The art of dancing close
The neighbours insisted that Mike and I go out on a date. Mike has been looking after their kids in the evenings some times when they both have to work and they wanted to even the ledger so to speak.
I had no idea what to do so suddenly it is friday morning - the day of our date - and nothing is planned. I walk into the coffee shop and there is a poster for a special workshop "on the art of dancing close". The argentine tango school is bringing in a special guest teacher from Boston for this weekend long series of workshops and the first one is tonight.
With much trepidation Mike and I show up at 7:30. The foyer is filled with about 40 tango dancers who all seem to know what they are doing and had pre registerd for the event. Mike and I are already feeling out of our element and had not brought proper soft soled shoes - I don't even have socks on - which looks like it might end our foray into the dance world right then. Fortunately everyone is really friendly (well this is Halifax) and MJ lends me her socks. Aside from the teacher I am the only one not wearing heels.
The place is filled with people ranging from their 20's to their 70's. There are couples and singles but everyone seems to know each other. Peter, a nice older gentleman takes us under his wing and shows us around and tells us a story about the young couple in the corner. It seems that they decided to learn tango for their wedding dance instead of the waltze and loved it so much that they promptly moved to Buenos Aires for 5 months to learn it from the masters and now teach a class on Sundays.
Our teacher had us do "warm-up" exercises - Mom you would have hated the whole thing.
We have to walk around and "greet" each other with our eyes. the next exercise is to "pat" each other, and the next is to "touch" each other without using our hands, the next is to circle each other, looking into each others eyes, and the next is to circle each other while touching. It is all very unnerving.
When it came to the couples part - the teacher does not let us dance with our partners that we came with. So we keep having to do the steps with complete strangers.
The dancers are supposed to come together very close - joining the two axis together with the "follower" sort of leaning into her "leader" but not losing balance. The leader is supposed to sense when his partner is ready to move and then press off with his leg to start the movement. The follower is supposed to sense this "invitation to move" and then move her leg back - which is when the "follower" actually becomes the "leader" because a really talented "leader" will then take his cues from his partner instead of trying to lead. I imagine that when two really good dancers who have good chemistry do this - it really does become two people working together, listening with their bodies and senses as to what the other is about to do. A statement of gender politics and coupledom in a sense - the true listening, the inviting, the leading, the following, all being done by both at the same time, without egos coming to play.
With some of the dance partners it is easy to get a sense of when and where they are moving - with others it is a confusion of stepped on toes and loss of balance. The biggest trick seems to be to let go, and don't worry about zero personal space. If you sit there worrying about bad breath and body odour you are dead in the water.
The last exercise is the ...most difficult. The followers all have to make a circle on the inside facing outward, and the leaders have to make a circle around them facing them. But the followers have their eyes closed and the leaders have to gently move into their space to "invite" them to embrace and then rock gently from side to side before setting the follower back on her axis and move to the next partner. It is a truly strange experience to stand there with your eyes closed and have some strange guy come up and touch you and you have to basically embrace them very closely and then they move on.
In the last 3 minutes the men had to close their eyes and we have to move around to embrace them - Mike, my dear short man - has his eyes closed when this woman comes up to embrace him. He can feel skin on his cheek except that she was over a foot taller than he and he realizes that it is not her face that is pressed against his cheek - apparently he has a very hard time concentrating.
We can't take the rest of this workshop this weekend but somehow we will have to find a way to take the regular tango lessons - it is actually quite a lot of fun when you forget your puritan upbringing - and remember to use heavy duty deodorant and gargle with mouth wash first.
I had no idea what to do so suddenly it is friday morning - the day of our date - and nothing is planned. I walk into the coffee shop and there is a poster for a special workshop "on the art of dancing close". The argentine tango school is bringing in a special guest teacher from Boston for this weekend long series of workshops and the first one is tonight.
With much trepidation Mike and I show up at 7:30. The foyer is filled with about 40 tango dancers who all seem to know what they are doing and had pre registerd for the event. Mike and I are already feeling out of our element and had not brought proper soft soled shoes - I don't even have socks on - which looks like it might end our foray into the dance world right then. Fortunately everyone is really friendly (well this is Halifax) and MJ lends me her socks. Aside from the teacher I am the only one not wearing heels.
The place is filled with people ranging from their 20's to their 70's. There are couples and singles but everyone seems to know each other. Peter, a nice older gentleman takes us under his wing and shows us around and tells us a story about the young couple in the corner. It seems that they decided to learn tango for their wedding dance instead of the waltze and loved it so much that they promptly moved to Buenos Aires for 5 months to learn it from the masters and now teach a class on Sundays.
Our teacher had us do "warm-up" exercises - Mom you would have hated the whole thing.
We have to walk around and "greet" each other with our eyes. the next exercise is to "pat" each other, and the next is to "touch" each other without using our hands, the next is to circle each other, looking into each others eyes, and the next is to circle each other while touching. It is all very unnerving.
When it came to the couples part - the teacher does not let us dance with our partners that we came with. So we keep having to do the steps with complete strangers.
The dancers are supposed to come together very close - joining the two axis together with the "follower" sort of leaning into her "leader" but not losing balance. The leader is supposed to sense when his partner is ready to move and then press off with his leg to start the movement. The follower is supposed to sense this "invitation to move" and then move her leg back - which is when the "follower" actually becomes the "leader" because a really talented "leader" will then take his cues from his partner instead of trying to lead. I imagine that when two really good dancers who have good chemistry do this - it really does become two people working together, listening with their bodies and senses as to what the other is about to do. A statement of gender politics and coupledom in a sense - the true listening, the inviting, the leading, the following, all being done by both at the same time, without egos coming to play.
With some of the dance partners it is easy to get a sense of when and where they are moving - with others it is a confusion of stepped on toes and loss of balance. The biggest trick seems to be to let go, and don't worry about zero personal space. If you sit there worrying about bad breath and body odour you are dead in the water.
The last exercise is the ...most difficult. The followers all have to make a circle on the inside facing outward, and the leaders have to make a circle around them facing them. But the followers have their eyes closed and the leaders have to gently move into their space to "invite" them to embrace and then rock gently from side to side before setting the follower back on her axis and move to the next partner. It is a truly strange experience to stand there with your eyes closed and have some strange guy come up and touch you and you have to basically embrace them very closely and then they move on.
In the last 3 minutes the men had to close their eyes and we have to move around to embrace them - Mike, my dear short man - has his eyes closed when this woman comes up to embrace him. He can feel skin on his cheek except that she was over a foot taller than he and he realizes that it is not her face that is pressed against his cheek - apparently he has a very hard time concentrating.
We can't take the rest of this workshop this weekend but somehow we will have to find a way to take the regular tango lessons - it is actually quite a lot of fun when you forget your puritan upbringing - and remember to use heavy duty deodorant and gargle with mouth wash first.
posted by ayearinhalifax | 6:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home