How (and why) to embrace a woman (Copenhagen)

The Saturday night ball was also a masquearade with the theme 'Movie Star'

As the heading implies, I am fast getting into the philosophical mood that often invades me when I travel. The monotonous hours and days of cycling, intercepted with the sudden rushes of adrenaline, endorphine and oxytocin (my favourite hormone, as its effects are so soothing) caused by tango, seems the perfect recipe for moving into philosophical waters. Úsually, reaching this mode takes about 2 weeks, and the rule seems to apply this time as well.

What I understood already in my very first months of dancing tango was that despite the 'passion and drama' that it is often associated with, what really attracts me to it is its role as a magnifying glass of human relations. For me, the challenge of being intimate without becoming clingy, being independent without seeming cold, being strong without appearing hard, expressing my (admittedly strong) personality without coming accross as bossy, are a constant source of puzzlement. So often, when I mean one thing, others seem to interprete me as the opposite, and more than once I have come to the conclusion that being on my own really is the only solution. To this dilemma, tango has opened a new angle that allows me to experiment with ways of expressing myself.

As in Tango Frostbite festival earlier this year, the day milongas were perhaps the best part of the whole experience.

The Tango Camp experience was for me first and foremost an immersement into this exploratory mood. The fact that for 3,5 days you essentially do NOTHING ELSE except dance tango, sleep and eat, enables you to tune your senses into the subtle non-verbal messages that form the biggest part of human communication. I especially like the fact that typically, you don't speak at all either before, during or after dancing with someone (according to most,when you say 'thank you' that means you want to finish dancing with each other). Even if I did not take any classes (that would have increased the daily tango intake to 14 hours), I essentially spent 8 hours a day wordlessly communicating with my dancing partners. This in itself, I dare to say, would be a useful experience to most people!

True, not everybody was a great leader (many people were complaining that the best dancers have now moved on to other tango events), and not everybody got to dance a lot. Myself, I was lucky to hold enough 'curiosity value' (most people had never seen me or danced with me), and as the event progressed, to get the chance to dance with more experienced leaders, even some of the maestros. The first night, despite my considerable exhaustion and still slightly feverish state, I was just so happy to be able to dance that indeed ANY leader seemed an enjoyable dancer.

As the event progressed, I found a hitherto unexperienced sense of being accepted, respected and appreciated as a dancer. I don't really know what caused this 'opening up', but it must have been a combination of physical exhaustion, emotional liberation (from what, I don't know) and a dreamlike sensation of being completely in the present, that translated into a feeling of deep trust, boundless freedom and childlike exploration of boundaries and possibilities. And naturally, when I was confident and relaxed, mý dancing partners became the same, and without a hint of boasting I can say that most were truly happy to have danced with me.

With Antonio and Kaija on the last day of the festival.

Physically, too, my dancing was more confident than ever. Without knowing I could, I found myself doing both very fast milongas, and being complemented for them by onlookers (who would have guessed only a month or two ago? ;-), some pretty bold lifts and jumps that I would normally refuse to even try, tango nuevo improvisation...even playful adornos (embellishments). It was a miracle, but then again, as everybody knows, miracles do happen. You just cannot make them to.

All this made me so immensely grateful that I was moved into tears on several occasions. Reaching a state of such trust, however temporary, with complete strangers, is a gratifying, almost holy experience. It makes me wonder why we spend most of our lives trying avoid others, instead of simply listening to the messages they are sending? It must have something to do with our egos, the fact that we spend so much time preoccupied with our appearances and the way we seem to the outside world. This vanity leaves us little opportunity to tune into the others' needs and preparedness to receive.

To me, the close embrace and the synchronised movements of tango are a great tool to reaching a state of understanding between people. The abrazo (tango embrace) is perhaps The most important thing of it all, as it conveys the messages between the two dancers without delay or misinterpretation. I can tell a lot from the way a man embraces me, and the limitations of the embrace will also become the limitations of the dance. Sometimes, the hand around me will be so stiff and hard against my back that instead of gently holding me, it will limit my movement, even make it hard to breathe properly. Just as importantly, if the man's left arm falls back behind his shoulder, this will rob me of the necessary support in swirling movements. The message that this combination conveys is a puzzling one: on the one hand, I am being 'carried' accross the dance floor by the stiff right arm that essentially reduces me into a doll in the armpit of a toddler, on the other, the loose left arm tells me to deal with any arising problems on my own.

Our 'movie star' outfits.

Javier Rodriguez, one of the maestros of Tango Camp, a highly-respected teacher and the one-time partner of perhaps the world's most admired female dancer Geraldine Rojas, has the habit of calling out 'abrazar, abrazar!' (embrace, embrace!) to his students in milongas. According to him, it is not the man who wraps himself around the woman, but the other way around. He simply offers his chest and arms for the woman to find comfort and support in, and then the woman wrapts herself around him in a way that best allows movement and contact. When you see him dance, you know he is right.

Besides the dancing, I spent a lot of time with Kaija, having leisurely brunches on the terrace of our hostel, pic-nics on the beach, getting ready for the milongas or talking about life and tango. One day, we took the bus to Halmstad city, but I found myself so tuned into the tango world that the hustle and bustle of the city was hard to get into. This, of course, is the big challenge of it all; how to translate the glimpses of understanding, gained on the dance floor, into everyday life? I will continue exploring this topic as the journey progresses.

With Kaija.

Am now in the capital of Denmark, having cycled here in two effortless days. Last night, there was an outdoor milonga on a jetty downtown. It was a lovely location, and the cloudless skies and still-warm temperature contributed to the experience. To my delight, I noticed that there were many familiar faces amongst the dancers, both from Tango Camp and the other milongas in Sweden. Unfortunately, the uneven floor (the wooden jetty itself) was quite challenging to dance even in sneakers, and there were so many newcomers who had little idea of dance etiquette that dancing consisted mostly of trying to survive. I did have some really good tandas though, and was happy to notice that the confidence and ease of my dancing had not disappeared.

Tonight, there will be another milonga in a park, and tomorrow I will be heading towards Hamburg. Will send posts along the way, and hope to get there in time for Saturday night's milonga in El Abrazo.