Walking the Tango Labyrinth, Part 3: What I Learned

TangoGnostics. Woo-woo walking. In the space of two songs, I have walked 20 years.

What did you learn? David asks.

I was surprised to learn my walk changed with every companion. When I discovered this, I assumed it was all about mechanics, matching my gait to my friend's.

Wrong.

It’s more woo-woo than that.

If you take what I am about to say seriously, then you will want to be conscious of your choices when you dance with me. You can be an erased slate, deliberately blank. Or a con man, sure of your ability to outsmart me. Or an illusionist, secure behind the façade you create with your sleight of hand. Or a daredevil, taunting the edge.

Me too. Every time I am asked to dance, I have to choose what I will be: blank slate, con man, illusionist, daredevil…

…or puppet?

Better to laugh it off, really. Better we should run for our lives.

Because being a puppet is not what it seems. There’s a little woo-woo in it. A little Stephen King.

Your puppet is about to mess with your head.

When I connect with you, I am not reading your body language. I am reading your interior stories, the ones you tell about you. Those that you keep private, that you can’t help but tell when you dance.

I am about to invade your private story. For as long as we dance, I live there.

I am your puppet, your doll.

If your interior world is a dollhouse, I am the doll you move around to make your story unfold. You do not move me about by your will, though it seems that you do. Rather, you move me by your aspirations and dreams, intention and longing--that is, your story.

I do not come to the dance to tell my own story. I come to be a character in yours.

...

You invite me for a milonga to create fancy footwork. This is your will. I accommodate by moving my feet thus. In the first dance of the tonda, we accomplish the goal.

Perhaps that's as far as we take it. Good enough.

Or perhaps…

… you open the door to your dollhouse. Connecting here, it becomes clear that your will to create fancy footwork is only external expression. You aspire to make me smile, you long to play. Your story is not fancy-dancer; it is celebration. That is the interior story; that is the story I share with you. I become a reveler, too. We have the dance of the night!

Or this:

You invite me for a vals, for the pleasure of flowing with the music. Lovely.

Then you open the doorway. Now I see your story. You aspire to be Fred Astaire; I become your Ginger Rogers. You long to play the dashing, romantic Prince Charming; I soften into your Cinderella. Wickedly gleeful, you are the rake; baby, I’m your coquette.


This is not entirely woo-woo, or esoteric, as David would say. I'm not really invading your head. I'm only listening to you.

You are the one who opens the doorway. You tell me your story, you reveal your longing and dreams by the way you hold yourself, the way you hold me, the way you move and breathe.

Or you refuse. You are a blank slate, a con man, an illusionist.

It’s call and response. If you don’t call, I don’t respond.

That’s fine. We don't need to connect at that level to dance well together. We can mesh steps, move our way through the music with style. Every dance can’t be the dance of the night.

That’s what I learned by walking the tango labyrinth.

But now, after hours of musing, this becomes clear:

If half-truths are untruths, all this is a lie.