Boston, Buenos Aires, Abrazos - Tango!

I've just started Argentine Tango lessons in Boston, and am enthralled. Tango's music is intoxicating, its soul is old, its appeal is global. As proof, it was a recent conversation with friends from Venice, Italy that rekindled my desire to learn. Grazie, Giuseppe Ferlito.

As a linguist, I see this tango style as an intimate conversation to be danced rather than spoken. It begins with an invitation, progresses to an abrazo or embrace, and continues like a deep, strolling conversation for two. The steps are the fruit of engaged and unbroken communication. They are the whispers, giggles, hesitations, debates and parries the partners improvise and exchange. Each conversation varies according to the music heard, the movement of nearby dancers, and the private responses the two partners give each other. The press of a hand, a gentle pivot, a close embrace, an invisible weight shift, a spirited swirl; and nary a word is spoken.

By its nature, the Argentine tango expresses and encourages individual expression. There are no rules, only respectful conventions, all of which make it a highly democratic art. Perhaps that is one reason repressive governments in Argentina's past banned the dance.

Like every other form of dance, it's harder than it looks. At first glance you think, "I'm walking forward and backward, how hard can it be?" But it's a walk with purpose, grace, and feeling. It feels as if I'm learning to walk like a patient, stalking lioness, weight forward, slow, on light-footed tiptoe. Of course I lose by balance and often feel more like a woozy lioness recovering from dart gun injection, but, the little epiphanies encourage.

The dance takes my brain and muscles to a completely different place. I love that, and I'm becoming more comfortable with, well, being completely out of my comfort zone. Being awkward and off balance, and accepting that as a necessity to learning, is just so freeing. Who knew!! Even more freeing is allowing myself to feel that way while learning with another person who is, gasp, a stranger! This is after all, a partner dance, and I'm flying solo in a group class. Such a metaphor for life, for trust, for interactions between men and women.

Methinks I'll be learning as much about myself as I will the tango.

For more information, go to www.bluetango.org