Hip-Hop Tango

Move it! Nina calls out.

She swings across the floor in a half crouch, hips swinging. She wants us to get funky.

Except for James, we are all middle-class, stiff-legged white ladies and gentlemen. James is a middle-class, stiff-legged African-American gentleman.

I’m taking you all to a hip-hop class! Nina says.

She says it again, enthusiastically. I can see that these words, which leaped impulsively from her mouth, have planted an idea in her mind, and she is taken by it.

Uh-oh.

Nina is north on my tango compass. We are both technique-geeks. My learning style is a perfect fit for her teaching style. We respect dance as a discipline. Technique is our path; beauty happens.

From my very first lesson, Nina has treated me seriously, ignoring the evidence of her own eyes. For 18 months and running, she has bullied and prodded me, cajoled and congratulated me, just as she has every other dancer in her classes. Thus saying: Come on, One Heart, come along.

Thus saying, Who cares if you lag? You belong.

Lately, Nina seems to be growing softer and tougher all at once. In class, she encourages and praises. She adds light notes to frustrating moments. At the same time, she insists more and more on practice; she gives homework, and she expects it to be done. She scolds when there is not sufficient evidence of progress from week to week.

Every week she becomes a better teacher. Every week her students move incrementally along.

So….

I trust her. If she says hip-hop is a route into tango, I will go there with her. I am an adventurer of the moment! I will grit my teeth and let that vigorous, angry, threatening energy that I intended to lose when I left Detroit enter and animate me for as long as the class lasts.

I will strive to be real in the moment; KO the Inner New Englander and get elemental.

Then I will go home and take a long, hot bath to soak it out, let it all drain away.

But...

Once something is in you, it is there. You cannot soak it out any more than you can leave it behind.

B-r-e-a-t-h-e.

If you’re going to do it, Nina, do it soon.