Re: [TANGO-L] Conversations with "Deep Tango": The "Lost Close-Embrace Style" of Tete and Maria

[Jonathan Thornton <obscurebardo @gmail.com>]

On 7/19/05, Christopher L. Everett <ceverett  @ceverett.com> wrote:
 
> Finally I would add "touch" to the list.  As Robert Hauk says,
> "Tango is the ultimate revenge of the nerds" and a lot of men
> get into tango because it gives them a means to approach women
> otherwise beyond their reach.  Certainly was a reason I started,
> and my experienced in the last few months has reinforced that
> viewpoint.

Christopher,

I very much like the word touch. You've provided a label for me to
begin an exploration I've wanted to do for years but couldn't figure
out how to make the distinction. I'm not sure yet if I can express
this but I'm hoping to hear from others on this also.

There are the large motor movements of the dance, for example taking a
step, or doing a boleo. There are also macro elements like posture and
balance. What I want to find a way to talk about is the micro elements
of expressiveness and I think the rubric of touch may be the way to do
this.

The sensations of music provide kinesthetic analogues or synaesthesia
and hopefully serves as the basis for initiating movements in the
dance. The large complex leg plays of sacadas, gancho, volcados etc is
a major area of tango an area that is a major weakness of mine as I
lack the requisite athletic facility.

There is another aspect of the kinesthetics of moving to music that
falls at the other end of the scale. This is the very small nuanced
fine motor responses that can be very expressive of feeling. I think
"touch" may be a very good way to address this. Touch can be a very
expressive nuanced felt interaction between people on a fine motor
scale. Some people seem to have a limited heavy touch and there are a
few who are master poets of touch.

I once danced with a woman who was new to tango. She didn't even know
the cross. We just walked. But she felt the music, she lived in the
embrace and had the most exquisite sensitive fine scale responses to
the music and our dance. Dancing with her was one of the most
satisfying experiences I've ever had. Her dance though technically
extremely limited was one of the richest experiences because of her
natural non verbal expressiveness with touch and the embrace.

I don't recall reading any discussions of touch in dance until
Christopher mentioned in his post. Yet for myself the fine motor
expressiveness and breath are the most powerful experiences of the
music and dancing with a partner who is responsive to and expressive
with touch is far richer an experience than dancing with a partner
with well developed large motor dance skills but who downplays or
perhaps ignores touch and the embrace except as required for technical
execution.

I would especially like to hear women's viewpoints on this as well as
the men on the list.

Jonathan Thornton

-- 
"The tango can be debated, and we have debates over it, 
but it still encloses, as does all that which is truthful, a secret."  
Jorge Luis Borges