Here's an example, from Carlo Suara's 1998 film, Tango.
What do you see? I'm guessing it's something like this: A simple tableau. A beautiful woman, moving expressively. Passion. A (somewhat stereotypical) presentation of Argentine tango.
What do I see? Beauty in simplicity. A melancholic song. A guitar, a bandoneon. A woman in red, moving with the music. Chiaroscuro lighting. Suara has created something amazing here. But it also feels wrong, in part because of what I'm thinking: that this is the stereotype of A-tango. More upsettingly: the dancer's movements will become the template for some who are new to Argentine tango.
Why does this trouble me?
It's taken some time, but I can't abide the stereotype. (And, perhaps I've become an overzealous anti-stereotypist?) There is something very subtle and profound about the kind of tango I love. I think these qualities get lost when the gestures get big. The dancer in this clip isn't making many big gestures; she is, however, doing a great job of showing how not to be subtle. Her movements "work" – with the help of her costuming and her beauty she presents a solo dance that speaks to desire, sensuality, display. But her movements don't speak about the mature, juicy, substantial eroticism of tango.
Let me elaborate: ankles, feet, knees – the profundity of this dance lies in the details. In the embrace between the lead and the follow. In the many caresses that take place in a dance: the follow's arm caressing the shoulders of the lead, the touch of cheek to cheek or forehead to forehead, the lead's arm across the follow's shoulder blades – and the many, many caresses that take place between the feet and the floor, the ankles, the knees. That is, the ways in which the lead's ankles come together, brush each other as feet kiss the floor through each step. The ways in which the follow's knees rarely come apart, are always looking to be together, to maintain balance and form, to maintain a delicacy of movement and of passion.
This is especially true of salon-style tango. Other styles – nuevo, fusion, neo, ballroom – are much more broadly painted. But even there, attention to these small caresses is what gives the dance its deeper magic.
Humble pie... lessons in humility
Perhaps I sound like one of the traditionalists I used to disparage when I first started to dance this dance. I came from a ballroom tango background, where large movements and broad gestures are the defining elements. It took me some time to lose my fascination for this drama, to appreciate the small dramas that now seem so much more interesting, passionate, and nourishing to me as a dancer and as a man. I've eaten some crow, had some lessons in humility. But these are of a piece with other life lessons that keep me moving in the direction of grace, the elegance of simplicity, the profundity of intimate co-creative activity. And that is what Argentine tango is becoming for me.
When I look at this beautiful clip, in so many ways epitomizing the simple and the elegant, I therefore find it jarring to see the dancer with her feet and ankles apart, her steps large and inelegant. It's the juxtaposition, I'm sure: in another context her movements would be a nice (but not particularly profound) complement to the music; in this context, where Argentine tango is the apparent subject, her movements speak of a disconnect with what I am coming to understand about the music and the dance.
Fundamentals, not fundamentalism
Again, I hear my words echoing a kind of A-tango fundamentalism that I don't like. But this isn't about fundamentalism so much as it is about fundamentals. Yes, I am becoming more appreciative of how much I have to learn from the more conservative sides of tango music and dance; I am also realizing that the focus on the details, on the fundamentals, extends to all the dances I enjoy. My waltz is so much richer when I learn to breathe into my movements, when I attend to making my simple boxes and turns tighter, more elegant, more deeply understood and expressed. Ditto for salsa and swing, some of the "loosest" dances I know: attending to the details yields richer, more expressive experiences for me, for my dance partner. I am taking an intermediate rhumba/chacha class for the 4th time, and I am learning new things. Not new moves, but new ways to simplify, to understand my body, how it moves to the music, how it embraces the floor and my partner, how it can better and more deeply express the richness of the dance moment. But nowhere is this attention to the fundamentals (ankles, feet, knees) more important than in my lessons and learning about A-tango.
Discipline, elegance, and ... ecstasy
Which is why I encourage my dance friends to embrace the discipline of Argentine tango. It makes all dances better. I think it may even be making all of my life better; it is, at the very least, part of what makes the rest of my life better, because the attention to details – telling my children I love them, bringing flowers to my friends, making food for loved ones, listening to their stories of sadness and joy, finding ways to live with and accept (and learn from) bruises to my ego – all of these knit into a larger, more lovely, more elegant life than I could have imagined.
All of which takes me back to the clip from Suara's movie. I didn't much like the movie. But there is some great dancing in it. And much beauty. If you are inspired to dance by Tango – great! But be good enough with yourself to attend to the small movements and small things that are within reach of every dancer, and that make even the simplest dance an ecstatic experience. Be gentle with yourself on this journey. Be gentle and open with your teachers. Listen to the small things, the small pieces of advice about feet, ankles, and knees. Remember to breathe into your dance. Keep it simple.
Whatever dance you do, the path of simple movements and attention to detail will bring you to elegance, to beauty, to the profound opening that keeps on opening. Which is why I am, it seems, constantly in a process of building and un-building my dancer self, my husband self, my father self, my man self. It never ends.
And that is a beautiful thing.
hanspetermeyer
(4 April 2010 - originally published at hanspetermeyer.com)
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