Dancing on the Outskirts

If the city tango scene is heavy cream, our-town tango is a sip still warm from the cow's udder. I am not entirely sure what that means, except that there is a quality about it that may inspire dangerous tendencies to wax patronizingly poetic, for which I ask the indulgence of your forgiveness. I mean absolutely no offense to Bham dancers. It's just ... different. An entirely different (still magnificent) beast than tango I've experienced in more urban areas. While these styles are myriad, they have adapted to have a certain familiar nuance that may come from greater national and international exposure weaning out some of the idiosyncracies, and both the large nuevo styles and more compact styles designed for crowded floors have a familiarity from Rome to Denver to Buenos Aires.Some of the wrinkles of a "scene" gets ironed out with increased exposure to other scenes and multiple communities.

Our town is a syncretic dance scene - a mish-mash of ballroom, nuevo, milonguero, generalized social, and swing technique. It often lacks the sort of subtlety that allows the drift into dream-dance, but substitutes boisterous bounce and bravura in its place. The roles of lead and follow are particularly convoluted as an unclear lead invitation opens the follow's world to an infinite variety of interpretations, and the leads in turn are good-natured enough to respond with their own choices of infinite varieties of response.

 Often the music plays over the dancing and under the chatter. There is laughter. Stumbling. Silliness. It is undeniably fun as long as we know it's meant to be so. Of course we have our skilled dancers and a number of our-town dancers study in Vancouver and Seattle, but somehow they remain unchanged... mostly. There have been movements to upgrade the scene, and Bellingham is increasingly poised as a meeting point between Seattle and Vancouver tango, but these seem to ebb and flow without altering the final result too much (yet, at any rate - it's young still and perhaps just at the verge of puberty). Those who are taking on more refinements can still discover their inner tango children when it's just us townies... or at least those who can't aren't nearly as much fun because they still don't quite have the refinement that allows the drift-dream-dance-deliciousness (in my lacto-metaphor, maybe their tango is more like yogurt or buttermilk)

In our parts, we understand the real COLOR Tango

Well, there are exceptions to that rule. I know I have waxed elegiac about a certain local tanguero, Jeff, but it has been a while so let my flex my lute-playing muscles. I'm not sure what it is about him that sets my heart aflutter. I've certainly had more flawlessly rapturous connections with more skilled partners. Sometimes when he and I dance, yes, our knees may knock in a literal as well as spiritual fashion and we don't always quite pull off perfection, but... I suppose he was my first... and you never forget your first. First what, I'm not sure. First infinitely falling chocolate satin? First partner with whom I experienced the Lethe of a good connection - the moment of bewitchment where I realized my brain no longer knew or controlled my body's motions but was happy to recline and enjoy the intensity of shared breath and pulmonary pulses - where we compose a perfected whole of contrary-come-complementary energies... yin and yang (yin-yango?)

Yin-Yango!
(except I'm inches taller)

But I digress. It was a delight to discover that he had felt a random and sudden urge to come to the Tuesday practica (I am in Bham for the holidays), but I was waxing . It was a sparse practica, which made it all the more appreciable. It is also held in the grand ballroom of the Leopold, a musty hotel-turned-old-people's-home that faintly echoes The Shining:

The last time I was here, I was performing a ballet
version of Tales of Hoffman for some kind of
holiday fundraiser

 At the beginning there were four of us and after some idle catching up, wine arrived to enhance our languor. An almost perfect proportion of leads to follows (one lead to spare for most of the evening, which is the way I like it). More folks trickled in and out again over time, but it felt far more like an impromptu party born of excess idleness.In true Bellingham fashion, it began at 7 and ended at 9:30, a time when most Seattle practicas are only starting to consider opening up the floors.

Yes I am clearly a gifted photographer - Doug, Kristie, JEFF, Jim

At any rate, it is always fun to go back, although I'll admit that when I'm out of the tango trance - for better or worse - I notice all those little imperfections and tweaks-to-be-made-to-my-dance. My feet aren't quite as scrumptious as I'd like (although part of this does stem from just having larger feet than the most delicate of sizes and I have to remember this) and I can sometimes get sickle-footed when taking a long back-cross, not to mention an inelegant lack of turn-out on my boleos (grrrr). But I never said I was perfect (just nearly so). Funny that less good dances are probably the ones that really help me focus on... well the practice part of a practica. I get too tango-hungry and just want to dance with certain leads (I don't get out enough to waste an opportunity).

Anyways, sometimes you want strawberries and whipped cream and sometimes you just need a swig of fresh milk (ok I hate full milk, but I do get extreme dairy cravings so the random metaphor absolutely works). I like to think the contrast was a contribution to a great week.

Now read carefully and tell me this isn't the
awesomest floor scribbling ever

Another contribution to my colorful week was that I finally tried ZUMBA, which I will endeavor to describe in more detail at some future date. It's the quintessential aerobic dance workout/game of high-intensity-follow-the-leader that brings home the point that you will never get anywhere in life if you aren't willing to make a total goof of yourself. I didn't quite work up to the yelling and singing that is encouraged (rightfully so), but I could see doing so over time :) (did I just blog an emoticon? Ah well, I've never claimed professionalism here)

But I begin to digress further. Let me return to the theme (recently introduced) that I've had a varied and pleasant week and wish you all a Holly Jolly Holiday Preparation (or happy memories of Hanukkah waaaay back at the beginning of the month)