Do I enjoy torturing myself? Almost two years into the COVID shut down and I am still playing over and over in my mind those magical moments on the dance floor. Too many to count but I remember distinctly the feeling from every one.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder. During this absence, I have been probing what element of the Dance I treasure and miss the most. One word?
Deep connecting …
Okay. Connection is a broad word, used so often and loosely it is almost cliche, which forces me to probe deeper and bring some clarity to my experience and longing.
This is the intrigue of Tango: it shrinks down into digestible components nuances of relational dynamics. I indulge myself in this intense engagement on the dance floor and then step back to reflect with detachment, what the experience means to my big-picture life. And these days I have nothing but time to reflect.
Here are a few definitions for connection that I have come up with:
- a complimentary and expansive engagement,
- a shared intention and understanding
- a mirroring of oneself in the other
- a gleaned conviction that I am not alone, that I am understood, accepted and belong.
Connection is tricky, complicated, not easy to pin down, principally because it is only tangentially personal. Connection is not about me. Or about you. It is about you and me, what we co-create together. It is about the new reality, the Third.
To connect deeply, I am required to surrender my separateness to that which is shared, the relational space. This is greater than the sum of our individual attributes: the us+. The math looks something like 1+1=3.
Entering this relational space or dynamic, I have to travel light, trim down, squeezing through the eye of a needle, a wise man once called it. I have to shave off my ego, my fears and resistance, my self-serving interests, fantasies, judgments and expectations, and instead allow myself to free-fall into vulnerability, trust, acceptance, and curiosity. Then maybe, I might be graced with connection.
Is it worth it? All this introspection and ego-dissection just for the hope of something a little ethereal? Why can’t I just jump into the dance, or relationship, or chance encounter, get my good feelings and then take my leave? Keep the math simple: 1+1=1.
It is just that I seem to have this peculiar predilection or fascination with that which is outside or beyond me, that which catches me up in something greater than myself. Call it a spiritual thirst, I long for that place where I can say it is not just about me. It is about more than me. And I want to say this about everything in my life: relationships, nature, work, self-care, and Tango.
A question always presents itself whenever I do a big picture overview of my life. Does the Tango really belong? And if so where does it fit in? When COVID hit it was the first thing to go. Not a stand-alone essential, apparently.
Tango’s meaning for me is how it complements the essentials. Tango is a magnifying glass that intensifies my focus on what is real and important in my relational life. All the essentials seem to glean a little more lustre when dusted with Tango magic.
Every dance poses questions: “How did it feel? Why did it feel that way? How did my partner and I connect? In what part of the dance did I lose myself into something greater?” And every question and reflection gives me a deeper insight into the connections that I value in my off-the-dance-floor life.
Invoking the Third…
OK, I am not American so this is not a term I would use in the normal legal or constitutional sense. But in another sense, the relational third is something that structures every aspect of our life. Everything new – every creation, adaptation, reformation – emerges out of this contra-positional dance in which two polarized or distinct energies play off each other. This always (eventually) results in the emergence of something distinctive, more intricate, adaptive, resilient, a representation of a higher level of consciousness.
This third or contra-positional or polarized relational space, is the bedrock of religion, psychology, philosophy, and even physics and chemistry. In Jungian analysis, the transcendent function emerges from the tension generated between two polarities, anima and animus. Hegelian dialectic traces the emergence of synthesis from the polarized tension of thesis and antithesis. Mystical traditions blend the dualities of our this vs. that world into non-differentiated oneness; Everything melts into a blissful unity. Romantic traditions celebrate two becoming one through the miracle of falling in love. Evolutionary biology presupposes the tension between the inevitability of death and the lust for life playing off against each other to create new, more adaptive, and resilient life forms. Trinitarian theology names the dynamic intersection between the transcendent (God the Father) and the immanent (God the Son) as Divine Presence, (God the Holy Spirit).
The list goes on, and on, and on. Every time we cook, we invoke the third: mix the ingredients, add some water and heat, and what was once a bowl of sludge turns into a deliciously aromatic loaf of bread.
The genius of Tango …
We have the same dynamic in the Tango. The genius of Tango is that it has embedded dynamic tension in its structure. Two polarized roles of lead and follow with asymmetrical step patterns held together in dynamic tension by a close embrace, give rise to an elegant, emotionally intense, and transformative dance.
This is my takeaway from Tango. It is the experience of having been transported beyond myself, caught up into something that is greater, an expression of beauty, a relational connection, an experience of Presence.