[Tango-L] A Tango Class for Buddhists

[randy cook]

A Tango Class for Buddhists
Saint Yrieux-sous-Aixe, France
Sunday,  June 28, 2009
8:00 PM

Janet Lott has arranged to teach a tango class at the Chateau, once the home of a wealthy Limoges porcelain manufacturing family, now a Tibetan Buddhist meditation center.  Janet has been affiliated with the Buddhists for many years, teaching yoga and dance here in France and in Boulder, Colorado.  This evening, she has enlisted me to partner her for a demonstration dance, and to help her teach the class.  The management of the Chateau has given us the Shrine Room, a spacious, airy place with Tibetan tapestries, an altar, and a beautiful hardwood floor.  Early evening sunlight pours in through a pair of western windows.  The room glows.

We've been requested to leave our shoes by the door.   We push the meditation mats up front by the altar in order to make room to dance.  Janet puts on some D'Arienzo, and the two of us warm up in our stocking feet.  

We quickly have a crowd.  Janet has posted the announcement of the lesson on the activities board.  There isn't a lot to do here in the country on a Sunday night.  The younger residents of the Chateau, in particular, are eager to give tango a try.  One young man shows up wearing a bow tie, sweat pants, and an evening jacket. Another tells us of dancing in the streets of Kiev, his hometown in the Ukraine.  Another says that his father used to play the tangos of Carlos Gardel in Santiago, Chile.

English, not French, is the lingua franca here.  There are students from the Ukraine, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and New Jersey.  Only a few are from France.  Since everyone speaks some English, that's the language Janet uses to teach.  Occasionally, they remind her to speak more slowly.

Janet lines the students up on one side of the Shrine Room, facing into the evening sunlight from the west windows.  She teaches them how to walk with intention, transferring the weight all-at-once from foot to foot, so as never to be caught in the middle.  The crowd of 25 people is very responsive.  When Janet talks of body dynamics, she is speaking a language they are trained to understand.  This is how they learned to meditate.

I would not say that the Buddhists are necessarily a better class of dancers than any other.  They make all the beginner's mistakes.  They walk like robots, or they try to skate.  When Janet pairs them up to walk together in line of dance, the couples wander blindly all over the floor like newborn kittens.  But when she talks to them of being "grounded," of knowing which foot the partner is on, of not "anticipating" the lead, they understand instantly.

So Janet and I have every tango teachers' dream--a roomful of good-humored but serious students who already know that dancing isn't about steps, it's about moving together fluidly with the partner and the music.  They've got it!  The rest will be easy.

Two hours later, Janet decides to stop the lesson and give a demonstration.  She puts on a waltz, and we put on a show.   My stocking feet slip a few times on the polished floor.  Janet has to dance without heels.  But we perform with energy and affection.  The class applauds like they'd just watched the stars of Nora's Tango Week.  And I think, yes, it's true! Tango and Buddhism have a lot in common, for a tango well-danced is a little piece of Eternity, ne c'est pas?