Words and the Wordless

Shall I write about this yet?  When something is very deep and powerful it seems as though words are not enough, or can be wrong, or can be destructive to delicate truth.

This weekend I learned more about tango/expression through the body.
Two things. First a workshop on followers technique, and second, the movie Pina. If you don't know it yet, the movie is created by Wim Wenders and the Tanztheater Wuppertal, in Germany.  Pina Bausch was artistic director and choreographer.  

Both events shared this truth:

That the body can convey what words and narrative cannot.

Music is us.  We listened in the tango followers workshop,  Repeatedly, extensively, and inwardly to one piece of music.  First we did this alone, with eyes closed. and later with a partner, not navigating, but in place, just weight shift. There were a lot of raw emotions and some people could not be there. They needed to sit out, or leave.  They were given prior warning, and told that the class would be intense, and not to worry about needing to back off.  I am not into crazy therapies or jerking people around.  But consider....all that happened was that people were asked to address, really engage, the music, then each other....

Then, the weekend, the normal tango drama only more.  I go out to dance as recreation, attending to the meaning of re-create.  Re creating self, and searching for other.  People bring all the stuff.  We all know the people who only bring search for sex or romantic love without attachment.  Only.  Or Need. Or Nurture.  Don Juan.  Victim.  Siren.  Mother.  In the workshops we were asked to have a longer list, to search for archetypes.  It was damned interesting and deep.  It will take a long time to explore.  There are lots of things in us.  Lots of us in us.  More.  Dance is a way of finding.  There was much more to the workshop.  Technique, fun, the way to use the body to express.

The dancers in the movie were putting it all on the line, body and soul.  They have to.  But we as social dancers can do as much or little as we decide.  But our increased awareness puts us closer to each other and to the music.  What are we there for anyway?  The dancers were exploring un-named emotions.  We have those too.  Complex mixtures, always changing.  We can check in with ourselves and our partners wordlessly.  Trust was a theme I saw in the movie.  What if not trust?  What do we have in our friends and partners if trust is absent.  Hard lesson we all have learned in life.  How to guard the heart and still keep it open.  (Damned be those who rob us of that.....damned be ourselves if we allow it.)

We don't always need to deal with all of this in our tango, but just to learn to be aware, to observe without critique, that which inhabits us today.  Sometimes hearts need to rest. Often the fun friend is the one we dance for and with.  And we should, as partners respect that too.  We can only do that by learning how to recognize the wordless world. She said with words.....