I have been saving this story all year, waiting for the right time to tell it…
Today is Boxing Day, when we redirect unappreciated gifts to someone who will truly value them.
This is a good day to tell the story of Tom’s gift. The woman who received it had no use for it, but that doesn’t mean it was wasted. In my book, it ranks as the first among a year’s worth of Great Moments in Tango Teaching.
It happened last fall or winter. It was Tom’s turn to teach the public introductory classes at the Mercury Cafe. Shane invited a new housemate, Amy, to come with us.
Amy is short and round, with a cap of dark hair and a sweet child’s features. She is outspoken and opinionated and has recently come off a stint in the Peace Corps. She is an out-and-out lesbian, and she is only going to take the class if she can lead.
I tell her she can, that there are never enough men and if by odd chance the class is gender-balanced tonight, I’ll let her led me for the whole class.
This is how the class works: The teacher demonstrates a step, then the students practice for a minute or two. At the end of the practice interval, the partners separate. The men stand still while the women walk to the next man along the line of dance. Then the whole rotation begins again.
Amy stands still in the man’s spot as the women rotate. You can imagine the routine: Some women helpfully try to move her along, some bypass her, some gamely agree to follow her lead. Some men try to claim her. Some insist. Amy insists right back. Some take it personally. Some good-naturedly back off.
The distaste on some faces, both female and male, is obvious. Perhaps I am only seeing what I expect. It is not fair to assume these dancers are bigots; perhaps they merely object to Amy’s insistence on flaunting the rules.
This is none of my business, and that’s a good thing because I would not handle it nearly as well as Amy. She negotiates this double-black-diamond course as deftly as if she skied it every day.
At the end of the class, Tom introduces cabeceo and makes us give it a try. Four of us are left on the sidelines: the most gorgeous woman in the room, Amy, I and a man who would rather sit it out than look at any of us.
From across the room, Amy catches my eye. I shrug, head for my chair. She keeps looking. Oh! I get it! We dance.
The class ends. Tom makes his move. He approaches the table where I sit with Amy.
I know what is coming. He’s done it to me already.
After teaching introductory classes like these, Tom likes to circulate among the beginners, recruiting them for his own series of classes.
He says something like this: “I saw you dance. You’re ready for my advanced beginner class.”
After only one lesson, it seems premature to invite Amy to join an advanced beginner class, but Tom didn’t get to be a full-time tango teacher by being shy.
So I watch him approach and I wait for it...
He homes in on Amy. His eyes are right into hers. His voice is offhand, as usual.
“If you want to take my class as a lead, I’ll make it safe for you to do that,” he says.
Amy makes a polite answer. It’s clear she’s had enough. Tom walks away, his demeanor unchanged.
This is just Tom being Tom. He made his pitch. Take it or leave it, he’s not going to burn the house down.
This attitude of Tom’s rubs me the wrong way. I sometimes get the sense that Tom deliberately makes people feel decidedly ordinary. As a person who builds her life around doing exactly the opposite, I am annoyed. Offended on behalf of whomever is the object of his disinterest.
But in this moment, that very disinterest endears him to me as nothing else could.
So you’re a lesbian who only wants to lead, he says. That works for me, come to my class.
And at the same time: I’ll be your champion. To get at you, they’ll have to go through me. No big deal.
And at the same time: I’d do the same for your monkey’s uncle. Take it or leave it.
Most of us live, at some time or other, on some kind of margin. And so we know this: Sometimes there is no greater gift than someone who offhandedly says, “I see you. Come as you are, come join the crowd. We’ll make room for you. No big deal.”
If Tom and I didn’t annoy each other so, I would chase him down right this minute and hug him. I would hold him up as a man of the highest order. And say: This is life as it shoud be, each person recognized in their own right, without fuss and bother.
Everything that has happened is happening still.
Kudos to you, Tom Stermitz, forever.
Showing posts with label Great Moments in Tango Teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Great Moments in Tango Teaching. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Great Moments in Tango Teaching: Corina, Part II
In my church, we call the disabled “differently abled.”
This is--let’s say it--stupid.
Sibling Five-of-Six’s legs have been disabled. She has not been gifted with a different ability to make up the loss. When she fell in an icy parking lot last fall, she did not find herself differently abled. She found herself stuck.
I, on the other hand, am differently abled.
I can write like a fiend. Can you? We are differently abled.
Five-of-Six can reach girls whose minds are so messed up they wish they were dead. In this way she is differently abled.
You can <<>> like nobody’s business. You are differently abled.
Some teachers are differently abled. Corina is one. I have resisted singing her praises too loud, lest I offend.
I have written circles around this. Rond de jambs. Turnabouts. Crop circles. Orbits. At the center of it all, the nut: Some teachers have a gift. What is its nature? I don’t know.
How is it that Corina, stopping me after a half-step, could say, You are having these troubles in tango, and here are the reasons why … and trace it not to a mistaken application of technique but to the way my body skews standard technique … and advise me on what to be aware of in my body so when I listen to teachers, I can alter their instructions to sit well on me. And how is it that she tapped into the whole discorporeal bit?
I think Corina has intuition and a gift to see the world in the certain way. When a person has a gift, that’s not something added onto their being. It is their being. They are not differently abled, they are differently existentialed.
Corina is a dancer and so she receives the world as movement and space and rhythm and relations and who knows what else. But she also has intuition, radar of the heart.
I think what makes Corina an exceptional teacher, what allows her to put her finger on everything all at once, with so little visible evidence, is that she senses and receives in the artists’ way—before or beside seeing and analyzing as teachers do.
In the fable The Little Prince, the title character says, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Like I said, I don’t know. I’m making all of this up. Based on my own experience, which is not necessarily relevant to her. Maybe they teach this in BA tango-teacher courses. Maybe she was just guessing.
I am not writing any more circles around this.
My private lesson with Corina was a Great Moment in Tango Teaching because it was art. If I am not enough of a writer to express it, so be it.
This is--let’s say it--stupid.
Sibling Five-of-Six’s legs have been disabled. She has not been gifted with a different ability to make up the loss. When she fell in an icy parking lot last fall, she did not find herself differently abled. She found herself stuck.
I, on the other hand, am differently abled.
I can write like a fiend. Can you? We are differently abled.
Five-of-Six can reach girls whose minds are so messed up they wish they were dead. In this way she is differently abled.
You can <<
Some teachers are differently abled. Corina is one. I have resisted singing her praises too loud, lest I offend.
I have written circles around this. Rond de jambs. Turnabouts. Crop circles. Orbits. At the center of it all, the nut: Some teachers have a gift. What is its nature? I don’t know.
How is it that Corina, stopping me after a half-step, could say, You are having these troubles in tango, and here are the reasons why … and trace it not to a mistaken application of technique but to the way my body skews standard technique … and advise me on what to be aware of in my body so when I listen to teachers, I can alter their instructions to sit well on me. And how is it that she tapped into the whole discorporeal bit?
I think Corina has intuition and a gift to see the world in the certain way. When a person has a gift, that’s not something added onto their being. It is their being. They are not differently abled, they are differently existentialed.
Corina is a dancer and so she receives the world as movement and space and rhythm and relations and who knows what else. But she also has intuition, radar of the heart.
I think what makes Corina an exceptional teacher, what allows her to put her finger on everything all at once, with so little visible evidence, is that she senses and receives in the artists’ way—before or beside seeing and analyzing as teachers do.
In the fable The Little Prince, the title character says, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Like I said, I don’t know. I’m making all of this up. Based on my own experience, which is not necessarily relevant to her. Maybe they teach this in BA tango-teacher courses. Maybe she was just guessing.
I am not writing any more circles around this.
My private lesson with Corina was a Great Moment in Tango Teaching because it was art. If I am not enough of a writer to express it, so be it.
Monday, November 26, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Great Moments in Tango Teaching: David Hodgson, the Nancy Reagan of Tango
Glenlivet takes me into his embrace, then pulls back to inspect me with narrowed eyes.
“Are you going to misbehave?” he asks suspiciously.
“No!” I say innocently. I look him straight in the eye. It’s true, I am not! I am going to do exactly what my teacher told me to do.
I grin.
Before this set began, David called the women to one end of the studio, leaving the men at the other. “Come close,” he said. We crowded around him. Then he gave us our secret marching orders:
Just Say No.
In the next set, we are to refuse a step. We do not miss the step, we make that clear. We simply refuse to take it.
Saying no is a bit of a problem for me. I don’t like to be rude. This leads me to dance with men I’d rather not. And once dancing, or in some other scrape, what choice do you have? You can’t exactly stop in the middle of things.
David says, Give it a try.
We walk the length of the studio to our partners. We are a pack of gunslingers descending on unsuspecting townsfolk. We try to be straightfaced and sober. One of us fails. Hence Glenlivet’s suspicion.
Refusing a step is easier said than done. Glenlivet doesn’t so much lead your feet as your axis. Your axis is always enroute somewhere. Refusing a step means letting your axis go off without you.
i.e., take a dive.
On the other hand, Glenlivet is a big strong guy, and in all the time we have been dancing, since we were rank beginners, he has never let me hit the floor. Even when I thought for sure we were goners. I trust him completely.
I’m game. Now, to figure out how.
How do you stop water from flowing? Glenlivet’s style is definitive. There are no hesitations, no cracks where you can insert a refusal.
As we round the first corner, I still haven’t found an opening.
Then I hear grunts and giggles. Secret is out. No time to wait for an opening. It's now or never!
Heedless of consequences, I plant my feet.
Glenlivet takes a big sidestep. Schwing! My axis takes off with him, my feet stay where we were. For a split second I am slung between two points, feet over there, shoulders over here. Very cool! If Nick and Tara were doing this, it would be a very nuevo beautiful colgada type move.
I don’t know what passes through Glenlivet’s mind, but the giggling has to give him a clue.
Now he knows the score, it’s a bit of a battle. He doesn’t know when to expect it, but he’s pretty determined not to allow it. I also don’t know when to expect it myself, but I am pretty determined that it will happen.
It adds a little suspense, a little spice. That’s the point, David says.
But there’s another point, too. A serious and helpful one, good for beginners to hear. David stops everything to make it:
If a partner, male or female, abuses you physically, emotionally, or energetically, this is what you do, he says.
Heedless of consequences, plant your feet. Dig in your heels. Just say No.
When the oaf takes notice, say "Thank you" and walk away.
“Are you going to misbehave?” he asks suspiciously.
“No!” I say innocently. I look him straight in the eye. It’s true, I am not! I am going to do exactly what my teacher told me to do.
I grin.
Before this set began, David called the women to one end of the studio, leaving the men at the other. “Come close,” he said. We crowded around him. Then he gave us our secret marching orders:
Just Say No.
In the next set, we are to refuse a step. We do not miss the step, we make that clear. We simply refuse to take it.
Saying no is a bit of a problem for me. I don’t like to be rude. This leads me to dance with men I’d rather not. And once dancing, or in some other scrape, what choice do you have? You can’t exactly stop in the middle of things.
David says, Give it a try.
We walk the length of the studio to our partners. We are a pack of gunslingers descending on unsuspecting townsfolk. We try to be straightfaced and sober. One of us fails. Hence Glenlivet’s suspicion.
Refusing a step is easier said than done. Glenlivet doesn’t so much lead your feet as your axis. Your axis is always enroute somewhere. Refusing a step means letting your axis go off without you.
i.e., take a dive.
On the other hand, Glenlivet is a big strong guy, and in all the time we have been dancing, since we were rank beginners, he has never let me hit the floor. Even when I thought for sure we were goners. I trust him completely.
I’m game. Now, to figure out how.
How do you stop water from flowing? Glenlivet’s style is definitive. There are no hesitations, no cracks where you can insert a refusal.
As we round the first corner, I still haven’t found an opening.
Then I hear grunts and giggles. Secret is out. No time to wait for an opening. It's now or never!
Heedless of consequences, I plant my feet.
Glenlivet takes a big sidestep. Schwing! My axis takes off with him, my feet stay where we were. For a split second I am slung between two points, feet over there, shoulders over here. Very cool! If Nick and Tara were doing this, it would be a very nuevo beautiful colgada type move.
I don’t know what passes through Glenlivet’s mind, but the giggling has to give him a clue.
Now he knows the score, it’s a bit of a battle. He doesn’t know when to expect it, but he’s pretty determined not to allow it. I also don’t know when to expect it myself, but I am pretty determined that it will happen.
It adds a little suspense, a little spice. That’s the point, David says.
But there’s another point, too. A serious and helpful one, good for beginners to hear. David stops everything to make it:
If a partner, male or female, abuses you physically, emotionally, or energetically, this is what you do, he says.
Heedless of consequences, plant your feet. Dig in your heels. Just say No.
When the oaf takes notice, say "Thank you" and walk away.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Great Moments in Tango Teaching 2: Pulpo
Friday, May 11
The final approach to the Memorial Day festival begins with a special guest teacher:
El Pulpo. In English, The Octopus.
Everyone talks about his fancy-leg style. Ganchos, sacadas, paradas, things he makes up.
Partners wrap their legs around one another, pretzel and pivot this way and that. Occasionally they take a step. Much of the time they stand on one foot, messing around with their intertwined legs.
Very tricky.
Very intricate.
Very dependent on balance.
One false move and we all fall down.
Of course I’m a wreck. I am not eating. Or talking. Or breathing, really. Just waiting. Also starving. At precisely the time I sent in my (very late) registration, the stomach closed for business.
By some mischance, I arrive at The Merc early. The hosts, Nick and Tara, are here. There are CDs for sale, DVDs, shoes. Flyers for the workshops here, more flyers for workshops in
A man sits with the shoes. He is not selling, only sitting. He is Pulpo. We exchange an unsmiling look, and here’s the first surprise: He is quiet. Not inscrutable, simply quiet.
The
What will this Pulpo expect? In a grainy publicity photo on the flyer for this class, his hair is spiky and he is contorting with a woman who appears to be levitating.
What will this Pulpo expect? How much and how fast? I drive myself crazy with questions. His legwork is so complicated, how can anyone master it?
When Javier came, he expected us to know sacadas; that’s where he started. Will this Pulpo expect us to already know ganchos? I have done only a clumsy few with Grisha and The Man on the Wall.
I am not ready for this. I should never have listened to what Nina said about taking hard classes. I should work at my own skill level. I don’t need to stay. There is always The Man on the Wall.
I walk out
but can’t go.
Pulpo has a personal vision, a unique take on the thing that he loves. This exploration of legwork is not some cheap trick. He speaks of it analytically; he develops it with talent and inventiveness and rigor. What is that but genius?
How often do you get to spend time with genius in its own element?
I have spent time in rooms with Joyce Carol Oates, William Sytron, John Barth. In every case they were out of their element. A writer’s genius is nothing to see: they sit at a keyboard, they type. When they read their work, they are two, three, four times removed from their genius, as light from the sun bounces off the moon, filters through curtains, strikes a mirror and falls into your eye.
At midnight Pulpo will perform. He will be in his element then. Meanwhile, we have class.
Pulpo is as quiet in his teaching as in his sitting by shoes. He has economy of movement. He gestures a bit, his voice rises and falls. Luiza is beautiful, with expressive eyebrows, a musical voice and hands that dance to her words.
Luiza translates for Pulpo. He looks students in the eye while he is speaking and while Luiza translates for him. It is as if he were speaking in her language, her voice.
Here’s the second surprise: Pulpo is in his element as a teacher, too.
He encourages us to learn both lead and follow. We learn this standing still, facing one another, a simple exercise.
Shortly after we begin, my partner pronounces this exercise stupid and wanders away. Pulpo, observant, leads me to another lone woman.
I hold out my hands before me. My partner places her hands in mine. When I move my hands to the left, she shifts to that side … to the right, she shifts again. I move one hand forward, so goes her foot. Here, there, back again, her foot follows. We go for a cross front and back, some other thing Pulpo has asked us to try.
I want her to collect but she won’t. I don’t want to make her feel in the wrong, but I need to know why. I ask, “What signal do you need from me to tell you to place your feet side by side?”
She is a beginner. She doesn’t know to collect. I explain what it means; she suggests the signal that will work best for her. We try again. As I place our hands side by side, she collects.
Wow!
I made that happen?
!
I move my hand, bring it back. Look, she did it again! And look, yet again! As I move, so does she. This is magic!
Nina tells the men, “She is your puppet!” Luiza says the same thing.
They are wrong!
With a puppet the limbs dance, but there’s nobody home.
This is much better: My partner is sentient. She is right here. So am I. She is not merely waiting for me to pull her strings; I am not merely pulling her strings.
She is paying attention to me. I am paying attention to her. With my hands I whisper, with her feet she whispers back. We are intent on our whispers.
I am being gentle and slow, taking care not to hurt her by holding too tight, not to startle by moving too fast. I hold her like a big, crystal bowl, not because Nina once said so, but because she is a person who trusts me, and that is a fragile and beautiful thing.
Tamora Pierce has written a series of books in which teens under duress can spin their energies together into magic. From each teen comes a bright thread of light; when the threads comingle, there is magic.
This is magic!
Every move she makes is a miracle, a saying of yes.
No wonder men love this dance!
I have heard the expression “every step is led” so often it has lost all its meaning. It never had much. Of course steps are led. The lead is the boss of me. This is tango. I am the pretty, passive puppet. The girl.
Now, playing the lead under the quiet and observant presence of Pulpo, I understand something new:
There are no puppets here, no puppetmasters. Seeking connection is not the same thing as awaiting instruction. It is not the same as being tensed for action, ready for flight.
I don’t know what more it is, or I don’t know how to say it. But I feel it.
I feel it as a lead, in goodly intent toward my partner.
I feel it as a follower, in respect for my partner.
These are the elements missing from puppetry: kindness, respect. The generous touch.
…
The class goes on. Pulpo extends our skills in a well-planned progression of baby steps, one after another after another and another. They pile up.
By Saturday afternoon we have ganchos. When the last workshop ends Monday night, we are all officially pulped!
Muchas gracias, Pulpo. Muchas gracias, Luiza.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Great Moments in Tango Teaching I: Roberta
There is one extra woman at the Blue Ice tonight. It is me. I am glad.
I am indulging a mood. My game face is slipping, and I don’t feel like dragging it back into place.
I am not staying home, though. I am here. I like to learn to dance. I like to work on the moves.
It’s just that tonight, I’d rather do it alone.
Roberta shouts hello every week as I walk into Blue Ice. She loves to see me. She loves to see everyone. She tosses out warm fuzzies as if she had an endless supply. I believe that she does. Love is like that.
Roberta loves it all. She loves the costumes. She is wearing an adorable outfit from BA. Cheerleader skirt, short and pleated, with a wide-striped sweater. Soon the sweater will come off and underneath will be some tiny top. Her shoes are tinier still, She is a little tiny doll in little tiny clothes.
A tiny dolly dynamo.
“Hey kids, let’s get started!” she says. She wriggles, stamps her feet in her tiny tiny shoes. They ring like jackhammers.
Roberta dances over to the CD player. Blip. Blip. Blip. Looking for something that strikes her just right.
The CD player is eager to please her. When it does, she says, "Thank you!" Flicks her feet, strikes a pose.
We stretch. We do Evil Hooks Behind. These are familiar warm-ups. They are like barre work in ballet: Warming up the body, shedding the day, bringing us into the moment.
But it’s not working for me. Not tonight.
I don’t want anything to do with anyone I don’t know. I don’t want anyone in my personal space. This would be a good night to do my own kind of bar work: ochos at the stand-up bar, turns around the stools. Sometimes an inanimate partner is the best kind.
Roberta tells us to take partners. If you’re in a class with extra women, she who hesitates is lost. I hesitate good and long.
Roberta sets the partners in motion. She comes over to me.
"What’s up?" she chirps.
"I don’t want to dance with a stranger tonight," I mumble.
She must think I am nuts. I’ve danced with these guys for six months. And … This is tango.
Roberta goes quiet. She nods like the mom that she is, hearing a child’s complaint.
“You’ll dance with me tonight,” she says matter-of-factly, taking me into her embrace.
She’s a good mom. She doesn’t tell me to snap out of it. She doesn’t laugh at the incongruity of a woman in tango who’d rather be alone.
Neither does she let me off the hook. She makes me work hard. She knows I like that.
Intermittently she leaves to coach the other dancers, to demonstrate a new step, change out the music. Every time we change partners, she comes back to me.
Shut up and dance, indeed.
Roberta
I am indulging a mood. My game face is slipping, and I don’t feel like dragging it back into place.
I am not staying home, though. I am here. I like to learn to dance. I like to work on the moves.
It’s just that tonight, I’d rather do it alone.
Roberta shouts hello every week as I walk into Blue Ice. She loves to see me. She loves to see everyone. She tosses out warm fuzzies as if she had an endless supply. I believe that she does. Love is like that.
Roberta loves it all. She loves the costumes. She is wearing an adorable outfit from BA. Cheerleader skirt, short and pleated, with a wide-striped sweater. Soon the sweater will come off and underneath will be some tiny top. Her shoes are tinier still, She is a little tiny doll in little tiny clothes.
A tiny dolly dynamo.
“Hey kids, let’s get started!” she says. She wriggles, stamps her feet in her tiny tiny shoes. They ring like jackhammers.
Roberta dances over to the CD player. Blip. Blip. Blip. Looking for something that strikes her just right.
The CD player is eager to please her. When it does, she says, "Thank you!" Flicks her feet, strikes a pose.
We stretch. We do Evil Hooks Behind. These are familiar warm-ups. They are like barre work in ballet: Warming up the body, shedding the day, bringing us into the moment.
But it’s not working for me. Not tonight.
I don’t want anything to do with anyone I don’t know. I don’t want anyone in my personal space. This would be a good night to do my own kind of bar work: ochos at the stand-up bar, turns around the stools. Sometimes an inanimate partner is the best kind.
Roberta tells us to take partners. If you’re in a class with extra women, she who hesitates is lost. I hesitate good and long.
Roberta sets the partners in motion. She comes over to me.
"What’s up?" she chirps.
"I don’t want to dance with a stranger tonight," I mumble.
She must think I am nuts. I’ve danced with these guys for six months. And … This is tango.
Roberta goes quiet. She nods like the mom that she is, hearing a child’s complaint.
“You’ll dance with me tonight,” she says matter-of-factly, taking me into her embrace.
She’s a good mom. She doesn’t tell me to snap out of it. She doesn’t laugh at the incongruity of a woman in tango who’d rather be alone.
Neither does she let me off the hook. She makes me work hard. She knows I like that.
Intermittently she leaves to coach the other dancers, to demonstrate a new step, change out the music. Every time we change partners, she comes back to me.
Shut up and dance, indeed.
Roberta
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