Tango in the Town of the Democratic National Convention, Part 1

Last Friday night: Early-bird weekend for the DNC.

Along about midnight, the music cuts out. Finally! I have been looking forward to this ever since Marilyn McGinnity, the old hippie who owns the Merc, sent an email to Tango Colorado promising a special, antiwar tango performance.

This is a prelude to the Democratic National Convention, which will start in 2 days just a mile or two away. The city is already bursting at the seams. A friend is choosing the wine for a party the Washington Post is hosting for the 200 staffers it has brought to town.

The machinery of national politics leaves me cold. I vote the party line, don't bother me with the details. But...

I love performances! I love antiwar!

Andrey and I stand at the edge of the floor. We do not immediately head back to our seats, because I am filching chocolate candies from a basket set out for the purpose.

And that's a good thing, because on her next breath Marilyn orders all dancers onto the floor. We are the performance, she said.

I love performance art! I love communally created meaning. I love when the role of the observer is subsumed in the role of the creator.

The ones who are creating the art--and thereby its meaning and message--are themselves the intended recipients of its beauty and meaning and message. Roll over, Marshall MacLuhan: You said the medium is the message. Under Marilyn's direction, Tango Colorado is about to say this: Creation is the message.

This is the ultimate in self-referencing art. Imagine the Borg painting a picture. Imagine God creating the world.

Do you want to? Andrey asks.

Oh, I don't know, I say, are you antiwar?

It's a question of appropriateness, he says.

So, with my mouth full of chocolate, we enter the dance on a thoughtful note. The music is a gorgeous tango. Then the voice.

I am the disappeared of Argentina ... Your war ... your generals ... your Army ... your money ... men and boys murdered ... raped me and killed me and your money your generals my country ...

Andrey growls in my ear. I can't dance to this. I can't hear the music.

I am not helping. I am quaking in his arms. With laughter. Really, this is ludicrous. LIke a tasteless comedy skit.

Andrey is determined, but we are both relieved when the song ends.

Then another begins.

The ranting goes on. It grows uncomfortable, but not in a meaningful way. You, Marilyn, ask me to put myself into a very close embrace--really, with my buddy Andrey, intimate is not too strong a word--and then you rail on about rape? I am not feeling guilt, only embarrassment.

Oh, that's very nice, I say in my most sarcastic voice so I will sound jaded, which is often interpreted as self-assured.

Andrey grumbles on.

OK, I think. This is a moment. I don't want to lose it. I love performance art! "Just go with it. Find the musicc," I say aloud, to both of us.

Then I don't hear the rant any more because Andrey is dancing to the music itself, and the music must echo the rant because our dance is sharp and dissonant and energetic. It feels ugly. And then it is over.

And that's it. No effect. Nada. My Whitebread American guilt is no greater than it was 10 minutes ago. I have no sense of creation, or art having transpired. No sense of what Tom Stermitz describes as tango transcendence, when all the couples on the floor dance as a whole. No. This ending, it feels like pulling into a parking space at McDonald's.

Soon the tango orchestra Extasis returns to the stage. I have lovely dances until my feet hurt, and then I have a few more, and then one last tanda with a favorite lead, and then go home.

There I putter, do a little housework, jot notes for tomorrow's writing, slip into the CD player a cozy murder mystery, luxuriate for 30 seconds in clean 'jammies, clean sheets, sore feet and the bel canto of George Guidall's narration, and then I am dead to the world.

This is what my friend Ralph believes: What the religious call Heaven, this is It. Today, the Earth. Heaven is a co-op, we are its member-citizens. The heavenliness of Heaven derives from social action. Us.

Shane, my anarchist buddy, left town this week. He's seeking buffalo and serenity in Yellowstone National Park. The irony of his destination cannot be lost on him. Still, he's an anarchist. Leaving town is his political action.

Ralph is an activist. He has long experience in peaceful protest and in being arrested. He will spend much of this week within a few feet of police in riot gear.

I tango. I write. I dream. I wake in the morning to the image of Nero fiddling while Rome burns, and my most pressing question is: What song did he play?