Tango Confidential

2011-03-31T09:55:00.001-05:00

How to Fall in Love in 30 Seconds or Prelude to a Kiss

2010-01-14T11:49:00.005-05:00

Tango has an unmentioned, but implicitly understood, 30 Second Rule. It is the quintessential litmus test of chemistry and compatibility that is rarely wrong and it is very simple. This is how it goes.

Someone asks you to dance. You say yes. You observe how he takes your hand or doesn’t. Does he lead you to the dance floor or walk somewhat ahead and you follow? He pauses and stands still and faces you. He opens his arms, offering his invitation to the foyer of the house that is him. He accepts your right hand as your palm slips against his. You gently let your hand float into his, like a feather seeking a unique cradle of fit. Your left hand reaches for his shoulder if his height is near yours or his bicep if he is somewhat taller. A unbreathed sigh settles you into the moment and then….

You wait.

The music starts. You notice if he starts to dance and lead you right away or does he stay still and listen for the music until it seeps into him. You see if he chooses the moment, the exact bar or beat, the precise, scuffed space on the dance floor, the aperture between the other couples, before taking that first step, and you, with him.

Is he a man that can wait for what he wants? Does he hear his own song or does he join the chorus of other men who move in unison like a collective tango fleet on that same first beat? Does he do what is expected or does he listen to his own voice? The two of you are a ship; he is the captain and you are precious cargo or first mate but you have no way of knowing until the first wind fills those sails, if he is able to navigate whatsoever. Until you know, you put more trust in the wind than in the man who shepherds it.

In a second and yet in slow motion, all of him is comes towards you in a sensation of new male person. You are close enough to observe the hair that tease at his collar bone, his shave or lack thereof, and his sideburns and texture of his skin. You see the base of his throat, his Adam’s apple and pulse of his breath and telltale tattoo of his heart that reveals him or his mood - no matter how impassive he seems. You preen quietly – knowing it comes partly from the mandate ahead of him and partly from the very nearness of you. You breathe in gently and test the air between you, subtly inhaling or cologne or laundry soap, shirt starch or him. You delicately, imperceptively, test the scent to see if you can live with it for three minutes of the dance or longer than that. You assess the scent and determine if he is someone to dance with or a man you could make love to- not that you will but it is this primal thing we all do. You can hear his breath and wonder if he hears your own heart race as you try and still it and devote to the dance at hand. You are a tango woman and know how the game is played; like a tango geisha, you disclose nothing.

The dance begins before the first bar.

You sense male confidence battling with his own clamor. Some men tremble slightly, their hands are cold and clammy but you never register or transmit the knowledge. Most men are impassive. And even if not, you never can really discern if they are nervous because of the challenge ahead or maybe it is indeed, as tango efforts not to be: personal.

Some men ignore the premise of letting the woman choose the proximity and choosing close versus open embrace. They draw you to them and your left hand loops around the nape of their neck or they hold you at arms' length – a nod to your prerogative as the follower to stay close or far, as you wish. It is all sublime. You feel him silently the shape of your body, your breasts where they touch his chest in an intimacy that is undeclared as it is tacit. No one says a word. It is so profoundly cool and the fact that it is actually even a legal act still befuddles me.

Some men may smile politely without meeting your eyes. To do more is to commit and no one will commit more than this before the 30 Seconds Rule is passed. To smile dilutes the tension and the mystique. To smile and meet someone’s eyes is to make a pronouncement you cannot yet offer.

The dance begins. All bets are off; the equation is simply this: can he lead me? Can I trust this male human being to guide me on the floor, take me on a tango adventure and bring me back? Will he protect me from the other dancers, hard shoulders of men leading other women; dagger points of other women’s shoes that can pierce my instep if he doesn’t lead well. Does he know what I like? Can he see what I can do? Is his style gentle or quick; does he fill in each bar of music with steps or is he confident enough to wait? Wait for the music, his mood and wait for me – to let me catch up or follow or attune myself. Does he dance with me and for me or for the other men to be impressed. Does he gloss over mistakes and chuckle gallant and low or titch his tongue in exasperation of me and himself. How present is this man? All this data is swirling and tabulating 10 seconds into the dance; you are barely out of the tango harbor.

You adjust your touch on his right hand side and move your hips to contour his, aligning the distance and discrepancies between height and body type. You catch a tiny piece of second wind. He is no longer just a man, or a stranger. Instead you have moved into his country and passed from visiting diplomat to native. He gave you a passport when he asked you to dance. And now you are patriots together, of a newly formed, tiny country of legs, arms, and steps.

The music plays on and now you relax ever so slightly. He can lead and you will be taken care of if you just do your part. Worry melts into the night vapors; you are in safe hands if not yet tango’s promised land.

If he is nervous but a new dancer, you change roles. Instead of him guiding you, you guide him in leading you. You accept him, as is, as a man, certainly but as a new leader. To help bring balance to imbalance, you go somewhat limp, verging on acquiescent but maintaining a vestige of spine - so he can find the energy and force of direction that works for him without battling your energy. You determine, even that, even if he is a novice, if he has tango potential. If so, you give yourself over to his tutoring as he leads you. One day – a year, more years from now - he might be another contender and that is worthy of patience and respect. You respond to the potential that might be there and the tension eases but the dynamics stay.

20 seconds pass and you understand his moves. What was a surprise 20 seconds before is now a pace and a habit. He repeats a series of steps and what was experimental - a series of doled commands and responses, now takes on a finesse. You react well and completely and feel him relax as he sees you read him. He tries something else and you follow in a swathe that is fusion and autonomy all at once. Never a fumble until he introduces a turn you could not anticipate. You jockey again for position, like a restless filly, adjusting just that much more; maybe letting him closer or moving with familiarity to better ground. With newly set intention, the dance continues and an aura of deliberation coats each move. You no longer know where your perfume and his scent starts and stops; you no longer notice and difference in height and the line of his body is only the borderlines of your own. You close your eyes; the room falls away.

The 30 second mark nears. The consensus is not only can he guide you but you are also received.There is a fit. You feel his relief and pleasure behind that impassivity. You know that he knows you are a match for him. You've passed this strange test and now are in tango’s inner circle.

Such 30 second dances birth a set of two, three, more dances. You unconsciously file him in the back recesses of your Tango Partners A list. You have found someone to fall in love with for three dances or maybe more. With him, you can feel safely seduced.

Tango is the ultimate safe sex and consummate, mini romance. You can, if you care to, imagine, for as many bars of music as you need, he is The One. Or you can imagine the one you truly love and truly desire but is not in your life (they have left or not yet appeared), is instead there, partnering you. But always, underneath the tango foreplay is a frontier of a man you could perhaps fall in love with but won’t. It is enough you are finally in the dock of the bay of connection. This feeling lasts as long as the music plays; it is all you want and need. Because any other way is tango at the movies; and this is tango in real life.

The dance or dances end. He nods, less smile this time but his eyes meet yours instead. Tango hosannas. His slight bow and thanks is his way of saying, “Another time – we will dance again. Make no mistake. I will remember you.’ Like thieves sharing magic, it is all sotto voit and sotto emotion. So sweet it is a caress that makes your heart arch. There is no hurry. You will see him again and pray/hope/wish the magic repeats in another 30-second romance that teases your spirit and slakes your soul. And if he never returns or does and the magic is gone, there is always another tango boat on the way. You try not to notice who else he dances with and if he holds her quite the same way or shares precisely the same touch. Some things, within tango or outside it are sacred. But perhaps in tango, we women become territorial she-cats even as we appear to be tripping the light fantastic and above such she/he matters of gravity.

And that is how you fall in love in 30 seconds.

How We End Up at Tango, Little Heartbreak, Big Dance

2009-12-21T12:13:00.016-05:00

Everyone comes to tango with an unspoken reason.

Tango is about dance and music and learning a new skill but the alter reason; the founding, unspoken reason is heartbreak. It is heartbreak in all its forms: greater or lesser, new or long-standing, faded or chronic ache, but heartbreak, pure and simple and as useful as your appendix.
Except - your appendix calm or ruptured will not get you to tango and heartbreak, bless it's horrid little soul...will.

For those who seek refuge in tango or longing fulfilled, that 'it' or id - is there, neatly tucked beneath the clothes, somewhere behind the eyes and non committal smile. But there, at tango, in someone else's unknowing, unjudgmental arms, is the possibility of exorcism of said heartache.

It’s not overt heartbreak - but whatever the pain was, it generally comes out over time, at least to the person you are dancing with. Between steps and changes of shoes, in missed beats and word slips, inevitably, a half story, with half truths, half (and haltingly, and with many interruptions) emerges.

There are seasons versus reasons, that would also have one discover tango – a season of rediscovering your mate, or your love of dance or remembering yourself. But the majority of people come to tango toting a bit of heartbreak, poignant and hidden. I've never seen a case where it wasn't lurking no matter what the disclaimer.

I suppose there are also a contingent of people who are not in overt or too-recent heartbreak and are simply solo and figure: I always liked to dance and maybe, perhaps, maybe….I will meet someone at tango. But that also generally means they’ve been on their own quite awhile and are, if not abjectly pining, a wee bit lonely and therefore primed for tango’s promise. The heartbreak was, in those cases, long ago and far away or perhaps it is simply loneliness, which is protracted heartache which segues to loneliness - the word and state we try so hard to banish, albeit a part of the human condition. For shame. On all counts.

At any rate, the heartbroken gravitate to what they think is tango’s promise in the imagined promised land of seduction. Isn’t tango what the billboard advertised: romance, heat and passion? Admit it, we are not drawn to tango because sushi class was full and we think tango is where we will meet our new platonic friend. Or it was either tango or ceramics or the Pilates school that just opened up in the strip mall. We go because what we think we lost might be found there.

But what I really like about the bobbing tango tales of woe, as they move about the dance floor sewn inside each dancer, is that you really cannot discern the heartbreak. It’s everyone’s back story but one doesn’t wear it on their sleeves. This should immediately alert you to how cool tango people are – even before they really morph into tango people. They are poised and sedate with their heartache. But more than this and this is core about tango: they have to focus on the dance. It is a learning thing and once it is underway, the heartbreak takes a back seat and you re-inherit your pride and anonymity of person-hood. You are again, a civilian.

Now, cast in the great, blessed sea of tango, it no longer really matters who you are or who you were and what brought you to tango. It’s a whole new you in a whole new land. You don't need paperwork for right of passage and you can even throw that old identity behind.

And then you relax. Which means at some point, without thinking too much about it you share your heartache or you listen to someone sharing theirs. And the nicest part about it is, in telling it, there, in someone else’s arms, them leading you or them holding you, it begins to fade. It hardly matters how you came to this strange dark world with its lightness of being and generous, human heart. It no longer carries disproportional weight in the Story of You. Instead, it becomes just one of the many stories of you and one that is not permanently bookmarked at that page.

Tango seductive? Tango romantic? Of course it is. But to start, tango is open-armed. Tango kindly whispers, ‘Come to me with your stories of he-done-you-wrong and she-left- you-again; instead, we will dance. I will find you an imperfect, perfect stranger who appreciates you for all he/she didn’t see’. And in that stranger's arms, sporting their own wounds, you find you hear a new music that surprisingly, as foreign as it is, you can move to it. Soon, you rediscover that you are once again pretty or handsome or charming or interesting but you are no longer forgotten. Your certain specialness that heartbreak efficiently mangled, re-blooms in sweet, gulping little gasps and sighs. Tango sexy? If gratitude is an aphrodisiac, then yes.

But then, on the other side of that generosity, tango does take up the seduction slack. It owns your soul and is loathe to toss you back to the lovers you might have given a second glance. But now you don’t. Because you have a mistress and a lover that won’t quit. True, this lover only sometimes gives back whilst keeping you for itself, but it also never leaves you. And that is something. In a world that changes music and dances every other day – that is something.

Everyone comes to tango with a heartbreak. The wounds you don’t see, are there, healing, bar by bar, beat by beat. Any given place place, any given night, you see are men and women gliding on a dance floor in shadows and echoes until they are like the smoke from a fire, disappearing in the air. All you feel is the residual heat but cannot seem to remember where it came from to begin with.

By the time you meet someone and often times, someone on the dance floor - you can barely remember the heartbreak that first drew you to tango. You are in fact, a whole new animal in another sort of jungle.

On the Subject of Men Who Don't Dance Tango

2008-10-08T09:15:00.000-05:00

When The Party’s Over

Would you like to learn to sing?
Would you like to sing my song?
Would you like to learn to love me best of all?
Anyone can learn the words
And the melody's so plain
This is my song to bring you back again
I'll teach you how to sing and dance
With a song and dance routine
And when the party's over
You can fall in love with me
Would you like to learn to tango?
Do you dance the light fandango?
Teach you how before we're done
Anyone can make it two
Any two can turn to one
And the melody's lost before the song's begun

From When the Party’s Over
Words and Music Janis Ian

Two women talking, in the hallway, outside the dance hall of a tango studio.

First Woman:
Hola – Long time, no see. You haven’t been here in awhile.

Second Woman
I met someone.

First Woman
Serious?

Second Woman
I think so. It’s been a few months. It’s going well.

First Woman
Does he tango?

Second Woman
(Cautiously) No.

First Woman
Is he interested in trying?

Second Woman
He says he might try it.

First Woman (Grimaces sympathetically)
I understand. I really hope it works out.

Second Woman (slightly despondent)
Me too. He’s really special but I can’t give up tango.

First Woman
Well, of course not. It is understood. Who could? Who does?

On the Subject of Men Who Don’t Dance Tango

Of course, the men you are dating are cool on the subject of tango.

They twitch and fidget the minute you mention you do tango. You ‘do’ tango - heavens – even saying it like that makes me curdle inside. How inadequate. But that is how you say it to the civilian world. No one ‘does’ tango of course; it is not like ceramics or Pilates. It is - it becomes - your life. It is soul reaching and altering and yet somewhat ill advisedly but understandably, it is the first thing you share when you dating.

”I do tango’ .

Yes, I’m sure. Quite.

Well, of course the man you are dating is likely to be more than disinterested unless he was considering tango himself anyway – which means he has Tango Soul Potential, and at the very least, that self-discovery thing going for him. But more often than not they will say, ‘I have two left feet’ or is that like Arthur Murray or in the movies? Or I hate dancing or isn’t that for sissies or phony Latin lovers? They mimic a dramatic, exaggerated tango dip and chuckle. You try to chuckle back casually but your heart goes crestfallen as hearts can do. Mostly, they seemed bored and tune out for a minute when you mention it. You could have mentioned your once-weekly yoga or Tupperware session with the girls for all the response you get. Well honestly, what man wants to hear that a new woman he is dating is not-so-terribly physically exclusive? Moreover, not exclusive because, in fact, she is dancing some of her nights away, and away from him specifically and in the arms of not one, but possibly – and more significantly, many strange men! I mean, there it is. What can be clearer?

I am sure more than one has thought ‘Why does she need tango? She has me now”. Right off the bat they are competing against the ultimate rival lover: the unknown, sometimes yet undanced-with, tango dancer. The ultimate, other man. Tango is not like any other pursuit and you can pretend until the cows come home and dance tango themselves that it is ‘only dancing’ and not romance but it is a human collision and the possibility of something happening or at least, your soul waking up is always there. Seasoned tango dancers are a bit more immune than that of course, otherwise you would fall in fall with each new dance, each new partner but the fact is, you are in the embrace of someone else, laminated against them, bound by the contract of the melody and rhythm of the music, and for those 3 minutes at least, you are unfaithful to someone or faithful to tango. Tango is not chess or fly fishing; it is ignitable, unspoken, undeclared things which is why it is so addictive. To give up tango in service to having a relationship outside it is like hacking off your soul to make it fit shoes that almost fit. So, if your new romance is not in tango and does not want to learn, you learn, instead, to compartmentalize, or hone that ability. Not so hard to do when you go from partner to partner in the course of a milonga anyway.

You know, if a man I cared for tangoed and I didn’t, frankly, I would be unnerved too. But I would quickly learn to tango – maybe not even tell him. Find a class and learn on the sly. Surprise him and perhaps keep him near and move things into the next level of what-we-can-explore-and-do-together’. Otherwise I too, would imagine he’d be falling in love every other dance and come to me, wafting stale l’Air de Temps. Chanel #19 or worse – that simple, natural scent of another.

One woman I once spoke with - a tall blond Russian math student confessed, “I sneak out to tango. I tell my boyfriend I am having a drink with my girlfriends. He does not dance; he cannot see why I must and so I lie. I left him home hours ago, fast asleep on the couch, watch some reality show, and before I return, I will change my shoes so he doesn’t ask. I hate lying but I cannot give up tango’.

Now – this is ridiculous because up until recently, I have never been remotely attracted to anyone I have met at tango. It is the code. Like French prostitutes who don’t kiss, you don’t fall in love with each tango partner you have. It’s not done and not cool and if it does happen, it is rare and special if and only then.

But you tell a man you dance tango so he has an idea of what is important to you and how that delicate nuance of music, rhythm, mood, and partner so captures you. You make the mistake of thinking you do not appear clingy or without a life and interests and a worth in other venues, however platonic. You want him to know about you and tango and that is your passion so he will know you. But it has the opposite effect.

Many men greet the news so frostily, it is almost as if you haven’t said anything, that inside, a part of you shrivels and you wonder – if you do fall in love with this ‘him’ – this real ‘him’ -the rival of all the tango partners past, present and future, if you will have to give not only them up, but tango itself– which, not unlike the marriage deal – is like giving up your own country and living forever as an ex-patriot in a land that does not even recognize the Republic of Tango.

Well, what do you want them to say? That they love the idea of you dancing with other men? All the time all they are thinking is how do you even do that without touching the other man – without your breasts grazing some other man’s chest? Depending on the woman (such as me, for example) the clearance factor might be rather nil and you are grazing no matter how you stand, close embrace or not.

Yes, I am sure most men who don’t dance tango listen to you confess you do and smile benignly but all the time they are thinking of how difficult it might be to keep your interest – She does tango. She might leave. Hard to hold. Hell, who needs this?

When so much about maleness is about power, the idea that here is a woman already roaming in a whole other garden of male prowess, it is entirely possible that a non-tango man, might feel threatened which he cannot admit so he might just as well let go. A sman with spine who is into you will fight the good fight but this might be a battle beyond. On the other hand, if he leaves, little does he know, umpteen pairs of male arms are there to catch you anyway.

A simple truth: A man that can lead; a man that can dance – he is more likely to keep his woman - if only as a tango partner. That woman knows she is taken care of. She is not controlled, dominated or even led. She is guided by male confidence and a man who receives her in an elemental way that has been the way it has been ever since we all left Eden. Why doesn’t everyone get this? If people only read Genesis and came to tango, the self-help book section would never exist. Women wouldn’t even give “He’s Just Not Into You’ the time of day since somewhere, there is a man who leads her like a swam onto the dance floor and opens her like a fan in three bars of music. How’s your pulse? Still ticking?

A man that knows how to dance, he has something over all the other men. He is macho in a way that is primal and as old as time. He likes being a man, he has music in his soul and his limbs and his heart. This beats anything Hallmark and Victoria’s Secret could ever dream up.

You think they call romance ‘the dance’ for nothing? Really. Think about it. I mean, where do you think they got that? One step forward. One step back. Resolution in that embrace, denunciation, articulation, chase, pause, capture……repeat. The dance, (what do they say about it “Tango is a horizontal wish expressed vertically?) done well, puts foreplay to shame. Everyone does it differently. You see it on the dance floor –unfolding, never ending, mini seductions. It lives from bar to bar, twisted, syncopated, quarter note-to-quarter note: it is achingly endless. It is the most pure of legal, mood altering narcotics I know.

Off the dance floor, the dance is called, and is, the Game. The Game is what you do when you are not sure of where you want to be and whom you want to be with. The game lets you buy time. The dance is what you do when you are pretty sure you want to be there but you are pretending – eking it out as it were – so that you can savor every beat, every touch, every motion that is a motion away.

Which brings me to the ultimate, unvoiced dream: how would it be to dance tango with a man you did want, could love, could be with?

I always say ‘you don’t meet anyone at tango’ because for years I have seen the same men and women line the tango floor, sipping their solitary glass of wine or Perriers (tango people are not big drinkers), and dancing with who they know or occasionally a new person but I do not see much romance happening. Chances are, it happens outside tango –you take on new person in your life; it may last and you necessarily drop out of tango for two reasons. If tango was not about your soul then anyone who holds you is distraction enough. Or, they simply do not care for you going off on a Friday or Saturday night while you do tango or care to watch you dance with other men so you stop tango in order to not lose what you think (hope or dread) might replace tango.

The good part about romances that do not work out is that there is still, and always tango, and someone to catch you. But if you lose tango? Well, that outside thing better figure in the soul mate column – because that is some sacrifice.

So, how would it be to find someone at tango? How would it be to be held by a man you were attracted to – mind, body, spirit – to dance with him? How would it be to dance with someone you could see caring for, making love to, and even being with outside in the real world, beyond tango? See? The reverse scenario?

Could a tango union retain it’s magic outside of tango? If there is only the dance – but somehow you soul, spirit and mind is not reached – could tango ever be enough?

Well, if I find out, and I intend to someday, I will tell you. Actually, someday soon….I would think…….for tango, always a blood sport….is heating up.

I Am A Tango Dancer

2007-12-31T02:14:00.001-05:00

I am a writer, a master baker, a maker of perfume, a mother of sons but before these things, perhaps the most integral sinew that is laced through those other roles, I am a tango dancer.

I have never been to Argentina. I am not Latin in this or any other lifetime that I can recall. I speak English, and French and understand Italian but I do not know much of anything in Spanish other than the word hola. But in tango, I speak the language. Not only do I speak the language, but I am intimately conversant with tango’s slang and its metaphors; its dialect and its every sub dialect – each and every nuance and turn of phrase in each and every turn of hips. My lips never move but my body speaks tango which is essentially voiced and articulated in strings of tumbling expression, lavished by the language of limbs, articulated and nuanced with the music, and all puppeteered by the soul.

A tango dancer is a unique being that crosses time, history, culture, age, gender, music, and god. I am what they term a tanquero - a willing hostage who has, on her tango journey, morphed into something native, a supplicant to tango’s rhythm, and a student of its many lessons.

In tango’s embrace, you become unrecognizable to those who know you best and yet most present, most real, most recognizable to yourself. It is not about the dance itself; it is barely about romance. It is everything and anything to do with connection and intimacy of the spirit.

Tango has a very simply contract. It asks you to dance and you say yes and then you surrender. That is all and that is everything. This surrender is not evidenced by a laying down of weaponry or turning over of terrain or territory but in a relinquishment of another order. Tango takes no prisoners but once you dance it – you never can return to who and what you were. You might leave the dance floor and even neglect tango for a time, but it it stays with you in cellular persistance and pulses in your blood. It makes you proud and strong but make no mistake: it owns you.

I am a tango dancer. My legs twitch like an impatient horse when I yearn to dance. Left to wait at an elevator door, a bank or movie lineup my legs will do ouchos by default, flexing in memory and habit. Alone on a street at night or in the park by the fountains in the mid day where all or anyone can see, tango has a way and its will and so I dance, unharnessed, uncaring, seemingly unpartnered but I will dance.

I am a tango dancer, nothing more, nothing less than a courtesan to passion’s footwork and the draw of a God who is only as sensual as she is divine. Whatever else I look like, wherever else I am born from, whatever else I do and speak and am – I am tango to the bone.

Tango is etched and in a rare ink in an indelible bar code only other tango souls can see. We see each other sometimes, in a crowd, a café, passing in the street and we smile but we say nothing. We nod and eyes quietly salute. We have no need to neither talk outside tango nor ask what our lives outside that life, is like. It is a given we exist in moments and touches and that space between the bars of music where there is no sound, only salvation.

Tango is the lullaby that croons me to sleep; it is the bird song that wakes me if I sleep too long. It makes me come alive when I tell life I have lost my passion simply in insisting I dance and stay the course until I find my passion again. So I dance; first - to appease the tango spirits and ultimately, to rescue myself. Both tango and I are quenched as we glide onto the floor, sighing in our reunion, proxied by the arms of another human being in a similar engagement. It's just how's its done.

Shhhh….Do you hear that sound? That flick and slither? That is a hiss of a gypsy whip; It is tango’s kiss. Like a tongue seeking truth, tango sabotages the senses and ambushes the heart. It is not a pastime. It is not like fox trot, rumba, flashy salsa or elegant waltz. Ballroom dance is form over content; tango is content beyond form. It is in every breath you intake and spill out onto the floor in four/four time.

It
is .......
every breath you take and every breath you take again until you are back and in the dance, caught, flung, fused, flung and swept to a place where you are lost and found and reborn. And then the dance begins again. Forever tango....

Shall We Dance? A Book on Tango is Born.....

2007-07-19T04:51:00.000-05:00

Tango Lessons

Voulez Vous Danzez Avec Moi?

Do you know how to tango?
C’est facile -
You place your hand
Softly on my back
And it's
Step, glide, glide...
If you will lead
I will follow
And gently bring you back
Dance is just
A matter of trust
A simple exercise
In parry and thrust.
Can you tango -
Will you tango with me?

From Tango Confidential 2007
© Marcy Goldman

Tango Confidential looks like a blog but it is the architecture for a print book that is already in the midst of its creation. In essence, this blog is really a staging area for me as author but it exists for those who need just a touch of art and layout to imagine the tango book that has long existed in my mind’s eye.

Tango Confidential is a series of essays and personal memoirs from my life on the dance floor. Each chapter exists on its own but taken as a collection, it a series of tango snapshops that focus and broaden, as the pace of tango itself changes.

If you have always dreamed of tango but were too cautious to go, this is your opportunity to explore it from the safety of your day-to-day life. If you are drawn to romance and wonder where passion lives, then that too, you will find it here, in the shape of the tango twilight place that few but true tangueros are privvy to. But I warn you. What you will encounter here, in the words and between the lines, will have you smitten; even more so, beguiled. Your toes will begin tapping; your heart will start a quiet drumming and your senses will reel in a not-so-subtle impatience to be out there – in tango. It is impossible to read about tango and not want to experience it...and so you shall.

Tango is worldwide; there is always place to tango somewhere, 24-7, in some time zone – in tango classes, in tango soirees and dance halls, outdoor milongas, and as I do, on the streets where you live – spotlighted by a full moon and glow of the stars. Those are the times you don’t even need a partner and you never miss a step.

I have danced every step and nuance of the words that unfold here. Yet for all that, for all the pairs scuffed tango shoes, black stockings, and perfume del tango that make up the mileage of my experience, this is only a taste of tango. Doubtless such a morsel will leave you hungry. There is no cure for that hunger but there is a temporary tonic each time you dance. It soothes the soul and such dances are solace for the sensualist. But dances end. The hours between them pass, days stack up and then you think, it is time to get back to tango. And so you can - for I am your emissary between the winged world of tango and the other world we live in by default - that world without the wings.

Welcome to this special demi-monde that starts after dark and struts its stuff long after most of the world has gone to sleep. What did Rumi say? Don't go back to sleep. Come with me instead. Come to tango. It begins now and with one simple phrase that is the same, no matter what the language. It is simply and always:

Shall we dance?

And the answer is simply and always:

Yes.

On the Subject of Men Who Don't Dance Tango

2007-04-18T18:33:00.000-05:00

When The Party’s Over
Words and lyrics, Janis Ian

Would you like to learn to sing?
Would you like to sing my song?
Would you like to learn to love me best of all?
Anyone can learn the wordsAnd the melody's so plain
This is my song to bring you back again
I'll teach you how to sing and dance
With a song and dance routine
And when the party's over
You can fall in love with me
Would you like to learn to tango?
Do you dance the light fandango?
Teach you how before we're done
Anyone can make it two
Any two can turn to one
And the melody's lost before the song's begun

Two women talking, in the hallway, outside the dance hall of a tango studio.

First Woman
Hola – Long time, no see. You haven’t been here in awhile.

Second Woman
I met someone.

First Woman
Serious?

Second Woman
I think so. It’s been a few months. It’s going well.

First Woman
Does he tango?

Second Woman
(Cautiously) No.

First Woman
Is he interested in trying?

Second Woman
He says he might try it.

First Woman (Grimaces sympathetically)
I understand. I really hope it works out.

Second Woman (slightly despondent)
Me too. He’s really special but I can’t give up tango.

First Woman
Well, of course not. Who could? Who does?

Of course, the men you are dating are cool on the subject of tango.

They twitch and fidget the minute you mention you do tango. You ‘do’ tango - heavens – even saying it like that makes me curdle inside. How inadequate. But that is how you say it to the civilian world. No one ‘does’ tango of course; it is not like ceramics or Pilates. It is - it becomes - your life. It is soul reaching and altering and yet somewhat ill advisedly but understandably, it is the first thing you share when you dating.
”I do tango’ . Yes, I’m sure. Quite.

Well, of course the man you are dating is likely to be more than disinterested unless he was considering tango himself anyway – which means he has Tango Soul Potential, and at the very least, that self-discovery thing going for him. But more often than not they will say, ‘I have two left feet’ or is that like Arthur Murray or in the movies? Or I hate dancing or isn’t that for sissies or phony Latin lovers? They mimic a dramatic, exaggerated tango dip and chuckle. You try to chuckle back casually but your heart goes crestfallen as hearts can do. Mostly, they seemed bored and tune out for a minute when you mention it. You could have mentioned your once-weekly yoga or Tupperware session with the girls for all the response you get. Well honestly, what man wants to hear that a new woman he is dating is not-so-terribly physically exclusive? Moreover, not exclusive because, in fact, she is dancing some of her nights away, and away from him specifically and in the arms of not one, but possibly – and more significantly, many strange men! I mean, there it is. What can be clearer?

I am sure more than one has thought ‘Why does she need tango? She has me now”. Right off the bat they are competing against the ultimate rival lover: the unknown, sometimes yet undanced-with, tango dancer. The ultimate, other man. Tango is not like any other pursuit and you can pretend until the cows come home and dance tango themselves that it is ‘only dancing’ and not romance but it is a human collision and the possibility of something happening or at least, your soul waking up is always there.

Seasoned tango dancers are a bit more immune than that of course, otherwise you would fall in love with someone new, with each new dance. The unspoken fact is, you are in the embrace of someone else, laminated against them, bound by the contract of the melody and rhythm of the music, and for those 3 minutes at least, you are at once being faithful to tango but unfaithful to someone else (lover or previous tango partner). Let's be frank - tango is not chess or fly fishing; it is ignitable, unspoken, undeclared essential things which is why it is so addictive. To give up tango in service to having a relationship outside it is like hacking off your soul to make it fit shoes that almost fit. So, if your new romance is not in tango and does not want to learn, you learn, instead, to compartmentalize, or hone that ability. Not so hard to do when you go from partner to partner in the course of a milonga anyway.

You know, if a man I cared for was into tango and I was not - frankly, I would be unnerved too. But I would quickly learn to tango – maybe not even tell him. Find a class and learn on the sly. Surprise him and perhaps keep him near and move things into the next level of what-we-can-explore-and-do-together’. Otherwise I too, would imagine he’d be falling in love every other dance and come to me, wafting stale l’Air de Temps. Chanel #19 or worse – that simple, natural scent of another.

One woman I once spoke with - a tall blond Russian math student confessed, “I sneak out to tango. I tell my boyfriend I am having a drink with my girlfriends. He does not dance; he cannot see why I must and so I lie. I left him home hours ago, fast asleep on the couch, watching some reality show. Before I return, I will change my shoes and spash water on my face and neck (to wash off the scent of the aftershave of the other men). This way, he doesn’t ask - he notices nothing. I hate lying but I cannot give up tango’.

But you tell a man you dance tango so he has an idea of what is important to you and how that delicate nuance of music, rhythm, mood, and partner so captures you. You make the mistake of thinking you do not appear clingy or without a life and interests and a worth in other venues, however platonic. You want him to know about you and tango and that is your passion so he will know you. But it has the opposite effect.

Many men greet the news so frostily, it is almost as if you haven’t said anything, that inside, a part of you shrivels and you wonder – if you do fall in love with this ‘him’ – this real ‘him’ -the rival of all the tango partners past, present and future, if you will have to give not only them up, but tango itself– which, not unlike the marriage deal – is like giving up your own country and living forever as an ex-patriot in a land that does not even recognize the Republic of Tango. Well, what do you want them to say? That they love the idea of you dancing with other men? All the time all they are thinking is how do you even do that without touching the other man – without your breasts grazing some other man’s chest? Depending on the woman (such as me, for example) the clearance factor might be rather nil and you are grazing no matter how you stand, close embrace or not.

Yes, I am sure most men who don’t dance tango listen to you confess you do and smile benignly but all the time they are thinking of how difficult it might be to keep your interest – She does tango. She might leave. Hard to hold. Hell, who needs this? When so much about maleness is about power, the idea that here is a woman already roaming in a whole other garden of male prowess, it is entirely possible that a non-tango man, might feel threatened which he cannot admit so he might just as well let go. A sman with spine who is into you will fight the good fight but this might be a battle beyond. On the other hand, if he leaves, little does he know, umpteen pairs of male arms are there to catch you anyway.

A simple truth: A man that can lead; a man that can dance – he is more likely to keep his woman - if only as a tango partner. That woman knows she is taken care of. She is not controlled, dominated or even led. She is guided by male confidence and a man who receives her in an elemental way that has been the way it has been ever since we all left Eden. Why doesn’t everyone get this? If people only read Genesis and came to tango, the self-help book section would never exist. Women wouldn’t even give “He’s Just Not Into You’ the time of day since somewhere, there is a man who leads her like a swam onto the dance floor and opens her like a fan in three bars of music. How’s your pulse? Still ticking?

A man that knows how to dance, he has something over all the other men. He is macho in a way that is primal and as old as time. He likes being a man, he has music in his soul and his limbs and his heart. This beats anything Hallmark and Victoria’s Secret could ever dream up. The funny thing is, a man that is unattractive to me will get my attention as a man, if he leads me well as a dancer. I reaccess. But a man who has my attention already, if he cannot leave, something in me, alas, wilts. Much like sharing a sense of humour or enjoying the same foods, there is a intimacy there that is a precursor of other things. I don't suppose it is a deal breaker but it is a truth I have not yet been able to ignore. The bigger truth is the latter one however wherein a man that is unexceptional becomes notable - for the connection he can offer me on the dance floor. Tango with benefits, someone once called it.

You think they call romance ‘the dance’ for nothing? Really. Think about it. I mean, where do you think they got that? One step forward. One step back. Resolution in that embrace, denunciation, articulation, chase, pause, capture……repeat. The dance, (what do they say about it “Tango is a horizontal wish expressed vertically?) done well, puts foreplay to shame. Everyone does it differently. You see it on the dance floor –unfolding, never ending, mini seductions. It lives from bar to bar, twisted, syncopated, quarter note-to-quarter note: it is achingly endless. It is the most pure of legal, mood altering narcotics I know.

Off the dance floor, the dance is called, and is, the Game. The Game is what you do when you are not sure of where you want to be and whom you want to be with. The game lets you buy time. The dance is what you do when you are pretty sure you want to be there but you are pretending – eking it out as it were – so that you can savor every beat, every touch, every motion that is a motion away.

Which brings me to the ultimate, unvoiced dream: how would it be to dance tango with a man you did want, could love, could be with? Now – this is ridiculous because up until recently, I have never been remotely attracted to anyone I have met at tango. It is the code. Like French prostitutes who don’t kiss, you don’t fall in love with each tango partner you have. It’s not done and not cool and if it does happen, it is rare and special if and only then.

I always say ‘you don’t meet anyone at tango’ because for years I have seen the same men and women line the tango floor, sipping their solitary glass of wine or Perriers (tango people are hardly big drinkers), and dancing with who they know or occasionally a new person but I do not see much romance happening.

Chances are, it happens outside tango –you take on new person in your life; it may last and you necessarily drop out of tango for two reasons. If tango was not about your soul then anyone who holds you is distraction enough. Or, they simply do not care for you going off on a Friday or Saturday night while you do tango or care to watch you dance with other men so you stop tango in order to not lose what you think (hope or dread) might replace tango.

The good part about romances that do not work out is that there is still, and always tango, and someone to catch you. But if you lose tango? Well, that outside thing better figure in the soul mate column – because that is some sacrifice.

So, how would it be to find someone at tango? How would it be to be held by a man you were attracted to – mind, body, spirit – to dance with him? How would it be to dance with someone you could see caring for, making love to, and even being with outside in the real world, beyond tango? See? The reverse scenario?

Could a tango union retain it’s magic outside of tango? If there is only the dance – but somehow you soul, spirit and mind is not reached – could tango ever be enough? Well, if I find out, and I intend to someday, I will tell you. Actually, someday soon….I would think, or so it seems to be, for tango, always a blood sport….is certainly heating up. I will keep you posted from the front lines.

From Tango Confidential © Marcy Goldman 2007

Blind Man, Dancing Tango

2007-02-03T07:19:00.000-05:00

From Scent of a Woman, Al Pacino

So, Donna,
Do you tango?

No. I wanted to learn once, but --

But ?

But Michael……Michael didn't want to.

Michael, the one you're waiting for?

Yes, Michael thinks the tango's hysterical.

Well, I think Michael's hysterical. Don’t pay any attention to him.
(She laughs)

What a beautiful laugh.

Thank you, Frank.

Would you like to learn to tango, Donna ?

Right now ?

I'm offering you my services..free of charge. What do you say?
What do you say ?

Ah...I think I’d be a little afraid.

Of what ?

Afraid of making a mistake.

There are no mistakes in the tango, not like life.
It's simple. That's what makes the tango so great.
If you make a mistake, get all tangled up, just tango on.
Why don't you try ? Will you try it?

All right. I'll give it a try.

I used to see him every once in awhile and not yet notice him but simply because over time spent on the tango dance floor, you get to know the usual suspects. People, even odd people, marginal people which is to some extent, everyone at tango, fade into the wood of the floor. Alternatively they become tango wallpaper, surrounding until you only really notice if someone points someone else out, and then that part of the wallpaper becomes an impression who, when added to the memory of a sensational trio of dances, becomes a person. The best you can do is usually say, “Ah yes, him….the guy with the earring or her, the one with the red and black patent shoes and him, the blind guy”.

The Blind Guy was actually called Michael. He blended in so well I scarcely noticed he was blind until one day I saw him arrive at tango class by cab with his dog, a black Labrador, ever by his side. A tango dancer with a black Lab is an image one remembers. Arriving by cab is another one. Tango people all seem to walk or stroll to tango. Those who live further away bike or take the metro. I am on the short list of people that drive a Toyota and drive not from some trendy place in another part of town but simply the suburbs where the only tango is continental tango given at the strip mall’s Arthur Murray outlet.

When I began noticing Michael, other tango students, noticing me notice, would whisper to me, as he carefully made his way into the room at a soiree or some other tango event, ‘Michael, you know, is quite blind but he has been coming to tango for many years. He usually takes a cab but sometimes, Micheline or Carlos brings him or takes him home at times. The dog is adorable and so patient’.

I admit to being more than a bit curious about Michael, having grown up and shared my room, as a kid, with my grandmother who was also blind. As a sighted person, you get attuned, without being aware of it, in being around blind people. While it is true that they cannot see, you, for virtue of having been so much a part of their eyeless sphere, move in your own altered state ever after – well, at least, concerning the blind.

At any rate, one day, one class, Michael turned up in my tango class. Tango 3.
Everyone greeted him with hugs and two-cheeked kisses, as most knew him and he certainly was acquainted with all of them. Moreover, he seemed popular. His dog, Austin, lay obediently at one of the café tables his master installed him at, and gave a dog’s sigh, as he anticipated two hours of tango music. How patient he seemed! Dog and master, both entirely in black….how appropriately, how utterly tango. But it was dance time and this was a working dog, having his break. It was his master’s turn to take the floor. Austin yawned and settled in.

At the switch partner time, I was matched with Michael, finally. He introduced himself to me and I found his first language was English, rather than French, which made things, at least for me, easier. “How do you do?” he said, I am Michael. The music started and we were off. Bon voyage, as we say in tango.

Michael moved in a very studied, deliberate way. He held me closer than the other men, and his cues, as far as the movement of other dancers went, was different. He never, ever, once collided with another couple nor bumped me into someone else. Other dancers do; it happens - but Michael had a sixth sense about that. I began to trust him more, knowing we would be ok. Sometimes, I caught him smile as we executed one step or another without a mishap. We tried more and had more success. “Are you a dancer?” he asked. “I mean, do you dance aside from tango? I can feel it in how you carry yourself ” I was pleased he noticed and said, yes, I am a dancer.

The instructor stopped the class to offer more counsel. Michael rested his hand on one of my shoulders. I learned he preferred to always keep physical contact with his partners, whether they were dancing at the moment or not.

I got used to Michael’s way of leading. I never moved away from him, if we had been dancing, and there was always some part of our bodies that touched the other. Anywhere else with anyone else, Anyone else, anywhere else, that could be perceived as a pass but at dance, especially tango, it is not. Certainly with Michael it was as natural as breathing. One day I was standing near him but not too close as I was not his partner. But he turned and said “Marcy, is that you?” I said yes, and kissed him hello on both cheeks, oddly, mildly ashamed I had not made my presence known and greeted him earlier on. “How did you know?” I asked him.

“Oh, that is easy. Your scent. You always smell like lilacs or lily of the valley or you have one other scent – something with jasmine and roses. It is easy to know you” he smiled, ‘even when you are steps away. I could pick you out like a flower on the dance floor, he chuckled.

Ah, I thought, this is territory I know: a man flirting. I smiled. He felt rather than saw my smile and gave me one in return. Sometimes I stumbled and Michael would subtly guide me and it was an inverse – blind-man-leading-sighted-woman.

When I mention Michael once in awhile to other people, they say, ah ha, just like that scene in Scent of a Woman. I want to say no – that is movies; that is Hollywood tango. At any rate, if that is an image that makes Michael real to them and inspires them to dance, that is ok. Truth is, I like Al Pacino fine but he is an actor. I bet he does not even dance, let alone tango, since he made that movie and he pretended, consummate actor that he is, to be blind. I bet he misses the dance just a bit more than all of us who mention the scene. How could he not?

I saw Michael some other times after that session and occasionally I see him at tango evenings and other tango schools. I dance with a lot of men and have many other partners as we all do. When a partner of mine has a hard time or the dance floor is particularly traffic-filled, and we bump and collide with other couples, I fob it off. That is how it is handled by any of us – it happens. But inside I muse, in the kindest of ways, ‘Michael was blind and yet he guided me perfectly.“ He trusted that other dancers would not crash into him; he trusted his own dancing. He led me without faltering, out from his own inner, uniquely lit world into a dark one. Michael trusted it would just be alright. It was. And we were.

At the end of the evening, other tango dancers would bring Michael a glass of water and a bowl of water for his dog. Hugs goodbye and a pat for Austin and Michael, accompanied by another student dancer, would leave. I wondered how he got home until I saw one of the other dancers that knew him well hail a cab for him outside. He got in and I assume, went home. I liked seeing the other tango dance transform from tanquero into helpmate. It showed me another dimension of them as well - the humanity part.

I always remember how I liked dancing with Michael. He reminded me of that closeness of spirit I shared with my grandmother. You forget, you know – but it is a bond you have you do not know you have until you encounter another blind person. But the other thing about dancing with a blind man is another lesson entirely. The thing is, and I should know this having lived with a blind person, but more so, for having danced with one: some people just have this inner compass that guides them. You worry for them but they are, in fact, just fine. In the end, you do not always have to see to lead. You just have to know what you are about. You do not have to see to know where you are going.

Tango, much like life, is about a hunch about direction. You give it a shot. Then you put one step in front of the other. From a distance, it looks like dancing.
From a greater distance, it looks like a straight line. Take it one step further and it almost looks though you know where you are going. If two people do this together, in harmony – well, that is a sight to see. A blind man could tell you how incredible that is.