Warning: Your stage tango may be
hazardous to my health.
I dreamed last night that an advertisement for Argentine tango was on television. It was wonderfully done.
The couple was all alone on the dance floor as others watched them. The camera panned across the adoring faces of those watching. Then I saw close-ups of the dancers' feet, a shot of their hands together and moments of passion expressed on their faces. The dancers dramatically displayed well rehearsed moves that needed no lead-and-follow because they had learned patterns they had practiced over and over.
At the end of the advertisement, the tango scenes continued with wonderful moments of ecstasy and grace, but a hurried voice mentioned all the side effects that the Federal Drug Administration had required the tango industry to include:
"Side effects include loss of friends," the mumbling voice quickly said, "loss of money and harm to others. Many tango students report that they eventually only horrify good dancers on the social dance floor. 50% of those who buy this product report that they experienced the side effect of endangering others on the dance floor. The other 50% were simply unaware of how much they were endangering others."
Of course this was only a dream.
But I invite you to watch the faces of those new to tango, watching social tango dancers. Now look at others who have been dancing for a while also watching. Everyone seems to be looking at the same couple, who briefly look up to see who is paying attention. The beginners are watching and hoping that they one day can do the cool moves too. Tango dancers trained in emergency medicine are watching in case they are needed to help those who might become injured. Others are horrified and are watching as if they were stuck watching a B movie -- tango without laugh-tracks to cue the audience when something is meant to be absurd or funny.
Before the FDA gets involved, don't you think it is time to require a product claim for tango? For those teachers who are selling showmanship tango for social dancers, shouldn't a side-effects warning be required? Stage Tango on the social dance floor, like all ego-enhancing drugs, should have a warning.
One must weigh the benefits against the side effects.
I left my smart-phone gladly at home.
Without a phone, I am free to roam.
It was the smart-thing gladly to do.
But now tangueras tonight are few.
The cortina plays, her face is alight
With a new text from a friend tonight:
"I wish I were dancing like you!"
Absent now are techos two.
As both are in their smart-phone dance.
I just stand here with no chance.
Tango etiquette may change over time, but as it now stands, not only in Buenos Aires but also in all the world, it is considered poor manners to be on a phone or texting at a milonga. I suggest leaving the room if you have to text your children on directions to make macaroni and cheese, and other extremely important communications like this. Men... please leave your phone in your car. If you are on-call, as I have been, put the pager or a slim phone on vibrate and in your back pocket. Just warn the woman if it is in your jacket or (not recommended) front pocket!
I have rarely felt envy in dancing. I love watching people who can dance better than I. But the other night I felt envious of a guy dancing with a tanguera I know pretty well. I saw the person I practice with dancing with a new guy in town and she was smiling with him in a way that she rarely does with our dancing. We were not connecting at all that night. It was really terrible in fact. Partly, the floor was too slippery for the leather shoes I had on. But it only got worse.
Finally, I made a comment that we were not connecting well that night. She said that it was because I was too interested in my own steps rather than hers. The most hurtful critiques are the ones we fear are true. Really, am I that bad? Maybe, but it is also a slap in the face to have to take the full blame for the disconnect.
I felt that she had broken a sacred agreement and an important element of tango etiquette not to critique your partner on the dance floor. I had, of course, opened the door by commenting on OUR dancing that night.
I was ready to walk out the door. I was fuming and mad at myself for being envious of him doing such a great job of making her smile so wonderfully. It seemed that she had been frowning the whole time with my dancing that night.
I did not leave because I had so many friends I wanted to dance with. My dances with them were wonderful. I was smiling a lot. Finally, I danced with a short Chilean woman who hardy was getting to dance at all that night. The dance with her was absolutely wonderful. I hope my practice partner wasn't watching. I was smiling just too much! But when I did start dancing with my practice partner, we were once again tuned and we were both smiling.
The authors would have done better research if they had been tango dancers. Tango shows us that we humans do better with our close relationship when we interact with strangers. Perhaps this psychological phenomenon is similar to biological in-breeding. Once we become "familiar" (from the word family), dancing can become stale without outside influences. On a social level, people learn a lot about themselves and their own creativity by having interactions with strangers. However, when people are asked to rate the enjoyment of an interaction with a close person versus "that stranger over there" the participants in a psychological study found that they over-rated the enjoyment they would have with someone they know, and under-rated the enjoyment they thought they would have with a total stranger.
I think that people who really love tango and are couples or practice partners should take note. It is good for your dancing, your relationship and your dance progress to dance with others. The thing we learn the most is that what works with strangers, works with those closer to us. If we treat friends and family with as much attentiveness and simple respect, great things happen. When the researchers instructed people to put as much effort into their close partner as they did with the stranger, the interactions with the partner was much better.
Since that time, we talked about the disconnect, and I found out that a milonga she feels I try out too many things. I told her that I was afraid I was boring her. She just wanted to get in a groove and enjoy things that are know to work, and then apply the millions of variations of these simple elements to the particular orchestra being played in that tanda.
Then last night something very remarkable happened. The music was playing all by itself at the practica when I came in and no one was there. I danced by myself. It was euphoric. She arrived and we danced. We had classes we wanted to review, but we just danced and danced and danced. I cannot tell you which cloud we danced on, but it was past cloud nine. Others came and all tandas I had were this way last night -- absolutely heaven on earth.
No -- even better than heaven on earth. The angels were envious as they watched that night.
I turned and told one of the angles. "There is no reason to be envious. You might want to try what I did. Dance with a stranger."
The
keyhole into the Universe Once long ago but in a time very much like ours there was a milonga in Bucharest...
Romania had a small but
lively tango community. No one recognized the stranger when he came through the door. He wore black and he had a air about him that made him seem like an experienced tanguero. The regulars whispered to
each other about him as he sat down and observed the dancers. A few tangueros approached and welcomed him,
but nearly everyone figured that he was just watching and did not dance at all.
After about five tandas,
he approached Margareta. He asked her what her name was as they stood
waiting for the music to start with an accent that was clearly not Romanian.
She told him that her traditional Romanian name, Margareta, meant
"pearl."
"That seems to fit your soul
very well," he replied, looking into her eyes. "I knew a girl whose name was Pearl.
She had a very deep and precious soul. Although she had been
severely abused as a child in an orphanage, she grew up to be the kindest
person I have ever met. Pearl had the ability to do what most of us
cannot: She saw the universe through a keyhole. She found little
pieces of evidence of kindness and goodness in the world through the little
keyhole to the universe, and it these bits of goodness shaped who she was.
Many of us focus on a few negative things in the world and we then cannot
see the beauty all around us. She found the beauty just through
small glimpses of the divine."
Pearl's eye view
"That seems to fit your soul very well," he replied. "I knew a girl whose name was Pearl. She had a very deep and precious soul. Although she had been severely abused as a child in an orphanage, she grew up to be the kindest person I have ever met. Pearl had the ability to do what most of us cannot: She saw the universe through a keyhole. She found little pieces of evidence of kindness and goodness in the world through the little keyhole to the universe, and it these bits of goodness shaped who she was. Many of us focus on a few negative things in the world and we then cannot see the beauty all around us. She found the beauty just through small glimpses of the divine."
The music continued. As she began to dance with the stranger, every pause and every impulse was as if they embodied the music. The left-right pulse of his tango walk seemed to pull her into a world in which she could see her life going before her.
She returned to the orphanage where she had lived until she turned seven years old. She saw the terrible things that had happened there but for the first time she remembered these events as if she were an outside observer. She watched in deep compassion for the orphaned child as if she was totally removed from the experience, except for her compassion for the child. The music stopped.
Before the second song of the tanda began, the stranger went on with the story: "One day Pearl looked through the keyhole to the universe and saw all the moments of kindness she had ever experienced, most of which she had forgotten. It filled her soul with the resolve to be the kindness she saw. At that moment she joined Plato in his understanding that the world is but a shadow of the real and eternal. She chose at that moment to find real and eternal beauty and goodness and bring these to fruition into this world." The music started again.
The next tango was the one that meant the most to her. She had fallen in love with the person with whom she first danced it some two years earlier. Poema represented both beauty and loss to her. But the stranger’s steady tango walk again brought her back to the "keyhole" the he had just mentioned, and she imagined herself now looking through it.
This time she saw herself as an adult looking back at the child in the keyhole. She felt a deep empathy for the child. Strangely, she then switched to being the child, looking through the keyhole at the adult Margareta as a kind and compassionate person. Just as her adult self seemed to be coming to the door to open it, the music stopped. The man continued yet another part of the story.
"Pearl grew up to become an incredible woman. Her compassion to others had no boundaries of nations or races or religions. She was kind. She carried an aura of kindness. It was simple and powerful at the same time." The music started yet again, the third song of the tanda.
This time his pause before taking his first step felt as if energy was building. It was more than just standing there: It was as if their first step was going to explode with energy. She made dainty circles with her left foot, and they became larger as the energy built. Their musical tension, she knew, prepared them for the end of the next musical phrase.
As they took their first steps together, she felt like a little girl running out to a set of swings on the playground with a little boy by her side, free to romp and play. They ran in slow motion as if to not allow the beauty of this moment of freedom escape the moment too quickly. As they moved, she returned to the door, and before she could even bend down to look through the keyhole, she heard footsteps. The door opened. Her adult self did not seem to recognize her. She wanted to say, "Don't you see that I am the child you once were?" The music seemed to end too soon, she had been so deep in thought.
The stranger just looked at Margareta, as if to peer into her soul. "Isn't it a wonderful thing to start with a little piece of sand and then have a pearl of great beauty come from it? Such is one of the wonders of the Universe."
The last tango of the set started. He opened his arms and this time she his chest. "This!" she told herself, "this is entrega, surrender. This is what others have talked about, not yielding to a man's lead but surrendering my soul while dancing! Margareta returned to the door. She was the little girl beholding the older woman who did not seem to know her.
The little Margareta then realized that the older Margareta acted only out of unconditional love and kindness. Her older self knelt before the younger Margareta. The older Margareta was being kind to the little girl not just because it was herself but out of unconditional compassion. The little Margareta said, ”You are what I have become and what I want to become. Please stay with me. I need your love more than anyone's.”
The older Margareta promised the little girl that she would never neglect or leave her. As Margareta danced, she whispered out loud to herself, "I cannot stop or save you from the hardships of life, but I want to be with you, and I hope you will be with me in my hardships, okay? We need each other." The two agreed to meet often. She hoped the man hadn't overhead her promise to herself.
The tanda ended. The cortina played.
"You have danced beautifully, Margareta. I truly have found a pearl here in Bucharest. It was such a pleasure for me. You seem to have brought me to the same Keyhole into the Universe that little girl named Pearl saw as I danced with you. Isn't that the best of what tango has to offer us, a way to sense the beauty of another person through their embrace?"
Margareta felt as if he had spoken the words that she should have said. Yet they seemed as genuine for him as for her. "But what is your name?" she asked him as he escorted her on his arm to the edge of the dance floor.
"In Buenos Aires they call me Angel del Gotan, but I am just a tanguero, a man who is led by the music. He left immediately, snatching his umbrella from the table near the door as he left. She toyed with her necklace, and just then remembered that she had worn a single pearl that night. "That's so weird," she told herself. "That's just too weird!" She stared at the door for nearly a minute until a friend came over to her to ask if she was okay.
"Sure, I am fine. Great, really."
"Then why are you crying?
"I just had a look through the Keyhole to the Universe. And I met someone there that I will never forget -- myself."
Note that for those who have read The Book of Jonah: Fiction: The attempt to get closer to the truth. Non-fiction: The attempt to present the truth and thereby distance ourselves from it.
Julia Elena, a local promoter and tango teacher in Washington, D.C., asked me to introduce an evening of live tango music and spectacular tango dancing. The event was sponsored by the Argentine Embassy in D.C.
Perhaps I was the wrong person to ask. I am not one to go to such an event because tango to me is a social event of feeling and connection, and stage tango seems to be -- at least at times-- the very opposite of my sense of what tango is. Also, it tortures me to sit and watch tango; I would rather dance than watch people dance. To be fair, it is true that I am often deeply moved by performers. Moreover, who can deny that great feats of balance, strength and beauty expressed at many performances? I had fun this time because at times I was back stage moving around to the music. Gott sei dank, I didn't have to sit down the whole time!
Below is the longer version of what I wanted to say. The original was somewhat shorter because of time restraints:
Welcome to a night of Tango Argentino. Tonight some among us have never seen this incredible music or seen this beautiful dance. Tonight, if you are new to tango, I believe your life may be changed, as was mine six years. How could I have been a professional musician and lived for three years in Latin America without knowing about the wonderful music and dance of tango until recently? So it would not surprise me if many people tonight have gone through their lives without knowing anything about Argentine Tango.
El Tango! What a magical thing!
"Tango" -- this is an interesting word. Some scholars claim that it comes from the word "drum" or what people do around a drum. Many scholars deny this, but perhaps it is because in tango today we mostly have orchestras without drums or drummers. But I like this definition of tango. I'll tell you why: The dancers are the drummers! In rock music, the drummer strikes instruments with feet and hands. We tangueros and tangueras use just our feet. Our instrument is the floor, and we accompany the orchestra. Ideally, no step is taken unless the music requests that step.
Also, in tango we use the word "accompany" a lot. The musicians accompany each other and we accompany each other on the dance floor. In the best moments, the dancers join the orchestra as honorary members. We dance this dance without prescribed steps. We improvise and dance one moment with the rhythms which came out of Africa that are explicitly or sometimes hidden behind each tango. Later in the same tango, we might change and follow the flowing lines of the violins. Our feet might sweep the floor and slow our steps, crying along with the squeeze box, called the bandoneón, this iconic instrument brought from the Rheinland of Germany by immigrant musicians. The dancers accompany the music, and the music, the dancers. The woman accompanies the man and the man, the woman. At this moment we all become tangueros and tangueras, sharing as couples and as a community.
Interestingly the central word of "accompany" (acompañar) is "pan" -- the word for "bread." At its root "acompañar" means "to break bread together." In the orchestra we see distinct roles of each instrument. On the dance floor, the man and woman have distinct roles too. Yet, we all sit down to "break bread." It is as if I have as a man brought flour from the mill home, and my partner has made the bread, but we break bread together and enjoy its taste and nourishment. This what we do in tango. This is the essence of tango: To break bread, to share in the emotions of life through music and dance. Tango is sharing nourishment for the soul through music, movement and an embrace.
So tonight, if this is you first evening of tango or a yours is life-long experience, please accompany the musicians and the dancers and each other in this moment of the magic of tango. When you do, you are truly tangueros and tangueras.
Special thanks to Alejandra, one of the D.C. tango event editors, who had a great dictionary and a lot of curiosity about the way I was using "acompañar" as a replacement for "lead and follow" in an earlier post. She is the one who discovered that "pan" was hidden in the word "acompañar." See "companion" or accompany in any good dictionary.
I invite you to stop dancing and join the tango orchestra as a musician?
A good place to start is to stop taking classes on musicality -- well, not quite. How about at least thinking about these classes as musicianship classes? Musicianship is not for advanced dancers. It is for everyone, because in reality you and I are not dancers. Most of us are just sloppy and or unimaginative musicians, until we join the orchestra as percussionists. Maybe it is not a conscious thing, but I think the best social dancers are percussionists.
The word tango, like he word milonga, can mean several things. Tango once meant a drum or a place where blacks would meet and dance to the drum beat. Tango is still that. But where are the percussionists now? Every instrument in tango is used as a percussion instrument. Name one that is not, but there are some percussionist who are unrecognized.
You are that percussionist in the tango orchestra! A dancer is a percussionist, and the floor and partner is his or her instrument. I do not mean this in a poetic way. This is literally true. Anyone striking any object to create or play along with music is a percussionist. A pianist presses a key and a hammer strikes a string. Thus a piano is a percussion instrument. A vocalist clapping his hands is a percussionist. A bassist using the back side of her bow against her stings is a percussionist. Of course the pianist is a percussionist/keyboardist. Anyone who uses hammers, fingers, hands or feet in a musical way is a percussionist.
As a jazz drummer, I struck many different objects with both feet and hands. As a tanguero, I use only my feet and legs. I sweep (barridas), make grace notes (toe taps), and establish clear rhythms in synchronization to the music. Besides the floor, there is my tanguera. She bushes me, taps the side of my foot, scadas me, ganchos me. We are the cello and violin playing each other. As instruments of music, I am hers and she in mine as living, breathing instruments.
When I embrace another tango percussionist on the dance floor (a tanguera), I hope our goal will be to join the orchestra as musicians and not as dancers. Anyone can get up and move, but can we embody the music as musicians? I imagine that she and I have joined the orchestra as percussionists in the orquesta típica. The floor is our percussion instrument. We do not dance to the music, we play in the orchestra.
Won't you join the orchestra? When we all join the orchestra, we become the community band. All the dead African slaves, tango musicians and composers who we highly esteem will be smiling. We have come home. Tango is a drum. Play it. Percussion is central to what we do at the milonga.
She did not know it was lost. But she found it at the milonga. She was not even searching Or wondering where it went.
She found a treasure map Hidden in her shoe bag. Which would take her Back to what she had lost--
Her own precious worth. She opened the map and read:
Appraisal Need
When I hold you and dance, I know what a gem of life you are -- Not a diamond in the rough But an exquisite polished stone With so many facets to bend light, With so much depth within your bounds! Only an expert in detail can describe you And only a child fully can sense your worth.
I feel your inestimable worth in your breath, in your joy of movement in the glint of diamond-eyes.
You, however, are the ultimate appraiser Of your worth, your facets, your tone and timbre. You must celebrate your uniqueness and beauty.
You are both the gem And the appraiser. Notice your detail. Let your inner child Sense your worth:
Priceless.
She looked up and took his hand -- The one who watched her finish the poem. They danced, but all had changed. She danced in a new way, No longer on a trip to find the forgotten, She danced as she did as a little girl -- With innocent confidence.
Imagine that you return to visit your old office. You resigned because of your heavy-handed boss. He has since become a wonderful tango dancer, and it has transformed him. Why? What would you imagine to be different about him?
Let me guess: It would NOT be because he now knows how hard it is to be a follower. Instead I would guess that perhaps he now knows about partnership and how the mission (like music) really guides everyone. He might be sensitive to distinct roles that work together wonderfully.
So when the corporate minds start noticing tango, great things might start happening? Right? Well, not quite.
Ira Chaleff's book The Courageous Follower has great ideas for the business world, and at some level tango can help in understanding the outcome he seeks as "partnership"; however tango as partnership should be applied and not the lead-and-follow analogy.
The tango community itself has done a poor job developing the words to describe the magic of the distinct roles of men and women in tango. Will the business world get a sense of what tango truly is if we have not?
In English we did not consciously decide to take "lead and follow" from ballroom over terms in Spanish. But we did. We didn't know better. It is true that "seguir" (to follow) is used in Spanish. But the word for the male role is to accompany his companion (compañera), not "follower." Some, like Murat Erdemsel, has suggested we can drop the "f" and her role becomes "allower." That's better. I know this to be true. Does she allow me to pause with the music? Does she allow me to dance more than one or two steps on her left side before forcing me to go to the other side (like all of her teachers have told her to do)? The other side to this is that I must also allow her to hear and respond to the music; so even this word does not encapsulate the spirit what the Yin-Energy of tango is.
Sharna, who is quoted by the speaker, once told me that the woman's role is best described as the "keeper of possibilities." That's better than "follower" too. The problem this term has, just like "allower," is that it works well with both roles. The "keeper of possibilities" pertains to me just as much to my partner. So, it is true that the distinctive roles are very well signified by "lead and follow." But it ends there as an analogy, especially with each developmental step away from being a rank beginner.
We have so easily adopted all sorts of Spanish words less important than the the magic of the distinct roles of men and women in tango. We could have said "tango dance" for milonga. Or "figure eights" for ochos. The list goes on of all the Spanish words we use. Why don't we use the word compañero and compañera?
One can try to deny it but lead-and-follow as a concept is at its base is a military analogy. It seemed to make sense in dance. However, the magic of dance is poorly served by this analogy. Today in the dance world and even tango we not only have a great deal of energy protecting these terms with dancers. We have classes on both roles under these poorly chosen terms. Are the roles distinct as lead-and-follow? Yes! But being distinct as does not make them become these things.
Unfortunately tango classes are leading the way in defining this word "followership" for the rest of the world. The business world, very conservative roles in marriage, the military, dictatorships and others can benefit by using the word we promulgate and have created. The world can turn to tango as a great way of describing subordination! ¡Que lástima! Instead, shouldn't the world turn to the magic of this wonderful, improvisational dance to understand partnership?
Business and all sorts of human interaction could learn from the magic of dance and especially the innovative and extemporaneous dance that Argentine tango is. However, the word "followership"used in tango is mistaken because the words were philosophically incorrect and limiting as descriptors of what tango is. It is true that all words limit what they describe, but "lead and follow" lead the way as obstacles for understanding the magic of tango. We couldn't choose two more misleading words!
I respect the outcome of Ira Chafleff's book, which is to get corporate leaders and subordinates to a state of partnership. Yet, he is one among many who overstate the difficulty of one role over the other. He ends up saying that being a follower is harder than being a leader. He quotes a scholar and one a tango teacher. So what! Followership is truly harder the more heavy-handed a leaders is. Consider your worst boss. Following him was more complex than his leading and more difficult. Now let's consider great leaders: Kennedy, King, Gandi, Buddah, Moses, Jesus. They had the easier role as leaders? We need more than just a scholar and a tango teacher to persuade us of this theory. Many tango teachers agree with Ira Chafleff and Sharna that the "follower" has the more difficult job. Surely a tanguera's work is harder if she has a tanguero who is heavy-handed. Has he taken his role as a "leader" too seriously instead of the magic of partnership within distinct roles? Contrary to Mr Chafleff's hypothesis, even a female beginner who has no idea about her role can be taken down a magical path of dance Nirvana with a man who is sensitive to her abilities and a man who truly listens to the music. Such a compañero will give her wonderful clues of where he will take her next. Is her role at that moment harder? These comparisons of "whose role is harder" is sadly counter-productive and do not describe the magic of tango as I experience it. Rather, these expressions come out of the world of who-is-better or who-is-working-harder -- the world of discrimination against others. This is the nonsense that women say to each other when men are not listening or men say when women are not in the room. Nonsense!
In conclusion, the most important issue here is that a lead-and-follow is not what is happening in tango. Men and women accompany (acompañar) each other on the dance floor. The music leads. Tango is far more magical than the leader-follower mistake analogy could ever convey. Anyone who has experienced the magic of tango, I believe, must feel this in their heart. Join the many who reject poorly chosen expressions to describe tango. Join us in ushering a better way of conveying what tango is to beginners and even to ourselves. The end of using lead-and-follow is near.
Note:
Also see an earlier post that used the full well-done video clip that is seen only in part above.
