Play

Through chat with the a friend in Buenos Aires about steps in tango, came a reminder of a realisation from some years back. My eldest son, still a child or maybe at most a tween, was dancing tango with me in the kitchen. He has never had a lesson or any kind of instruction, he just picked it up, absorbed it, the way I pick up languages, the way his brother somehow picked up reading before school. Maybe it was the years lying on the floor pushing the fridge magnets about in long, mysterious games punctuated only by noises of propulsion. 

The boys came to tea dances and the Edinburgh brunch milonga when they were little so they had seen dancing and they heard the music at home.  The eldest and I didn’t dance together often and when we did it was as much play as dance. He had been good at judo as a younger child. For him the game was as much about seeing if he could leverage me off balance. His dance was full of jokes and fun and experimentation. There was also, from him, an element of challenge. Although he was always tall he was very slight. Dancing with an adult 1.83m tall he had to be quite strong.  

Astonishing was that from his dance play emerged recognised tango moves that I never do:  sacadas, and ganchos I remember distinctly, maybe there were even voleos.  There was a sense of shock, delight and amazement at his discovery, like new land. This has never happened with anyone else. Even Colin, who learned to dance well in a night, without instruction, did not start evolving tango moves spontaneously in quite the same way.  If memory serves, Colin followed what I initiated and then took over the same.  

Watching my son discover the dance came the realisation that this must have been how the moves associated with the dance began originally - through that kind of exploration.  The element of necessary challenge, of pushing boundaries that my son had that probably aided those discoveries, likely also existed between guys dancing together when the dance emerged in Buenos Aires. 

My son was the initiator of the movements, that much was always clear.  He was also the only person with whom I would routinely and completely forget who was in the male role and who the female (in terms of the position of the arms).  Over time, he distinctly took over the arm positions of the male role. 

Sometimes I wonder, whimsically, if there are other moves out there, waiting to be discovered by someone or some couple untainted by class and received ideas of what is "correct". 

So why did these moves emerge with my son? For that kind of game you need a playful spirit, which most adults have lost and no sense of inhibition, which again, most adults have lost. You need that challenging edge.  You probably need a profound intimacy, trust and physical closeness with the dance partner. And for that kind of joint exploration you both need, at the same time, creativity, curiosity, and a sense of adventure.  Put all that together as a recipe list required between two people simultaneously and it's no wonder it doesn't happen often. 

The three of us had always been tactile. We walked hand in hand or arms around one another for years, the boys were constantly in each others arms or the big one carried the little one on his shoulders. My youngest usually sat on my knee rather than a chair for at least the first five years of his life.  Maybe that’s all you need to become a natural and creative tango dancer - a sense of fun and lots of cuddles!

Dancing tango is a shared exploration in movement anyway albeit one of you is often more the guide; this was just more equal somehow, more inventive, more adventurous.  I live in hope I may find it one day in someone again.