This weekend I experienced something that is becoming more common the longer I dance tango. I met a tanguera I was sure I had danced with before but couldn’t recall when or where. I had several opportunities, through cabeceo, to invite her onto the floor but I needed to remember our previous encounter, first. She was tall and beautiful and seemed like such a lovely dancer, but sometimes that is not enough.
Who she is or how I feel about her isn’t important. What is important, and something I think tangueras will find of great interest, is why her beauty and grace was not enough to motivate me to pursue a rematch in tango. I’m not talking polite tango, where a leader engages in a dance because he has a responsibility to the milonga. I’m talking about the tango of potential love, the kind that causes lives to careen off the clear Path of Life and into the Woods of Passion. ‘Polite Tango’ is like a gentle game, ‘Potential Love Tango’ is a hunt, where each dancer is both the hunter and the hunted.
It is the accidental occurrence of the latter that gives tango its mystique.
Before I would ask this woman to dance, I needed to remember if she ‘followed’ or not. This is not so important in Polite Tango but it is everything in Potential Love Tango. Usually, I’ve got my hands full being the courteous leader but, I am always looking for that impromptu rendezvous that will have me writing poetry at 5 a.m.
If a lady has a problem following, it need not ruin our dance. I remember dancing with a lady who had a little wine and wanted to have fun. I knew her and it made me feel good to be able to help her ‘let it go’. As I said in a previous post, to be able to help a tanguera release pent up energy is extremely gratifying. The energy has a life all its own and it is intoxicating. Polite Tango need not be boring tango.
It takes two to tango but the two might not both be doing the same kind of tango. The man might be feeling amorous but the woman is merely being gracious or vice versa. For some of us, finding that amore-on-amore tanda is like fireworks on the Fourth of July. On the outside, we are the very definition of composure, but inside, there are sparklers burning and bombs bursting in air!
In Potential Love Tango, the chemistry between the man and woman is very important, as is everything else: body language, atmosphere, the music, the connection, creativity, etc. Most important of all this stimuli is the woman’s ability to follow. I say ‘ability’ but it is much more than that. The act of following does more than enable the leader to communicate direction to the follower, it is also part of the mating ritual; it is a scene that is embedded in our DNA and we respond by ‘taking the lead’. When a woman makes that kind of connection with you, it is fantastic. ‘Fantastic’ does not describe the feeling nearly enough. For a man, it is a drug, and it is a drug only a woman can give you. It is the spark that lights the fuse to a plethora of explosions: mentally, physically, even socially. It is an aphrodisiac that drives men into battle, launches the conquests of civilizations; it is the seed from which great fortunes are sprung. To put it simply: it is the Spice of Life!
Sure, a tanguera can emulate the ‘act’ to the point where a leader cannot discern the true difference between ‘biological’ and ‘learned’ following. Some instructors can do this quite well, other instructors think they are doing it but they are only fooling themselves. This is one of the many reasons I don’t like to dance with instructors; it is so disappointing to know it isn’t real and it is sad to watch when it is feigned badly.
And that is why it was so important for me to remember my encounter with the aforementioned tanguera. I’m not saying I was ready to go to battle, or conquer a powerful empire or even build a great fortune. I am fifty-one and I’d been tangoing the last four nights; my back was killing me. Several times last night, I had to find a chair because the pain was so great. I had just enough ‘dance’ in me to make this woman happy for a tanda, maybe two, but I would pay for it on the drive home.
This is the reality of the life of a tanguero. I am just a man with a bad back looking for the love drug, wandering from milonga to milonga, and writing about it afterwards. C’est la vie!
“Things will open themselves according
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Granted, I am married …and happily at that, so I am always aware of my self imposed limits. But tango allows an expansion of those limits within the confines of the minutes on the dance floor.
It is surely a very polite gentleman who attends to all the ladies at a milonga, but I have to disagree with you about offering them “social” tango. You would do better to sit down on the sidelines with a cup of tea or glass of wine and enjoy the conversation. Talking while dancing tango is like being in the Masai Mara in Kenya at dawn and talking about a subway ride in midtown Manhattan. It might be an interesting chat, but you are missing the grandeur of where you are. In fact, in some of the milongas in Buenos Aires, it is quite possible that if you are a persistent talker, someone might tap you on the shoulder and ask you to leave.
I have heard explained that the conventions of being on the milonga dance floor have developed so that the dancers will feel part of a whole. You do not dance only for yourself or your partner…or for love, romance or showing what you know..but also to form a harmony in the group. Although I can’t say I’ve experienced that in our tango community, I have experienced this with the Whirling Dervishes while in retreat in the mountains of New Mexico…. sometimes 100 soul searchers in a room. One palm is open to the sky and one palm faces downward to the ground. We turn and turn in our own orbit but also in conjunction with those around us, everyone trying to be present to a mingling of heaven and earth.
I do appreciate a meaningful conversation, especially with someone who can actually inspire me to write on this subject!, but I dance tango to test and increase my own sensitivities and my sensitivity to another. I try to be open only to that moment…maybe starting with an awareness of breath, muscles of the foot, slow transfer of weight…and then one hip to another hip, shoulder moving to shoulder, awareness of tension and balance, length of body. Every dance is sacred in this way. It is my meditation, my religion…this study in awareness that seems to hold the promise of leading the way to the divine…Call it love or happiness.
One never knows which partner will open the door to a freedom of movement so sublime as to erase thought, time, ego, differences, complications and all separation…so that there is nothing left but to kiss and embrace…then walk away and hope to dance again.
What I’m trying to say is that being in that present moment of dance is fulfillment in itself..beyond the need to conquer or sexualize. But doing this with a partner just adds to the fun and the possibility that might open to romance or just a sizzling tanda that you will remember the rest of your life.
I don't disagree with you. Polite Tango and Potential Love Tango both can accomplish those things you mention, especially connecting with the group as a whole. 'Impolite Tango', dancing while talking, takes away from the group's experience, at the very least.
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