[Tango-L] Define Tango Moment

[TangoDC.com]

In addition to Huck's citation of "Silentium," we might also consider 
Whitman's short poem "When I heard the learn'd astronomer" 
(http://www.bartleby.com/142/180.html), if we're going to seek 
inspiration for remaining inarticulate.

But in homage to Whitman's practice, I'm going to do just the opposite. 
My apologies in advance if this isn't as short as you'd like it, but I'm 
not one to find profundity in a bumper sticker, unless it's on a car at 
the bottom of a very deep lake.

The "flow state" (aka, "the zone") may be pretty close to the "tango 
trance" or "tango moment"; but as others have pointed out, the situation 
is fundamentally different because it's a collaboration. Team sports and 
ensemble performances involve collaboration too, of course; not to 
mention combat; but in tango, the individual's mental state potentially 
achieves a harmony not only with a partner, but with the music above, 
the floor below, and the horizontal space occupied by other couples.

To me, a "tango moment" must involve this last component, because I'm a 
leader and constantly aware of the couples around me. I consciously try 
to dance in such a way as to create space for myself (and for others, 
when I can do that too), and I adjust the embrace, when my partner's 
willing, throughout the dance to achieve this end. (I'm not of the 
school that says, no matter what, you have to stick to one type of 
embrace for an entire song. I sometimes do that; and sometimes the music 
tells me otherwise. I try to teach my students how to change embraces, 
in the event that the music tells them something similar, or in case the 
first embrace they try isn't working as well as they'd like. There's no 
reason to suck for a whole song just because you're not brilliant at 
breakfast, as it were.)

Sometimes the social relationship between couples isn't conducive to 
tango moments, I find. It doesn't really matter whose fault that is; I'm 
sure it has been mine as often as it has been others'. By the same 
token, I've seen a couple in a trance beside me, while I'm nowhere 
close. And on that note, I've had women weeping over my shoulder, while 
I'm just coasting along in a merely civilized, entirely un-Zenlike, 
non-Michael Jordan kind of mood. (I've also had "cologne moments," but 
those are distinguished by a particular sniffle.) So I can only conclude 
that the conditions have to be right, but that those conditions are 
hardly universal, and that sometimes a good connection brings different 
results even within the context of one embrace.

Part of the thing, however, involves a degree of self-hypnosis. Also 
indulgence. I've often been embarrassed by the overeager, nigh-desperate 
look of affected ecstasy on some faces at a milonga-- the look some 
people have of basking in the light of the moon, because they know it 
shines over Paris too... But affectation always gets on my nerves. That, 
and I really think the tango trance is somewhat over-rated, and tends to 
distract a fair number of people from being more creative more often.

That's because, in my experience, the "tango moment" is also a moment of 
limited artistry. It most often occurs in close embrace, which naturally 
makes certain moves possible and others impossible. And it most often 
occurs while I'm dancing to Di Sarli, or to an orchestra with a 
similarly unified phonic texture and a stately expression of rhythm. But 
in any case, I find the tango trance, when it happens, to be a joy 
purchased at the cost of wider expressive freedom.

I'm not saying it ain't worth it; I'm just trying to be honest about 
something besides its rewards, which have already been praised. To me, 
it demands a sacrifice. That could be a reflection of my abilities, or 
it could be the thing's nature. I was in a tango trance last night for a 
handful of songs, and found the above to be accurate.

As an afterthought, I do notice that no one has addressed (perhaps 
rightly) the topic of sexual arousal during the dance-- which is what I 
and others sometimes jestingly refer to as "one of Those tango moments." 
I'm out on a limb here, but I suspect this happens to certain men more 
than it does to others. It hasn't happened to me while dancing for a 
long time, and I wasn't able to know what the "trance" is until it 
wasn't even an issue, because I was probably more distracted by it than 
any of my partners were, if they were even aware of it. Perhaps that's 
how I first began changing the embrace mid-song. At any rate, I continue 
changing the embrace for other reasons, but this one came to mind while 
I was thinking about the trance, and how it's really a connection in the 
Upper body.

***

As an extension of this topic, I'd like to relate the following.

The more I think about it, the more I'm persuaded (I said it involved 
self-hypnosis) that there's a slight difference between the tango Moment 
and the tango Trance. The moment is an intenser-than-usual connection, 
with a lot of unified movement, resulting from non-verbal communication 
between masses. It's lead-and-follow par excellence. It's not just 
sublime: it's subliminal. The communication is going on under the 
threshold of full consciousness, but within the range of motor reflex. 
You might call it Synchronized Reflex. Pluto and Charon, orbiting each 
other, unconcerned about which one is the planet and which one the moon.

The "trance," however, is that, and then some really weird shit on Top 
of that. I've had moments of seeming clairvoyance-- times when I knew 
music precisely, without having heard it before (or remembering having 
ever heard it); times when I've danced for whole songs without realizing 
my eyes were closed, and without bumping into anything, including 
columns in the middle of the dance floor. I also had the odd sensation 
that I was underwater, that my spine was in perfect alignment, and that 
my center of gravity was larger, more secure, and more indefinite. It 
was entirely unlike deja vu, hallucination, or intoxication. Such 
trances have been rare (and I don't know if my partners registered 
anything besides it having been a particularly good dance). Perhaps 
three or so instances in two years. They compare to other, similarly 
rare occurrences elsewhere. I'm tempted to say that this is the actual 
"zone" spoken of by athletes (who often confess they have notions of 
clairvoyance), and that the other stuff, the "tango moment," is nothing 
more than the average dance carried to a special, heightened mood.

On the other hand, my girlfriend has often told me that the tango's 
twisting motions, involving dissociation between the upper and lower 
body, release endorphins along the spinal column. I don't know if that's 
true, and I'm no chiropractor, but she seems to be happy with the 
influence it's had on my dance. It is possible, after all, that we're 
just massaging our joints, liking it, and mystifying the dots we fail to 
connect.

Those are my thoughts anyway. I hope to have more, without losing my 
skepticism.

Jake Spatz
Washington, DC

"Questions are never indiscreet; answers sometimes are."
-- Oscar Wilde