Sorry, I have been a bit busy. Also, I have been trying to find my way around this subtly altered brain. I think I have the hang of it now. I have been making things and doing things and this seems to have scratched my creative itch in the way I needed.
I have also been taking Argentine Tango classes, which I had promised myself for a long time I would do. Oh, I have danced for many years, but Tango I always considered the pinnacle of coolness and class. About ten years ago I saw the film Moulin Rouge and after my initial scepticism, discovered that the wonderful spectacle appealed to my sense of my own pomposity. When I saw El Tango de Roxanne, I swear I held my breath for the whole of the dance. And I really really wanted to be able to dance like that. But I never really plucked up the courage to pursue it.
Well, time is short, as I discovered, so I got a move-on and Just Did It. I found Tango Alchemy with the enigmatic and authentic Eduardo and it suits me well. I imagine the alchemy bit is the taking of the base metal clod that I was and turning it into Terpsichorean gold. We shall see...
But it's bloody marvelous! Two months in and I think I can give a good account of myself with a willing and able partner. I just feels good. I wish I had done it sooner. But these things seem to have their time and circumstances perhaps needed to be right.
I had always thought tango to be that silly dance where people, cheek to cheek, the man with a rose clasped between his teeth, strode dramatically but ridiculously out of the room through double doors to some pastiche tangoesque music. And perhaps in ballroom tango there may be some echoes of this.
But what I was after was a more traditional and authentic style of tango, more akin to this
And I blinkin' will be able to do this one day!
It's a much more introspective and intimate dance than I had imagined. I can thoroughly recommend it as a passtime. I go home from my tango class with a feeling that I have participated in something both classy and exotic. Dance, as I have mentioned before, is a primal thing that puts us in touch with parts of ourselves that nothing else can. It can be a stage where we act out parts of ourselves that would never otherwise see the light of day. And this is wonderfully cathartic. I do believe I am addicted.
And that is where I have been instead of writing. But perhaps I can hold the attention of two Muses sometimes.
Philosophical observations from wandering about noticing things.
1 comment:
Ballroom Tango is not cheek-to-cheek, but hip-to-hip :-) I can do a bit of that, but I must admit I quite often don't particularly like the music, and you know that one always dances better when one likes the song.
Holding the attention of two muses at the same time is maybe not that difficult, although it is probably not easy to write while dancing ;-)
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