The Tango Lesson

Today I worked. I typed lists. I wrote emails. I struggled through meetings. I fought with my stupid iPod, which seems of late to have developed a tendency to not recognize any of the music I try to load...

At around six, I remembered a flyer I saw hanging in a flower shop last week. A beginners course in Tango.

Sven, a lovely Swedish boy I've met through an American professor who's staying in the same hotel as I am, tried to show me a few steps at the premiere party for my Co-Don Giovanni last Thursday...and since then, I've been curious about the dance.

Sitting alone in my apartment, and trying for the thousandth time today to not think about the absolute hash I've made out of my private life, I weighed the pros and cons of attending the beginners class at seven.

After considering another few solitary hours of considering, I decided to put on some clean clothes and a smile, and headed out the 2.4 google-calculated kilometers to the dance studio.

The Bal-Kon space in Weimar is the ground floor of a villa facing the Stadtpark. It took 16 minutes to walk there, contradicting the google-prescribed 28. I walked around the building. I changed from flip-flops into sturdy-yet-flattering mary-janes. I smoked a cigarette. Maybe three.

At about ten 'til seven I rang the bell of what looked, somewhat suspiciously, like a private apartment. A polite middle-aged gentleman answered the door. Come in, he said. Hang up your coat. If you'd like something to drink, help yourself. There's water, juice, or wine.

Well. What would you choose?

I sat on the back terrace of the villa with this gentleman chatting for some fifteen minutes, until Beate, the host's experienced dance partner arrived, as well as Anton, a student who's been with the Tango school for some time.

After a while, another man--also there for the beginners course--arrived. Named Jens. Lives in Jena.

After another quarter-hour...it became clear that, with only one beginners couple, it would be illogical to do the class. The five of us sat there, on the terrace, for nearly two hours. There would be an intermediate class at nine. We were welcome to watch for a while, if we'd like.

I didn't like. I wanted to dance. I wanted to forget. I wanted to paint myself another color and walk around that way. I didn't want to sit and talk or watch and smile politely...

Still, there was free wine and three-quarters of a pack of cigarettes, and only an empty, silent apartment and a belligerent iPod waiting for me elsewhere, so I stayed.

At shortly before nine, the intermediate couples began to arrive. The first thereof consisted of two high school kids. A round-ish girl who'd obviously put some effort into looking the pretty, frilly tango part, and a skinny, shaggy boy--who elected to leave his pumas on, and his headphones dangling around his neck.

I went for more wine. I checked for text messages that will not come. I went to the terrace for another cigarette. When I came back, there were three couples in all.

Jens from Jena and I were cordially invited to sit on a sofa in the corner to watch. Not, however, before being asked to flex our wallet skills and commit to a private course this Friday at 9 am.

Anton, the tango faithful, was joined by five other dancers, none of whom could possibly have been older than 22. At quarter-past nine, after a quick warm-up, they began to dance.

Jens and I chatted a bit, him telling me about his two sons and his desire to see something bigger in life. There were also compliments about my German and "hey, I'm looking forward to our private lesson on Friday" sorts of sentiments. By nine-thirty he'd stood up and left.

And so I sat there alone, listening to great tango music and watching three extremely young couples stumbling over their own feet, as well as those of their partners.

Tango is such a strange and beautiful dance. It's slow and deliberate, yet somehow through this, it betrays a vast and painful longing.

It's about a wordless, perfect, slow and erotically loaded communication between a man and a woman. The man leads with low, subtle impulses...and the woman, as the host's partner displayed fetchingly by dancing with her eyes closed, follows his suggestions with a series of measured yet seemingly volatile counter-reactions.

The mechanism is perfect. Devastating, even.

Yet sitting there--half-drunk and experiencing ever wider vistas of lonliness--while watching three sets of kids trying and gloriously failing to listen and react with their bodies...

...well...it made me both miss and hate my most faithful lover. The work. The work the work the work.

Listen and react.

Wordless, perfect, slow...

Solitary.

Good.

Enough.