New experiences

Atrevida, my Spanish friend called me, years ago.  I am recently back from five days sharing a gite with three strangers and for someone protective of personal space perhaps it's true.  I don't know how it is that a cautiously inclined person is known as adventurous but I enjoy trying new things.  

The photo is of a hike I had never done before through some local tunnels.  Trying to get to them was fraught, someone brought too many children, they were not properly equipped, on a bakingly hot day we had insufficient water for our numbers, we lost the route, eventually had to turn back and to this day I think I saw a ghost.  But it was a memorable day.  New experiences often don't feel that fun at the time and are better at a distance.

For years I have said that tango dance class actually inhibits them from dancing. Also, that dancing tango movements to alternative or non tango music feels somehow wrong. I didn't feel that though until someone told me.

In some ways I had a very strict tango “upbringing” that indelibly marked me, maybe that trammelled me in some ways and yet that might be unfair because no-one forced me. Then again, when we are new we are malleable. This is why I like to dance with beginners, to get them before anyone else does, before they are ruined by dance class. I remember my mum saying that was why she liked teaching the youngest in primary school.

It is also true that most of the lovely dancers I know have come through tango dance class. But I have said before my belief that they have become good dancers through a lot of social dancing, so, despite class, not because of it.

Perhaps then it was a teenage rebellion phase, ten years later that took me to a tango - contact workshop, in my imagination, a free movement, let-it-all hang-out sort of thing, with alternative music.  Though actually, the impulse to go was more an intuition, something that kept bugging me for weeks, right up to the day itself. Dance class, alternative music, free movement that isn't dancing tango, that might not involve partners, why would you do that? The prospect worried me, so much so that I couldn’t face going in cold to a whole afternoon.  I sent the guy a voice message saying that I was nervous, that classes stressed me out and that I was worried about being forced to dance with people in a class.  I said I didn’t mind dancing with women so much, but I absolutely didn't want to dance with guys where the choice wasn't mutual.  I was worried that guys I see in the milonga and don’t dance with, which is most of them, might see me as cornered and fair game.  

The reply came back:

Te entiendo y comparto lo que decis. De hecho una parte de la clase es acerca del consentimiento, de saber poner límites y poder elegir!! Todo el tiempo estar eligiendo, y que nadie se lo tome personal. Me parecen muy bien tus reflexiones.. que te escuches y respetes! Tambien, está la posibilidad de venir con alguien a la clase y no cambiar de pareja... esas cosas obviamente están permitidas

[I understand and share what you say.  In fact, part of the class is about consent, on recognising limitations and on choice.  We choose all the time and no-one takes it personally.  I like your thoughts, I hear and respect you.  There is also the option of coming to the class with someone and not changing partner - that’s obviously allowed.]

So far, so good. I inveigled an hour from a friend, away from his dogs, and we walked there together to join the open practica which was short, maybe half an hour. It was immediately obvious that I was very far from my comfort zone, as indeed I had expected, but it is one thing to imagine a different reality and another to be confronted with it. 

Milonga in the XIe: a Parisian "embêté"

After the non-starter in Montparnasse, I moved on to a milonga in a nice space in the eleventh arrondissement.  A great milonga tanda was playing as I walked in.  The DJ / barman / host was pleasant and showed me a place to charge my phone.   The venue had its own traditional milonga sign on the door and seemed long-established for tango.  I noticed lots of tango-related drawing and decoration on the wall and was surprised that a small afternoon milonga on a weekday in the holidays could have a space dedicated to it such that it could decorate it as it wished. I was thinking exactly this as I went to buy a drink and idly, making friendly small talk, asked the host if the place had been there a long time. Seven years, he replied. Because of our passion for tango. Looking back now I felt in that remark something being set up - competition? defences? - but didn't quite recognise it at the time.

So I, naturally and in complete innocence asked if he was the owner. He told me sternly the question was indiscreet.  It was such an unexpected answer that I didn't understand at first: Comment? I tried to say that the question was not personal but he wouldn't budge - you know that forceful type in dance.  He said he doesn't go around asking people how much tax they pay which I thought entirely misrelated. Eventually he said no-one can buy a venue in paris, which I took then to be a No. Still, I had never imagined anyone would make such a big deal of a casual question.  The guy seemed deeply suspicious. I sensed I was not far from being thrown out if I'd tried to insist about the question not being personal and certainly was not intended as such. It was going to make no difference, the guy had a bee in his bonnet and I walked away, more wounded I suspected, than he and almost certainly just as he intended. I ignored him thereafter but could feel his eyes on me as I danced, quietly, like everyone else there.

I might have expected either a proud Yes, we've been here for years or a laughing No, it's impossible to buy a place here or No, but still we can decorate it as we like.  Instead, he had said We can talk about tango as much as you like but no personal questions. Unsubtly, he had pointed out a very young Troilo drawn on the wall. That's Troilo, he said.

He is right in that, according to some of the milongueros viejos in Buenos Aires, tango was, years ago traditionally, the only thing discussed between tracks, if one is being correct. I saw very little of that correctness in practice even in the most traditional milongas there. More normally, more friendly, the men said ¿De donde sos? ¿Primera vez en Buenos Aires? ¿Te gusta Buenos Aires?

If that was "incorrect" I saw even less in "correctness" and good manners from that host. Poor manners are shocking and the correct response is to change the subject or withdraw. Only teacher types try to correct.

The guy reminded me of a teacher who turned up quite late to the dance I co-hosted recently. I greeted her and introduced myself by my first name while she introduced herself as a dance class teacher. The first thing she said to me was that the lights were too bright. An attendee I had been chatting to had actually had a conversation about this earlier, but T had won, saying he thought the lights were OK. I mentioned, conversationally, to the new arrival that the bright young things didn't seem to mind while the older people, myself include preferred subtler lighting. Well all I can tell you, she began pompously, from 20 years of running events is that more people get up when the lights are down. Interesting information but I reckoned the main thing that would get more women up was more leaders. But we did try to adjust the lighting. The things you do when harassed.

The truly well mannered have more grace than to be indiscreet themselves. You can read about discretion here and what happened the last time I was asked straight out, on the floor, by a stranger, what my job was.

Anyway, I danced all the tandas I was there with three different women, all pleasant people, one timid, older lady from the banlieu who has been going for years, who asked if her arm wasn't too heavy on me. I wondered how many aggressive men had berated her about this. Another woman was from La Reunion visiting a local relative with whom I also danced.  I considered this progress. Instead of shrinking and cowering from an upsetting emotional experience, as I might have just a few years back, I was able from my seat to successfully invite stranger after stranger across the room by look to consecutive tandas with a confidence which is probably what allowed them to accept me. Dancing generally was average, i.e. poor,  age: retirement, music: more classic than not.

I had to leave after 45 mins to catch my flight but it was more than enough.  The guy had soured the place and the day and it was an effort to put him out of my mind; another touchy, overreactive straight Parisian.  I nearly didn't take a picture because although I covered it up, he had set my nerves on edge. Still, I nabbed one by the door swiftly as I left.

One of the women said that she had been before on a Saturday when it was packed and she had enjoyed it. She thought the DJ had been different. Later, I realised the place is probably like one of those venues in BsAs hosting different tango events on different evenings. Wild horses wouldn't drag my back there with that guy hosting. I might go on another day but only when well protected within a group of friends.  I had had an inkling of the unfriendliness of mainstream Parisian milongas that the queer tango dancers felt, described by a friend thus: what do you mean you're a human being? That's no reason to acknowledge your presence

When I got to the consigne-bagages at Garde du Nord I had trouble getting my case. 

I apologised to the  baggage handler for being so stupid as to not realise where to put my ticket.

- Je suis quand même un peu stressée.
- Don't worry about it he said. Paris is a stressful city, don't you think?
- C'est agréable pour faire du tourisme.
- Bof, le tourisme, he said clearly signalling that the stress of Paris life wasn't worth the tourism.
I'm originally from Morocco he said. I've lived here twenty-something years and I would move if I could. You've seen what it's like.  Apparently he could tell that I had.

I enjoyed my short three days in Paris. The famous Parisian elegance was evident in the women, though not as standard. Some older white women in particular dressed with a strikingly attractive simplicity although their clothes looked expensive. Many women worse long dresses in the heat which added to the air of femininity. The woman I most remember though was on the metro. She was dark skinned and in that summer heat wore a white gown to her feet that draped attractively. She had a white turban, large, glamorous rectangular graduated shades and sandals encrusted with tiny diamanté stones. Her phone, into which she talked non-stop had the same tiny diamanté. She was a study in a different kind of elegance.

I remember though my friend and the baggage handler who both said Parisians were always upset about something. I wouldn't want to handle day in, day out, the kind of uptight, resentful touchiness I had found in those last two milongas but it wasn't everywhere. A lot of the people I met were relaxed and calm.

If you do go to Paris, the mobilis public transport ticket per day is worthwhile if you travel more than 4 journeys in a day. The Paris visite ticket (zones 1-3) is unnecessary if you only want to visit central Paris (zone 1) but it includes some museum discounts. If you have a paper ticket keep it separate from your phone, bank card or change. If it does demagnetise you can get it exchanged for free at an RATP ticket office.

Museum in the Marais, milonga in Montparnasse

Musée des Arts et Métiers

In Paris, As recommended by the ice cream makers I did go, briefly, to the extremely scientific Musée des Arts et Métiers. Feeling totally inadequate and extremely unintelligent in the face of so much scientific discovery and complex machinery I realised, dismally that I connected more with the aesthetics of the lathes, the stained glass, the autonoma and the painted chapel housing an example of Foucault's pendulum.

I went on to two milongas.  The first near Montparnasse took a good half an hour to get to from the Marais plus the time to find it, in a galleried “market”. I had a bizarre moment where I was on the phone to the host, trying to find the place, when suddenly I saw a dance school advertised by advertisements outside, mentioning tango.  I hung up and went towards it.  The woman who came out seemed to have taken another call.  There was no-one inside what looked like a beautiful dance studio, gorgeous floor, palm trees.  She waved me away from the floor, telling me I couldn’t go in with my outdoor shoes and saying she’d be with me in a moment.  But it transpired the woman was neither running a milonga nor knew of one.  It turned out I had not been speaking to her on the phone.  At this point I realised that I had not hung up the call and that it was still active with someone else on the other line... 

The great d'Arienzo track Unión Cívica was playing as I arrived but I stayed less than the time it took to finish the track.  There was dire dancing, not many there and all older. The milonga has been there a year and apparently had had tourists the previous week and the week before.  I said I was going out to get something to eat before I was collared with an entrada and skedaddled. 

I took a breather (€20) up the Montparnasse tower so that the trip was not wasted. It has to be done once.

The next day I received a somewhat aggrieved, passive-aggressive message in poorly spelt French from the male part of the hosting team stating that visiblement I had found the place and lamenting that I had not stayed to dance because he would have willingly danced a tanda or two with me, signing off Amicalement, with his name.  Someone else it seems who doesn’t get that dance comes from mutual desire, not coercion or anything else.

Evidently he was another Parisian who felt embêté.

But that was as nothing to the guy in the second place.  

Co-axing

Jean Jean Louis Théodore Géricault - La Balsa de la Medusa

- People want class said a friend. They want to be told what to do. 

- Those are exactly the people the person I learned from would say not to bother about. But I think it's harsh. The best natural dancer last week wanted a class. By my guide's logic I should just abandon her to the tides. 

Those are the people who then get ensnared in other people's classes and quickly, irretrievably ruined. 

- The problem, said the friend, is there is something toxic in regular tango dance class. It's that thing of focusing on the steps to the detriment of the connection, the music and the respect for other people in the space, which is never even mentioned.

She said the concentration in class was on the doing more than the feeling. She's right. Why do they do that? Because how do you teach people how to feel and why would you? She particularly disliked step sequences as though dancing tango is a choreography rather than an improvised dance. She also objected to people inflicting their rote-learned movements on partners at every opportunity and on teachers hogging  the spotlight with talk and demos as if the learning process were about them more than about the learners. These were all things we had talked about.

I remembered the beginner refugees from class  who came to the practica with the contortions they had been taught. The idea that we dance the music not the steps was a concept they had never heard. Until arrival at the práctica it was as though for these dancers, the music was just "background", like lift music. 

 My friend said You need to co-axe them. 

Co-axe? I said, unfamiliar with this new 21 century term that must have come from the business world. 

Yes, she said, amadouer, in French. You offer them class because that's what they ask for and if you don't do it someone else will. Then you won't have the kind of new dancers you like.  Then you co-axe them to your philosophy.

Ok, but co-axe?

She showed me the translation: 

Apparently they use thy use the English word in French too, but pronounced very differently!

Misgivings

Gordon Dylan Johnson

I did wonder whether I should title this post "Corruption".

I needed some technical help from the guide who, when I was new to dance helped me clarify many of the ideas that run through this blog [edited]:

Full disclosure:  a group I did some historical guiding for asked me to teach them. It was right after:

R: Tango? Ooh, how lovely . Do you teach?

F: No, dance class is against my religion. I help new dancers learn to dance at socials & practicas by dancing with them.

R: Oh, but will you do a class for us?

 I can't see people from this group walking in cold to a milonga or práctica.. They are so nice & she is so enthusiastic & persuasive I found myself reluctantly saying OK. 

Extraordinarily, I participated in a workshop with Cacu Lucero recently.

He was the most unteacher like teacher I've ever met, more a facilitator.  I thought I might try some of his approaches which were around exploration, listening, respect for the partner, dynamic roles, improvisation & play.

But with this sound system & the hall booking having been problematic I have taken the view that if it's not fated so be it.

But that's not all. I've had many requests for teaching from people I've danced with recently in a town where in terms of dancing tango there have only been the free events I run. You tell them just come back to the social but they want more. 

 Besides, someone asked me to co-host an event last week, and  again for this coming weekend.  I agreed.  It had been a success. Many loved the dance or were less sceptical an they had been initially. Then he said he wanted to run a class beforehand. The money for the events is being donated but, since so many people were interested in tango last time he believes class is necessary. I have persuaded him not to do ochos in week 1 and to focus on music and partner.  Even so, obviously I have many misgivings.

But if I don't do it he is going to ask someone who ruins every new dancer. Plus there's a salsa teacher champing at the bit to learn tango & you can see where that will go.

So I said yes telling him it was on the basis of damage limitation and that I saw myself as the break on teaching steps like the cross and the ocho which he calls the basics. 

People I have danced with over the eight months when I ran the free practica who can now dance introduce me to others as their teacher. They laugh when I protest.

A friend said to fight fire with fire, meaning if you don't want people ruined by class you need to get them before they go off to someone else's class.

My former guide would likely say that types looking for class are lost anyway. 

Within days a teacher in Glasgow, eighty miles away was touting for business in the local Whatsapp salsa group, having heard about that market opportunity somehow.   

"Do you do classes?"

 

I looked for a photo of dance class but I just don't have any so here's a photo of people applauding a show by a local teacher. I always find it interesting to see people's reactions to shows which are essentially adverts for dance class.

Some of the people I danced with at our tango / salsa / bachata night loved discovering tango.  People in their 50s and 60s looked rejuvenated, like teenagers, or giddy with insight. 

When people dance with someone experienced, the first time they dance, if they enjoy it, it is common that they will then ask about class.  Why do they grab at the idea of class so immediately and insistently after their first, phenomenally successful time dancing tango, in say, a practica, milonga or unusual social like ours?  

You try to point out the dangers of the class route ahead.  Nowadays I even say that I rarely dance with people who do classes, which is true - there is no point. I can sense every time they start thinking their technique and their moves. But they can't seem to let go of the idea they think they'll be the exception. You try to point out how well they have danced and how unnecessary - and expensive - class can be.  But they are thinking intently What next? How can I get this experience again? How can I get good enough to dance with other people?

 They don't want to be so forward as to ask you again but it was plain to see in some eyes.  I had no milonga or practica right then to offer them so, resourcefully, they start looking for solutions themselves.  I said, I am sure we will run something similar again soon, we can dance again, you can come with us to milongas, but it was probably too vague, too loose, too improvised. 

 The way forward is actually simple.  Go to practicas and milongas, where people you know, ideally your friends are going.  Find someone you trust to talk to. Get tips of which experienced people are good dancers. Try them.  Take in the atmosphere, watch, listen to the music, chat, trust your instincts.  Don't take any shit from pedagogic or controlling guys.  Take the long view of your dance journey.  It's that simple.  

Oh, and if you're a guy, dance in the woman's role first.  Admittedly, finding people to do that with can be tricky and if that's the case, pay someone to do it with you.

"The basics" and "technique"

Ladies at the practica I ran in Dundee

At the tango  /salsa / bachata night, a couple of times people who had danced very well said Yes, but I have to go to class to get  - that old chestnut - the basics. The basics I said, are listen to the music, listen to the partner. There is nothing more fundamental.  But many people have a mindset that "the way to learn is to pay someone to teach you else it isn't worthwhile".  It is so ingrained in some people it is as though they believe If I'm not consciously thinking, I'm not learning.

I lost count of the number of times, that, having just danced with someone their next question was whether there were classes in Dundee.  The salsa dance class teacher, who was picking it up quickly, was keen to learn.  That is the obvious road ahead. 

If they are not talking about "the basics" people often go on about technique.  There are a few things guys commonly do that are not pleasant for the girl but you don't need class for them.  If a new guy starts waddling or bobbing, twisting my hand or poking me in the back, I simply,  as Silk does, swap roles and do the same to him. It is always funny for both of us and you usually only need to do it once. 

Besides, guys all do different things, because everyone is different, so learning should be personalised, not the standardised "one size fits all" of class.  Unless you dance with people, you don't know what it is like to be their partner.  And even if you are their partner, what you like in them may not suit anyone else.  Teachers on the whole simply teach their own preferences and prejudices just as many DJs who are dancers play what they like more than what the dancers they are playing for like. But when dancers don't discriminate and learners don't question, they are anyone's gulls.

Inclusion

Milonga chat

Searching among my photos for "conversation", nearly everything that came up was pictures of my family. That is probably because families are  - usually - by their very nature, inclusive and by necessity, tolerant. 

Inclusion nowadays is a watchword for minority rights and diversity, but I grew up with it meaning something simpler.  My parents were social, personally and professionally and despite or perhaps because of moving house every couple of years, for decades hosted regular drinks, lunch and dinner parties.  The guest bedrooms were like an Airbnb.  The drinks party some people do annually, my parents seemed to do every other month.  

From the word go I watched my mother include people in conversation without a hint of being patronising, and then introduce them entirely naturally to those they didn't know.  I have rarely met anyone so good at this delicate art.  I grew up assuming everyone did this, which, among army officer families, they did seem to.  My original friend among the Parisian queer tango dancers, who has, no coincidence I think, the same lovely manners as my mum, has the same talent.  He introduced and reintroduced me to people with more grace than I managed as the recipient of this favour. 

At lunch recently I watched admiringly a woman whose patience is doubtless longer than mine but then she has raised four children. She repeatedly included in conversation an ignorant and insensitive young woman whom I had found trying and had largely given up on.  

At the tango / salsa / bachata event, chatting about learning socially, someone said:  Yes, but you don't want to ruin an experienced dancers experience if you are a beginner.

This was shocking but dismally, not surprising.  

It would be a selfish community that did not even bother to include new people who are willing enough to come along to try something new among experienced strangers.

It is a pleasure and an honour to introduce new people to this dance.  Besides, they are usually so grateful it is more than recompense enough.  Apart from which, it is in our interests.  If a community has no new people it has no real life in the present and certainly none in the future.

Personalised learning

New salsa dancer dancing socially with an experienced dancer / teacher

This post continues a theme (see links below) of individuality & uniqueness. Being individual, not in the sense of selfish, but in the sense of unique, is about exploring and expressing identity and finding points of connection with the uniqueness of others.  That exploration means it is also about freedom.   

At the tango / salsa / bachata event we ran I danced with many new dancers and was asked often if I teach.  Smidgens of historical guiding and lecturing, teaching French, English and environmental surveying is doing nothing close to bringing home the bacon.  So, still needing more employment after having to leave my course, perhaps I should have said "only privately".  Instead I said, as had once been suggested: It's against my religion.   If you were to say to me, What is wrong with dance class?, ordinarily one of the first reasons I might give is It teaches people to think dance, instead of feel it or People learn steps and ignore the music and the partner or It promotes controlling and hierarchical behaviours.

But last night I relearned with emphasis that the reason dance class often doesn't work is because everyone is different.  This is true for many things we learn and why class in school can be such an inefficient, even harmful way of learning.  Everyone I danced with was entirely unique in how they danced and in what they needed from the partner.  Some new guys who trying guiding need you to transmit confidence to them.  Others need the beat.  Total beginners often need something: even the tiniest murmured suggestion of reassurance, encouragement, praise. Mostly people just need confidence which comes from reassurance, practice or both.  

Recently, a beginner kept hollowing his chest when guiding. Obviously, he felt nervous because guiding when you are new is not easy.   I need your chest, I said, swapping to show him what it was like to dance without connection in the chest.  Ah yes, he said, standing taller.  It is all connected: standing taller immediately helps with confidence, with breathing and hence relaxation and  provides the connection in the chest the person being guided usually wants. 

Everyone new though needs you to adapt to them, to some extent, to their feelings, essentially, in some way and that you cannot do in a class. 

Even with twelve years experience dancing tango, and dancing with beginners nearly every time I go out, it still surprised me that the best dancers were without a doubt two older women.  I will not have been alone in this surprise, showing we still have a long way to go to break down prejudice about age. They had a focus, connection and lack of self consciousness and nerves that usually takes longer and that was not yet present in the younger women.  

Gratifying was that all the new guys wanted to be guided, often closing their eyes.  Being dancers they probably understood that is the way to understand the dance or maybe they had seen those of us who already dance doing it. I was impressed the salsa teacher was willing to try dancing vals and tango in front of all his students, as a beginner. He had a dancers sensibility, musicality and sense of connection  and will pick it up quickly. He danced socially with new salsa dancers too which was lovely to see.

  

29.5.24:

Life's is largely a solo flight. Family, friends, partners come and go. The way education is assessed in the UK is by individual exams.  When you go to dance in the milonga, your choices, your dance ares yours.  We are not a hive mind, we do not live as one. So why is learning done as a group?  While there is some focus on collaboration, it is primarily for perceived efficiency, especially cost efficiency and the convenience and of the organisers and instructors.  

Personalised learning produces the best results.  One on one guidance, with space to explore and time to collaborate is invaluable.

---

Individuality revisited (April 2023)

Authenticity (April 2023)

The frog and the nightingale: a cautionary tale (March 2019) 

Standardisation and individuality (April 2016)

Being unique: learning from children (December 2015

And there are pieces on the antithesis of individuality e.g.

How class dancers dance

Elbow whacking automata

Hosting tango / salsa / bachata

I knew it was Colombian independence day on 20 July and wanted to learn more about the country and have a party so suggested to a local Colombian woman I knew through salsa we have just that, a party with food.  After initial enthusiasm, with the hassle of finding a venue, the idea died. Meanwhile, another friend had already found a venue. Well, why don't we just have a dance party anyway?, I said. Tango and salsa?  Dundee has more salsa dancers than tango.  T's venue was the local ashram. I was in France so he set up the event, advertising it as tango / salsa / bachata.  Although the local salsa DJ is not a bachata fan, he does the same - otherwise I'd only have about 10 people here, he said. T set the entry at £2 in donations for the ashram, asked people to bring things to share and asked me to co-host.

The mix of dancers turned out to be a great idea. About 28 people, mostly salseros, came including the local salsa / bachata teacher.  I had not seen the venue until that evening. The lighting was not soft and there was a shortage of small tables but even so, people stayed, most til 11PM, the stated end time even though there was a shortage of leaders.  Many stayed beyond.

Some people expressed scepticism about tango at first but after trying it changed their minds. I heard again and again that people had enjoyed watching others dance tango too.  That is the way in: for people to see what the dance is like, without pressure and then be persuaded to try it.

Sometimes, I have gone to salsa and tango dances and been totally ignored.  Most recently this was to a salsa event in Mango, on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow where Tango Bar is also apparently now held in its new incarnation. An individualistic group ignores new people.  A warm community dances with them, gives them an "in".  I like events where people are welcomed and new people and visitors are invited to dance.  I find it surprisingly uncommon but that is the atmosphere I enjoy and would want to be host to, because the atmosphere comes in large part from the host/s. 

A: I have to say I didn't expect the salsa people to get into tango that much

B: Yes, but that's what happens when you have a friendly atmosphere & good leaders.

A: Yes, exactly.

The great things about a free or nearly free event is that because you are not doing it for the money, you can be entirely authentic in your welcome.  Sometimes people have turned up to my free milongas and practicas to whom I have perhaps nodded rather than embraced, but then I don't have to pretend because I am not taking their money.  Money is still necessary, sadly but the freedom money buys is not necessarily the most important kind. Real freedom brings more peace and is probably lost less easily.

The Parisian queer tango dancers

I only wrote glancingly, never in any substance about the Sheffield Queer Tango marathon of 2018/19. I was new to that scene and felt like a guest.  There was a lot to take in and based on some of the horror stories of prejudice and abuse I heard there, discretion required, I felt and distance perhaps. 

Overall, the dancing at Sheffield was on another level. I don't like the term "level" much, because of its association with dance class, but the dancing was something else altogether.  There was all the proof any sceptic would ever need, that dancing both roles creates great dancers.  Of the many good dancers I met there, the Parisian dancers were in a league of their own.  

They came out to play again, beside the Seine on Tuesday this week. The friend I knew first from that group organised it. lt was at the jardin Tino Rossi beside the Seine.  He knows I am particular and I had had ample warning that it was not his favourite place to dance but the setting was lovely.  There are a series of mini outdoor amphitheatres next to one another.  Tango was between the drummers and the salsa dancers, entrada by donation.  The volume was too low at first, even without the competing sounds. I asked the DJ, an obliging man, to raise it and if you stayed nearer the speaker the other sounds didn’t impinge.  The music was hit and miss, but enough that was good with some great tracks. There was a mix of people dancing and many more watching but our group stuck together. I had no desire to seek dances beyond it. The floor was partly tiled, part concrete. My knee was twisted early on the concrete and thereafter danced only on the tiles, asking not to be pivoted and trying my all not to pivot my partners when guiding.  I was limping by the time I got home.  Codeine took care of that and the evening all in all was lovely.

The setting beside the river was gorgeous. Friends old and new there were gentle, lovely, funny.  I feel honoured they include me and danced with me. I thought in Sheffield and again this week: why, actually, do I bother dancing outside this group? Great dancing is made of sensitivity and feeling. I have never encountered such good dancing among one group of people. They are easily the best dancers I know.

No-one dances like you (all), I remarked to a guy with a fractured arm in a sling which didn't stop him from dancing. There’s a connection that just isn’t present with most other dancers 

Ah, well, that’s double-role dancing, he replied.

You haven’t changed at all, said my favourite dancer, disconcerting me.  Boyish, his relaxed gaze is nevertheless entirely focused on you at that moment.  It is just like his dancing.  His remark wasn't true - I am greyer for one thing - but he made you feel it was. The kindness of it took my breath away especially as I had him down as more fun, of the riotous sort, than kind. The people in that group have lovely manners, which is another way of saying they are kind, caring and courteous and not in any superficial way.

I couldn’t immediately recall his name.  I had always, from the moment of first dancing with him over four years ago, always thought of him as “Silk” because, dancing with him, that is what it felt like. His fluent English has a lovely drawl that reminds me of London and youth. He found everything funny: when I asked if he DJd classic now, when I said I was going because of the insects but then stayed - obviously, one can’t leave when a great d’Arienzo track starts playing. He dances gently yet more fearlessly than anyone I know, with complete connection. 

That is what distinguishes the Parisian queer tango dancers.  It is all in their connection and that fearlessness. I don’t know why particularly they have it because I have danced  with countless people who dance both roles and while they are usually great in one role and often good in both, they are not all like that. One tiny woman I had met before offered to guide me.  T’es courageuse! I said later because she guided me and men as tall or taller than me without batting an eyelid. Of course, it helps that these men are much easier to guide than nearly all others. 

I guided another superb dancer, a woman who, gratifyingly, had that dizzy, distant look at the end of the tanda, the kind where you know she has been deep inside the dance and needs to get her bearings.  

With the fascist dancers, said Silk  - he meant the controlling, forceful types  - when they try to push my foot with theirs - a barrida then - I just do it back to them, say three times, so that they get how unpleasant it is. He is not wrong in his choice of language.  People who try to control, hurt or harass others deserve that epithet. I have written of it often, particularly here.

 

He seemed to be angry with them, on a mission to force them to understand, maybe even punish them.

Ah me, the power to feel exaggerated, angry and sad
The years have taken from me. Softly I go now, pad pad

                                                                                        - Stevie Smith

This is not entirely true but with age I think we realise the danger of anger to ourselves.

The queer dancers have tolerated, been subjected to, awful experiences. I heard about them in Sheffield, when I asked different people why they didn't prefer diverse milongas with straight and queer dancing together. If they are angry it is not surprising, even less so if they choose to avoid what harms them.

These days I don't accept the "fascists" in the first place, or if by mistake, I do, I just fake injury, or plead the real one they have inflicted on me, and also, walk away.

The subtitle of this blog used to be Aut Sensum, Aut Non and I still believe that; most people don't get it and won't get it and there ends my interest. Besides, life is too short to dance unbearable dances.

I still believe, possibly mistakenly, that one or two beginners who may have started class only recently may be saveable, so when they twist my hand or poke my back as if searching for the button that initiates ochos, I simply swap roles and do to them what they have just done to me.  They immediately understand.  Silk’s strategies and mine are essentially the same in that regard. 

  

At a certain point, said Silk, there is no lead or follow.  Even from the beginning, actually.  Everything he said just clicked into place. It was though we all understood something, he especially. Nothing really needed to be said because he seemed to already to be on the same wavelength.  He liked that I had learned to guide in the milongas. The conversation was so relaxing, so much in contrast to those I usually have about tango where people look at me oddly when I say dance class is against my religion. They talk about wanting to go to class for "the basics".

I was marvelling at the wonderful connection between those dancing at that moment in our group and how different it was from most of what was going on on the floor, which was mostly just the ordinary dancing you see in most milongas - a nutter or two, one or two reasonably good dancers, a lot of people trying to look good and most just dancing mechanically without connection to the partner or the music. There were a number watching who looked like they might quite like to dance.

My original friend described learning to dance "half an hour earlier than you". He is modest so that could mean anything between 13 and 20 years. Has anyone ever come up to you, I asked him, and said: "I love your dancing, how you all dance so connectedly, so well.  Can you show me how?" 

No, he said.

I was not surprised.

But it’s weird isn’t it, that no-one does that, that they all just go to class?

It's particularly strange given that no dancer I have ever met, has refused help, or asked for payment (apart from teachers, who are self-styled, not chosen, elected or licensed)

You have to be able to recognise it, first, he said.

It’s true. But it does seem so obvious when you know what you are looking for. And I am sure that some people, even who do not dance yet, could not fail to notice the close, four legs, one body connection and profoundly meditative look that comes over people in that deep connection.  

The footwork of some of the queer dancers was not perfect and elegant.  Sometimes toes pointed in, there wasn’t necessarily the posture of male dancers often thought elegant. One of our number, a superb dancer, a woman wore cargo style black shorts, a black t-shirt and black plimsolls. Across the floor tottered a girl in lacy black shorts, high heels, and a large red hat. Everything about the latter screamed "Look at me!" Predictably, she couldn't dance. Every movement of people in our group though was done to accommodate the partner, to find the connection with the partner.  It was about feel, not look. They dressed as casually as I remembered.  They were relaxed, had nothing to prove but everything to convey in touch, listen and response. 

I heard it said more than once: No, I don't dance mainstream much any more, meaning in straight, "normal" milongas, and indeed, beside the Seine, we stuck together. 

There are good, straight dancers said Silk, generously, as I remarked again how much more connectedly those in our group danced. But I didn't see many.

Tu crois? I said, increasingly sceptical, as the gap between what I was dancing that night and what I normally witness, seemed vast. How's that?

Ben, ils ont tous les espaces, he said shrugging, matter of factly, meaning, that there just wasn't much place for their group. 

- But you could get together and go out to the straight milongas together, I said. 

- Oui...

- Mais il faut s'organiser.

- Voilà, c'est ça. Il faut s'organiser, he shrugged, lightly.

But they don't really need to organise themselves because they go off dancing to organised queer tango weekend events around Europe instead.  I thought I might go to the next one in Barcelona. My friends there told me the organisers are fun and dance well.

A guy walked past remarking to the group or perhaps to anyone within earshot that here were Paris's best dancers.  I have no doubt it's true. I was reminded again what a huge loss to the mainstream these dancers are, and yet the mainstream are probably barely aware of their existence. Knowing them is a bit like stumbling upon a great speakeasy, or an excellent underground milonga that isn't advertised. I felt so lucky.