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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.
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.
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