Hello from the void
3rd May
I’m sorry for the radio silence; there’s been very little to say. I didn’t dance at the end of March, or even much all through April, for a variety of good-bad reasons: ten perfect days in America, the ideal imperfect country; a gruelling 12-day run of teaching, replete with 6am starts (screwing my sleep and making nights out, even to see friends, let alone to dance, almost impossible); a health scare that turns out to be harmless, but is a scare; strange physiological anxious reactions and time to heal from them. And then, also, having a Life – I go see Big Thief, twice, and see them do this; we go to the Zoo and watch a big eagle owl go ‘Hoo’ and puzzle at recumbent snakes; I make this really excellent Nigel Slater spring stew.
I’ve danced sparingly over the last month: on odd Sundays, round the corner, where it’s easy, leaving early; one Monday or two, and I’ve only managed one Friday. All the times I have danced, I’ve felt fine – a little rusty, nothing particularly in or out or tune. But now I’ve a lesson coming up, next Saturday, and I feel a little recovered from a month of strange sleep and facing off sicknesses, so I go out this evening for the Bank Holiday. I forget that with tango, as with most things, there come certain times where you can just decide to do it very well, and it is within your control. This evening is one of those times. It’s busy, and initially very follower-heavy, so I know I’ll have to either proactively get my dances or slump and give up, so I choose the former. It feels like summer is here now, so I’m in my summer get-up, of split-sole trainers and low-rise culottes and a crop top and the only orange lipstick that suits me, and I decide I’m going to dance very well, so I do.
Lots of my favourite leaders are there, and I get dances with all of them. I’m thinking a lot about the technique I worked on in September with the teacher I’m seeing on Saturday: of keeping the core pulled in and engaged, though not tensed in a way which would block movement; of being immensely relaxed across the back, neck and shoulders; of being really thoroughly solidly stuck into the ground. At one point, later in the night, I check on my hip flexors so as to make them soft and spongy or springy, and find they are already doing that – the first time I’ve caught them where I want them. I find myself, too, using my hips to carve into my partner’s in circular movement (a proposition that sounds alarming, and like it would result in some awkward and horrible clash, but which – as my teachers in Vienna promised when they taught me about it – is completely safe and works perfectly).
For the first time since the summer, I get to dance with probably (one of) the best social dancers in the city, who has popped up again after his months away doing other dances. Dancing with him is easier and more perfect than ever, and he has distinct qualities apart from the other, very good, leaders there, which are mostly to do with musculature and texture. Many of the leaders I dance with have beautiful technique and musicality, and execute moves seamlessly, though not all of them seem to do what he does, which is to give movement density and texture according to the music. I guess this is a bridge between adornment and technique, where the quality of the movement becomes a kind of adornment. It’s something I try to do back, especially when I am given something to match. There’s a chewiness to his movement, and he also manages to lead the quality of the movement, as well as the movement itself. It’s heaven, to get to use my muscles and my body this way, and find it’s an effortless conversation, one that makes perfect sense.
But I’m crowing. I probably won’t be after Saturday, and I’ll be a baby deer again, learning to move. How good it is to have both.