Great Moments in Tango Teaching: Corina de la Rosa

We must do different things to achieve the same tango posture, because we are starting from different natural stances, Corina says.

This is a truth so obvious I want to slap my palm to my forehead.

At a glance Corina sizes up my stance: my shape and how I hold myself, where on the span of my arch my weight sits, how high my center floats, how my joints stack and lean like a house of cards.

Each bit and piece is part of the whole; every adjustment evokes ripple effects, she explains, though she doesn’t use that language. She uses the language of tango: relations.

The toe-bone is connected to the breast-bone to the thigh-bone to the finger-bone to the brain-bone to the heart. You are the sum of your relations.

But, Corina says,

One Heart, you are not connected to your body at all.

That's true. Body would be part of that whole corporeal gig, which I have sort of given up.

Listen, Corina says…

She reads the story of my body to me. Then she alters the story, one word at a time.

This is not tango, not yet. Nor is it body mechanics. This is introductions. Rapprochement.

Curious. Like easing back into the lake after a winter away. Saying hello to a stranger you sense you have known before.

Um...

Enchante, I say to my body.

Enchante, my body replies.

OK. Good! Good enough. You don't throw yourself at a stranger, even one you have known before.

Now Corina brings forward the tango. She tosses it into the air. It floats and settles like her blue silk dress.* With her words, she fits it to me.

I have understood tango as hard-molded plastic, I have contorted myself to conform to its contours.

Is this right? Is this right? I ask Corina.

When you are connected to your body, you will feel when it is right and you won’t have to ask, she says.


*Comitango video, 2000.