A spell comes over me as soon as I step into the warm envelope of tango’s embrace. No matter who my partner, no matter how skillful he is. I learned early on that tango is a language that defies our limited speech. Everyone who attempts tango eventually wanders through this portal into Big Space of Limitless Expression. Therein, each dancer finds her/his secret. This is what I mean by tango brujo. You know when have been bewitched beyond repair by the infectious “at-ease” that tango is. At first, you can’t hold it, this secret you know with your whole body—because speech is a fairly recent development in humans and it only serves to cover about 15 to 20 percent of that which we know deep inside of us, down to our marrow, in the smallest recesses of each cell. Tango stirs it up. And up and up. And then, you begin to understand tango in a way that no class, no teacher, no video, no book, or written word—not even this—can impart to you. You begin to grasp it and hold it for fleeting seconds. You begin to let go of asking questions about the footwork, or for a correct analysis of the embrace, the way the foot falls or the amount of contra-body movement—even the much exalted “technique” is forsaken in this moment of sudden, boundless awareness. And you get it: Something divinely, uniquely yours in the Big Space of Tango. Everyone has his or her own distinct tango secret. What is yours?
Tango Brujo
October 26, 2011 by