. A tango is a living act in the moment as it happens."
That, right there in a nutshell, is why I love tango. No predicting, no forms, no showing off. You have to listen. Especially as the follow, I find myself listening with my whole body. Listening to shoulders, arms, feet, hands. It is a conversation between two dancers. A smooth synergy of movement, feeling, and music. A rhapsody of passion and life and communication, love, loss, the human condition!!!
Oh, well, you can see by my incoherent ravings that it's gone again. Maybe "it" has yet to even grace this shabby blog post. I really honestly can't write any better than this when it comes to dancing...forgive me. But what can I say? Were you expecting sensible, articulate commentary from a woman in love? I didn't think so. :-)
S.
1 comment:
Mallarme talks a lot about dancing and poetry and such in very interesting ways. You might want to look into that, if you haven't. If you have, I am curious what your thoughts were.
Also Anne Carson in "Autobiography of Red" has a chapter that revolves around the tango in a very interesting way, as I recall. The book was a "Icouldn'tputitdown" type and I read it in one night. I don't know how much meaning that chapter would lose outside the context of the rest of the book. I do know that the chapter was skillfully done and took about five minutes to read, I am sure it would be well worth your time.
I am very fascinated by the tango, and have been for a long time. (As an observer). I think it is perfect for you!
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