For some reason, maybe the change in the season, tango bloggers are talking a lot about the "tango trance" these days. The bliss, that waking up at the end of a song and truly not knowing where you are. This gets to be a part of the tango, it happens or not, and we all seek it. We are all upset by it at some point, but we still seek it. Being a better dancer helps, but people with tango hearts are a class in themselves, a layer of the parfait, a secret society, people who get it. Some of them are "advanced" some are students, some haven't even started dancing yet. Words can't describe it.
As a woman, as your confidant, as a dancer, I have to say this:
DO NOT: Mistake tango trance for love, for a relationship beyond the floor, and do not quit your job, bail on your career, move away, leave your family, sell your house, change your party affiliation, or commit any crimes, in the pursuit of this bliss. (People who have fallen in love and moved away for that reason, you are exempt here), If you decide you just have to move to Buenos Aires, get some good advice from those who have. Do not act like you are in high school, unless you are. The bliss is there for you, just trust it.
DO: Dance a lot, dance with everyone who is not a jackass, make some real friends in tango, travel if you can. Buy some smokin' hot shoes, change up the wardrobe and get a new hair cut. Tango is going to give you a lot of clues about who you really are, and what your personal style really is. Don't fight it.
Have your tango friends and a few strangers over to your house and dance, grill some chorizos and some steak, make some chimichurri, buy Malbec and champagne by the case, and tell stories and read your poems and buy each others paintings, books, and support each others business. Integrate the bliss. Get drunk together, stay up way too late, and do not act your age. If you are person who keeps a clean house, get over it. No one cares when the lights are dim.
You want to take care of yourself, because the hours and the physical demands are pretty rigorous.
Keep your relationships clean and honest and remember who is going to be there for you in the long run. Learn Spanish. Definitely go to Argentina soon and often. Not excited that this is the first day of Fall? Not to worry, it is the first day of Spring there. But please come home again. Bring it back here. Make it happen here. If you are going to be away on election day please vote as an absentee, for Obama of course! Please bring a kilo of mate and a gourd, and maybe your new Argentine friends. Start a milonga, and most of all, dance like you mean it.
Those are my ideas, maybe you have some more.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
20 comments:
Great post! Great Advices!
I love and have been doing this:
"Get drunk together, stay up way too late, and do not act your age."
Thanks for visiting TP.
Party on.
E
All of your ideas are great...and make me wish I lived closer to your house! (Now I am hungry, too!)
;-)
Hey TB:
...real friends in tango=YOU.
Love this post, Elizabeth. It made me laugh out loud at work.
Good advice that I will hold close to my heart.
Funny you should mention voting absentee in the election, I just received my voter registration card in the mail here in Buenos Aires!
I sure miss the parties at your house. Particularly for the people!
You know, Armando and Diana are in town, it's been nice to see them. :-)
Hey Mtnhigh: It was your recent entries that recalled for me those first real tangos..
Thanks for visiting, and thanks for being so open in your writing.
Tina, Happy Springtime. I hoped your would see Armando and Diana. Give them our best.
XO
E
P.S. Tina,
The parties are not the same without you!
Great advice...tango trance does not equal love. Tango trance has the same effect as beer goggles, no?
That's a good one Miss Tango. I had to look it up. Exactly right.
Wikipedia has a very good explaination of the concept. Just insert "Tango trance" where they say "beer goggles".
All great advice, most of it to be ignored by those for whom it was written :-)
Johanna, ...sigh. You are right, but still, I hope at least that people will make some real connections (friends), and build community. I find it so wierd that you can see the same people week after week, for years, and still not know them at all. It seems disfunctional.
For me, it has always been one of Tango's deepest mysteries, Elizabeth. Why something we all hold so dear and which affects us so deeply, does not also cause us to coalesce into deep, non-tango friendships.
The only place this seems to happen to any meaningful degree is in BA.
Great post, Elizabeth! You hit the nail right on the head.
I would offer one caveat. I was driving back from my high school reunion yesterday - basking in the memories of both the event and thirty years past. Naturally, tango thoughts muscled their way in.
I continue to have recurring thoughts of what I think of as "pure love" with regard to tango and the tango trance. The "DO" activities you describe are, to me, founded in pure love - among friends. The tango trance is, to me, the essence of pure love. Not romantic "love" as most ponder, but simply the love and respect of another human being, sharing the human touch and connection on this earth. Even if it's not a deep, knowing, substantive, emotional connection, it is a physical connection nonetheless.
I'm starting to sound like a new age preacher man, so in order to dispel that notion...I love the concept of "Jackass Tango", and "Tango Jackasses"...you will forever more be credited with originating the terminology...
Signed..."MyFeedIsBrokenAlex"
Hi Alex, Thanks for your recent comments.
I think I know what youmean. It is having "love in your heart" .
I see women (usually the young ones) thinking that this feeling in tango means, "we are in love", and they are surprised unpleasantly to find that next week, the guy is just sharing the "love' with everyone, especially any new chicas. It is sad to see it, so I was issuing a motherly warning in a way, one that will fall on deaf ears..as Johanna says. sigh.
Signed..DoesNotHaveAClueWhatBrokenFeedIsElizabeth.
Just reread this post, and once again I am charmed.
I was discussing this falling in love with your Bliss Enducer with a friend that can't leave it on the floor, and I think I realized that in general our society does not teach people how to love without there being a romantic attachment. It doesn't matter whether it is tango, or a deep friendship, or a relationship changing from a romantic one to something else. The only way our society has encouraged us to feel love for someone is through family or romance.
Really, it's such a great loss.
MtnHigh: I agree with what you say here. So clearly, people in this society are very afraid of touch as well, and misread normal hugs, embraces, and even eye contact, making tango a confusing thing at first. Also, naturally there are always those who abuse the little bit of magic that they have.
Good luck with your project.
E
Post a Comment