“When you dance with a partner you are close and the dance is very suggestive, but it is not personal … “Close is what the music inspires you to become. The embrace looks personal, but what we are actually embracing is the music.” Carlos Gavito
“When the music’s over, turn out the lights.” Jim Morrison, The Doors
A long time ago I journeyed afar to a strange city for a high risk social encounter. OK, just last month to Winnipeg – not that far or strange or long ago. And my extreme encounter was a Saturday Night Milonga at the Tango Salon, a very pleasant venue with quality dancing and friendly people. Really, very little risk involved.
But you never know. There is always something at a Milonga that can rock your world. Case in point:
One dance in particular. My partner was pleasant, attractive and very skilled. (Aren’t they all?) The embrace was close and affectionate. The music was sultry. I did a quick reality check: “What happens in the ‘Peg stays in the Peg?” I don’t think so.
Just being goofy. I have been here before, hundreds of times, enough to know that one does not project what one feels in the moment on the dance floor to fantasies of what might happen when dance ends. (That fantasy trip ended years ago when my wife stopped dancing. Ah, memories.)
Focus!
Tango demands that you remain intensely invested in the intricacies of moment, (i.e., don’t get ahead of yourself). And by moment I mean nano second. Actually I mean a continuous uninterrupted stream of consciousness. Even to anticipate the next step is to take you out of the flow of the dance and cause your partner instantly to falter, (something I prove repeatedly as a lead throughout the evening).
Here is the secret:
No one else will tell you this but it is true:Your partner is psychically attuned to your intention. Body mechanics are merely an expression of the interpretation of the dance already intuitively negotiated with your partner.
Back to the heat of the moment.
I also have been around the dance floor often enough to know not to turn down the heat. That would cool off the dance and trap us in three interminable minutes of just going through the motions. Not that painful but it squanders that magical gift of Divine Presence. And I spend enough of my life in that drain pipe already – including most of my dance life.
What to do with the energy?
Channel it. The point is not to be burned but to be energized. Direct it back into the dance.
Here comes my milonga moment of transformational learning:
I stayed with the heart connection in the embrace and watched what happened to it as the dance unfolded. Quite quickly the energy moved from the heart centre to other parts of the body – hips, arms, feet, core. And as the energy shifted it took on different qualities: from soft and comforting to explosive, fresh, light, fanciful, strong, dark, startling, awesome, frenetic, solid.
Periodically we would come back to the embrace for reassurance and then push off again into the ether world of gyros and carousels.
And then it ends. What’s with that?
Time to invoke the wisdom of Jim Morrison (The Doors): “When the music’s over, turn out the lights.”
A hug, a thank-you and you go your separate ways. You take nothing back to your chair other than a warm glow and the anticipation of another tanda with another partner.
The dance is the reality. It is into the dance we pour our most focused creativity and affection. When the dance is over the energy dissipates (or more correctly is stored in the collective consciousness), and the lights go out.
To paraphrase Gavito: “It is all about the dance. Don’t take it personally.”