Tales of conflict and peaceful revolutions
I.
Where the chain-link fence ends, look for the white hydrant, white fence, and a string of Christmas lights. They were good-old-fashioned directions hardly indicative of the extraordinary things about to take place inside that house. It was a cold January night, the moon just about full, when I found my way to Nancy and David Mendoza’s home on a block situated rather serenely somewhere between Bayview and Hunters Point, two infamous “barrios” of San Francisco.
The night’s only two other witnesses pulled up in the vehicle we alternately refer to as the milonga sled or the pimp mobile, a 1999 cherry-red Cadillac, DeVille. David met us at the street. After warm hugs, the four of us descended the concrete steps and entered a side door. Ten paces down a narrow corridor, we found Nancy waiting. Beneath our feet was the platform for my story: a softly lighted floor that we all recognized as Tango-worn and friendly.
Like members of the Underground Railroad or Resistance Fighters, the five of us had come together out of devotion for that one thing, Argentine Tango, a cult to some, life-blood to us. But it was not to learn steps or technique or to share info on teachers, workshops, and milongas (Tango dance parties). It was to probe and explore down to a cellular level the very genetic material of the dance, to expose and break down the philosophy and common beliefs behind it, to ask frank questions about its ever-escalating attraction, its electrifying connection, the transformative embrace, its sensuality, and more. We could even questioning its healing and destructive natures. My friend and fellow addict, Peter Esser, had described tango as a pharmakon, something that is both poison and medicine. Indeed! Tell us about it. We would be a human supercollider, smashing to smithereens the very matter and energy of Tango, down to its sub-atomic particles. Behind it all was a quest for the Grand Unified Theory, a GUT feeling, that would reveal, not how gravity works, but what makes for the ultimate Tango Experience.
“We desperately wanted to get out from under Tango so that Tango no longer had its way with us, at its discretion, not ours. Tango had been happening to us! Now, we wanted to happen to Tango.” This is Nureyev speaking. Stay close, you’re about to meet him.
Before I tell you what we happened that winter’s night I must tell you how I, an unsuspecting, happy-go-lucky Tango dancer, came to be involved in this quest.
Rewind to the previous July, 2010. I was living in monotonously sunny Saratoga with a friend. I sat quietly in the garden with Garbo, a fat cat who, when no one was looking, danced Tango with me. She had the feline walk down pat. I had just returned three months earlier from Buenos Aires, where I had spent the better part of the previous four years. I was still adjusting to life back in an organized country. It was startling at times and lulling at others.
On my laptop, I noticed that an email had come in. It was from a man who had read my book, Tango – An Argentine Love Story, and thought that I had some things to say about this dance, tango—would I be interested in talking about a multi-media project. I chuckled and picked Garbo up by her front paws, which sprout human-like thumbs. “C’mon, Garb, let’s dance.” She acquiesced for all of thirty seconds then pulled away and vanished like a cat out of hell. I had yet to teach her proper milonga etiquette.
I hastily pegged the sender as a twentysomething dotcommer. We would have little in common but it would be fun and always good to know another tango dancer. I agreed to meet him at the Verdi club in San Francisco’s Tango Gulch on Thursday. I was late—was I being passive aggressive?—but he found me at the entrance hugging my way into to the club, the way monkeys swing limb to limb in a jungle. Such is the culture of milongas, a word of African origin that means something like “gathering place.”
His name was Nureyev and I had to un-peg him: He was not 20 (thankfully), not a dotcommer, and was way more than I could take in, as my brain blinked and registered something – something familiar. But I had no time to collect and file it just then. It would come back to me. It’s just that sometimes we don’t want to admit what we are foreseeing because we want comfort and complacency over growth pains.
Nureyev and I sat for about ten minutes in the bar area of Verdi. It’s a lovely spot, no less so than a Paris or Buenos Aires cafe, with round cafe-bar tables, the clatter of glassware and music, wonderful music. My ear was cocked the whole time toward the Grand Ballroom. I bent over to put on my red suede tango shoes. It was unusual for me not to hit the dance floor running. But I held myself back. I think our conversation went something like:
“You wrote a book on tango. You understand the dance.”
“Thank you,” I said humbly.
“There’s a lot more to say,” he said.
“Like what?” I said not so humbly
“Like about the connection, embrace, the way the dancers can or cannot absorb the eroticism of it . . .”
He continued in that vein and I was impressed with his observations and perceptions. But, Son of Biaggi! He was causing me to miss the set by Rodolfo Biaggi. El Re de Compas, the King of Rhythm. Rhythm is something you don’t get a lot of in Tango music, which is why the dance is perfect for the tone deaf and those of two left feet (not totally, but we’ll clarify that later).
Perhaps I waved my hand dismissively, though politely. I had instantly liked this Nureyev and wanted to remain friends. “Oh no, there’s nothing else to say. It’s all been said—by me, by others.” I didn’t say and who cares? “Let’s just dance.” I stood up putting my body language where my mind was.
He didn’t budge. He persisted. “People all wonder . . . they have these questions. A lot of things happen in tango . . .”
For a split second, I recalled how I had thought nothing happens in tango. Nothing. But then I had experienced its fateful siren call, only after doing it and feeling it speak to every organ in my body. Still, I stood my ground. “Yes, yes, I know tango is a catalyst for breaking up or rearranging relationships, marriages. One sees it all the time. Come on let’s dance.” No need to reiterate what it had done to my love life.
“No, wait, just think about it. You could write about—and show—the ultimate Tango Dancer. There would be all angles of media, sound, audio, images . . .” perhaps he said holograms, too—“to support and exhibit your text.”
This caused me to flash on that irascible Argentine, hombre de leteras Jorge Luis Borges, who loved tango, especially its music. I had just read his short story, The Aleph. The aleph was located in a nondescript home on Calle Garay, a street in Buenos Aires’s San Telmo, that I frequently walked along. The aleph was a small globe from which you could see and experience the entire universe in every direction. It was exactly how I felt dancing Tango, most of the time. However, much as I liked the way Nureyev’s eyes lit up, I didn’t dare tell him this. There was no need to encourage a fruitless endeavor.
I was about to embellish my skepticism when he, seemingly groping, said, “You could show people how to be ultimately happy.”
I snorted and opened my mouth to pour on the cynicism, when he unleashed a list of things we could do with this aleph of a book that ran the gamut from reaching poor, disadvantaged, under-served peoples everywhere to ending war, bringing world peace and saving the world forever. A velvet revolution he was talking about, nothing less. At least, that’s what I recall his saying.
I stopped dead in my tracks, for I was already headed straight to the line of dance. I turned only my head, in a hyper-extended contra-body movement (CBM in dance lingo) and said, “Are we talking about the same dance?”
But before he could answer me, I answered for him, shaking my head, “No, we are not. There are always two in tango. It takes two because without an agonist and antagonist there would be no dance.”
“You’re too cerebral,” he shot back.
He hit a nerve. “Son of Biaggi! That does it. Let’s just dance,” I said. “I missed two great tandas. No more words.”
“Just think about it,” Nureyev said calmly. He had a steady, unnerving persistence. But at last he stood to dance. Unlike Garbo, he knew his etiquette and did not run away scared. (If you’re new to Tango, a tanda is a set of three or four like-themed songs and it serves that purpose—to keep dancers from running away scared; you are expected to dance them all with the same partner.)
It was my first tanda in a week and the first one is always refreshing, no matter who I dance it with. But I recall the fleet—on occasion, fleeting—feet of Nureyev and the startling and unusual body language. Did I detect mischief? I wondered whether he had cloven hooves or wings of Mercury on his feet and I wanted to check.
I am nothing if not a good listener, in tango. He was . . . um. . . perky comes to mind. I thought, Likes spice, not stuck in a mold, willing to take chances. As a follower in tango, I allow my torso to be a stethoscope to the man’s heart, interpreting every thump and lub dub. It was all good, all fun with Nur. So “What fun!” was what I blurted out after each song when the two partners are expected to have a little “charla” or chat. I forgot to check his feet.
What fun! It was all I had to say. When the tanda was over, he took me to my table and returned to his where his partner, LaBelle, sat.
In reality, there was something else I wanted to say that night. But the milonga is not a place for pedagogy. So, I would save it. There would be a time and place to say what I knew to be true, not just about Tango, but about Everything.
Over the next few months, our conflict deepened. Nureyev insisted there was so much more to say and write and show about tango. I argued there was very little left to say. I recall how in one of our heated debates, I said, “Nur, face it, we both love tango. The dance is just transcendent. It transcends words.”
“I’m agreeing, Ocaramia (a nickname I allow tango partners to call me). You and Thoreau, we’re all transcendentalists.” He shook his head sadly. Perhaps I was wearing him down at last. Ha!
“True. I do go to Walden Pond of the mind when I tango,” I said dreamily. I thought of how Thoreau always thrilled me. The Father of Solitude, a state that writers and tango dancers all hold in high esteem. “You think Henry David Thoreau was into tango?” I had to ask.
“I think all great thinkers from Aristotle to Arianna Huffington understood tango, the dynamic of it. Tango informs all lofty ideas and thoughts.” Nureyev, who had appeared in my dreams as Valentino, alongside me, as I tapped like the great Vera Allen, could say some amazing things. (Foreshadowing alert: tapping feet = tapping fingers.)
While I would get stuck in my phil-la-la-osophy, he could cut to the chase. “Tell me more,” I said. “I’m a sucker for namedropping.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Well, didn’t Thoreau say ‘Beware of any enterprise requiring new clothes’?”
“Yeah . . .” I thought of how my tango attire was all glad rags, secondhand. I had never spent less dough on clothes than I had since dancing tango.
“And Arianna . . . she’s a you know what.”
“Ah, yes . . . so she is.” Her very name made me think how tango is the only dance where Republicans and Democrats can go belly to belly with each other, with silly smiles on their faces, because you never care to know the political affiliation of your dance partners. Or what they do, or how they live and love . . . There’s really nothing to it but to do it, I hummed what would be a great tagline for all scaredy cats who are afraid of Tango. But, wait a minute, wait a minute. This was ridiculous. How could a silly folk dance . . . Isn’t this all going a bit too far?
Nureyev saw my skepticism arising again and quickly jumped in. “All tango does not lead to transformation,” he wisely said, “but all transformation has the elemental ingredients of tango.”
Now that was something to ponder. I did what I do best when I’m dumbstruck: remained silent.
Over the following weeks, I did ponder what Nureyev had said. But then I got caught up in just dancing and didn’t think about it all until another email crossed my computer screen and I instantly sensed a perturbation of my surface calm. This one was from Jimmy Stewart, a some-time tango partner. This time I had no Garbo to siphon off my energy. I had now moved back to a studio in San Francisco where I was not allowed pets, not even a gold fish. So I couldn’t grab Garbo and dance to the tune of what I knew for sure now was coming. Here’s what Jimmy wrote:
A pleasure to dance with you again. I suspect you have thoughts about deep connection in tango, and how to cultivate it.
Why me? When someone asks for my wisdom, I feel obliged to give it up. I probed my torso for thoughts about deep connection, the very bodice that must have conveyed to Jimmy that I knew. What came through my tap-dancing fingers was an amalgam of what I knew to be true in Tango and what I had learned from more than two decades of listening to Zen masters.
Dear Jimmy, Assuming all the body mechanics are understood to the best of our ability, what I believe brings deep connection in tango is three things—gratitude, that he is willing to meet me in this intimate circle and go heart to heart; trust, that he is pure of heart; and faith in him, that he is doing his best and receiving and caring for my best. Those are cardinal. Other little things include: When I enter the dance circle, I forget there is a thing called tango. I cultivate “listening” to each leader as if we are re-inventing the dance anew. I let what pleasure and joy there is feed upon itself. Closing my eyes helps keep me present and better able to listen to each partner as a unique, born-anew partner. Even familiar partners are never the same twice.
I took my own breath away. With Words. Though I did wonder—was Nureyev behind this? Had he egged Jimmy on? Whatever. I felt Nureyev would be proud of me—I was approaching the heights of his well-honed wisdom. I turned blue from holding my breath. I fell back off my sewing chair that doubles as a desk chair and curled up into yoga’s plough pose, the asana said to be mothering, nurturing. I knew now what was happening to me. How I wished Garbo were there to dance with me. I knew the tune well. It was called exile.
I faced what my brain had registered in a blink that first night in Verdi. I had been kicked off of Mount Olympus. Living in Buenos Aires, I had been Goddess of the Tango Galaxy (I beat out Paris Hilton to get there).
The gods were roaring now. Ruffino, Norberto, Raul, Angel, even that demigod, Oscar. Those were the mortal names some of my favorite milongueros went by. But I knew they were immortal. Who else could make me dance on air? I could hear them laughing their asses off. I told everyone it was a cash flow problem that sent me back home to the States. But I knew now, I was kicked off the Mount because I had work to do.
It was not the first time I had been kicked back to earth. I’ve been knocked off my high horse. I even tried to kill myself once, jumping off my Ego—wasn’t as high as I thought. I only fractured my right wrist. The gods have hurled me off their summit many times. But always for issues of love or life lessons. This was a first, for Tango. Go figure.
Last time I had seen Nureyev, I had sent him away in no uncertain terms. Go away, Nureyev. I’m not the one to talk Tango. Not anymore. He was forlorn, maybe even a pinch rattled. But now, I knew I had to get in touch with Nureyev before it was too late, too late for redemption. Now I understood. Those flawed gods had sent him to me. Well.
Before calling him, I sat in front of my altar, which is just a printed-cloth-covered cardboard box. But Quan Yin, goddess of Compassion, has always been there for me. As I sat there, letting my mind go empty, she filled it with this: Before there were books, there were ancient peoples with a calling to memorize just one text. That one text was all they needed to know. It constellated all wisdom. They found their own coordinates within it, used it to comfort others, to solve the world’s problems, even to divine the future. Let Tango be your sacred text.
I sat meditation for a long time, I don’t know exactly how long because as in tango, there is no clock time. I bowed to Quan Yin. She seemed to be trying to tell me something else. Send. Doh! I hit the send button on the email for Jimmy.
When I came back to clock time, I called Nureyev and said I was ready to move forward with the project. “I’ll even kiss your ring,” I said. “Not worry, I don’t wear one,” he said. We began to meet and confer, defining and refining, trying to get our focus on the same page. Having been a writer of hard copy, of words that don’t burn until the temperature reaches Farenheit 451, I still resisted a bit. But who was I to second-guess the gods? (Ja, ja, ja, ja, sound of laughter in Spanish drifted up from the southern hemisphere.)
If we were to move forward on a project that would offer nothing less earth-shattering than the aleph, I had to come clean. I decided it was time to tell Nureyev what I had held back that first night on the dance floor. No need for a drum roll. I furtively inserted it into a casual conversation so he would later think he knew it all along. “You know, Nureyev, you already know everything there is to know about Tango. You know that.” We were sipping wine. It was easy to slip in, just stay out of your own way.
It might have been the same night he slipped me the list of questions that would define and shape our mission. They ranged from Is it possible for tango to enhance spirituality and Does tantric tango exist? to Is there such a thing as tango moment or is it a myth that exists only in the tango culture? And, If so, how can one set up a tango moment?
And so back in the warmth of the house strung with a garland of Christmas lights, these questions floated in the air. LaBelle who arrived in the milonga sled with Nureyev indulged my playful attempt to lead her, a new role that would help me get back my beginner’s mind, the only mind you need in tango. Nureyev and David set up equipment to record for posterity our little underground meeting. Nancy talked about how she and David get the floaties in Tango, a strong clue that they knew about the connection between two dancers that sends them to the moon. Commonly called a Tango moment.
Nancy and David Mendoza, who have nearly 50 years of tango between them, shared their experience with the dance in a session that might be called the Book of Tango Love. In Chapter One, some two decades ago, they were both hot salsa dancers, sparks flew, and that connected them. Nancy led the charge to Tango, but David resisted. After all, he was a hot wire and sought after in salsa. Tango, this dance that had no set patterns, the music no beat, held little appeal. Nancy was wise, like those followers in Tango who know that they are sharing the lead. She knew that David had to come down off his Ego. She did not try to make him jump off. Eventually, David disappeared his Ego and found Tango. It was there all along.
They worked hard at a time when there were very few people in the San Francisco area interested in Argentine Tango and long stretches of no teachers around. Nancy, having a strong dance background, was lucky to meet teachers in New York, including members of the Broadway cast, Tango Argentino, who danced with her. She and David went to Buenos Aires. They spent a lot of time learning technique. Now they are two highly polished tango dancers. Together they are greater than the sum of their parts. The wisdom and knowledge came through their words and dance.
And it really came through when I had the supreme pleasure to dance with David. This presents a challenge to my sharing that wisdom and knowledge because Tango emanates from a non-verbal place. The Tango Moment does exist though I could not yet tell you how to cultivate it. In Borges’s short story, you have to lie on your back in a certain mundane place to see the aleph. The Tango moment is similar in that it involves the mundane steps and a certain, well momentum cultivated by two people.
Just as muscles work in pairs—an agonist and an antagonist—so it is with tango. (Without an agonist muscle opposing the antagonist muscle, our bodies would collapse into a heap of bones. Similarly, imagine the world without “conflict” of this sort.)
David and I started to dance. He led some fun retro steps, including the bicycle (my term), lifting my feet during back ochos (figure eights). I was transported back to Caballitos, a working class barrio in Buenos Aires where I would dance with Manuel a hair stylist who loved to do old steps with me. He had learned Tango on the fly, from old milongueros in neighborhood sports clubs, as many do in Buenos Aires.
David is a man who can dance forever with a CD cover on his head that stays there the whole time. That’s how smooth he is. So, soon enough I was experiencing a floatie. My head brushed the ceiling. From Caballitos I went to Venus and Mars, then the moon, I floated over both poles at once, like the aurora borealis. I counted 15 planets before I lost track of them. I left footprints on Everest, shushed down the Marin Headlands and like a Blue Angel flew under the Golden Gate Bridge.
I came through the genetic material of the dance, was shocked by its electrifying connection, the transformative embrace. I was smashed to smithereens, felt in my gut how Tango fits in the world, and what makes for the ultimate Tango Dancer.
The challenge now would be how to translate it all. Let the gods laugh their asses off. I had all the time to work on that.
END OF Chapter 1
(See Chapter 2)
(See Chapter 3)
Dear Readers,
I’m speechless. Have any of you experienced this? Do you believe there is such a thing as the Tango moment or is it a figment of our collective imagination: A myth that exists only in the tango culture?
Nureyev asks me to pass along his questions too. As for me, I have none.
—Given that tango is both sexual and spiritual, how does one do it with others without doing injury to a primary relationship—or to oneself?
—Is tango an enabler of sexual addiction?
—Is it possible for tango to enhance spirituality?
—Does the erotic element of tango hinder spirituality?
—Does tantric tango exist?
—Is there such a thing as tango moment or is it a figment of our collective imagination: A myth that exists only in the tango culture?
—Is tango a catalyst for bringing out good and/or bad in relationships [with self or others]?
—You can’t hide from or in tango, it’s said—what does that mean?
—Is tango transformative—how so?
—Is it possible to learn so much about the tango moment that you can create one with somebody?
—Are there exercises to do that can help to set up a tango moment?
—Can tango be platonic? Is it always erotic?
strident slogan meant to crumble crusty patriarchal assumptions. But this past spring in New York, I boarded Holland America’s SS Rotterdamand checked that conviction at the port. I was stepping into an earlier era, an age of innocence in which very little was equivocal, from the legitimacy of a war to which sex asks the other to dance. I embraced the quaint notion that I needed a man.
