In a real dance the life around the edges of the floor goes fuzzy and blurs out. The movement and the music and the partner become somehow, without one even being conscious of when or how, for a few precious, too few minutes, the whole world.
To be so much the wanted focus of the partner - who may be a stranger - and to give that, is special. It is an attitude. It has nothing to do with a technique or a figure. To trust that way or to be given that trust, to sense what comes of that during the dance... The whole is a union of compatibilities: of sensing the music, of sensing movement in the other, of bodies compatible in dance and of feeling towards the other.
No wonder we don’t talk about it. How could we, beyond this? Perhaps that is what tango music is like, that sense of reaching out for something lost or rare or absent, something we had at one time, but not now.
Yet from the way people often talk about the dance especially in online forums, those sinkholes of idiocy, some never feel this. Or at least their compatibilities are very different, say to mine. I meant to warn you not to watch that if you love Laurenz.
It is as though as soon as there is any mention of a feeling people look at you very Britishly, suspiciously and askance at this mention of an inner emotional life, as if you have said a dirty word.
- I don't want a relationship with my dance partners the more forward of them scoff.
- Well, no perhaps not, at least not in that sense but....
- I just want to dance with them!
It is hard to explain and one realises there is no point.
Proponents of the just want to dance with them view are often happy dancing with almost anyone. Of these, the women object to dancers not swapping partners or people being choosy about partners, or they object to same-sex dancing, especially between men, or inverted role dancing - anything in fact which prevents the possibility of a man dancing with them.
No wonder we don’t talk about it. How could we, beyond this? Perhaps that is what tango music is like, that sense of reaching out for something lost or rare or absent, something we had at one time, but not now.
Yet from the way people often talk about the dance especially in online forums, those sinkholes of idiocy, some never feel this. Or at least their compatibilities are very different, say to mine. I meant to warn you not to watch that if you love Laurenz.
It is as though as soon as there is any mention of a feeling people look at you very Britishly, suspiciously and askance at this mention of an inner emotional life, as if you have said a dirty word.
- I don't want a relationship with my dance partners the more forward of them scoff.
- Well, no perhaps not, at least not in that sense but....
- I just want to dance with them!
It is hard to explain and one realises there is no point.
Proponents of the just want to dance with them view are often happy dancing with almost anyone. Of these, the women object to dancers not swapping partners or people being choosy about partners, or they object to same-sex dancing, especially between men, or inverted role dancing - anything in fact which prevents the possibility of a man dancing with them.
It is difficult in the UK, to find a whole tanda of good classic tracks that permit that kind of special dance. It requires a whole good tanda, a compatible partner, good dancing conditions, which are many, and the mood to dance. Compatible attitude is the rarest of these things. I mean only an attitude one senses within the dance because often one doesn’t know anything about the partner. In a year, I might find it in a handful of guys - a good year. It is so rare and almost never present in a British guy.
Perhaps if more people knew what a real dance was like they would not go chasing how to obtain it - and diminishing their chances - by going to dance class. Because what you learn in class does the opposite of equipping you to experience those real dances.
Perhaps if more people knew what a real dance was like they would not go chasing how to obtain it - and diminishing their chances - by going to dance class. Because what you learn in class does the opposite of equipping you to experience those real dances.
Real dances like these are where the girl at least loses track of time and place and needs to be escorted off the floor as, in those final seconds she comes back to reality feeling, Over so soon?
No comments:
Post a Comment