This past weekend I was dancing in a new to me city and I want to mention a couple of tandas with two guys I had danced with recently in a different city. The other time in very very crowded conditions, but this time towards the end of the milonga we had ample space. I have a very good recollection of the tandas in the crowded space, that they managed to keep coming up with interesting stuff despite the limitations. Now this time, without floor management issues, and also probably because they didn’t first have to test what I could handle and trusted that they could throw a few things at me, they both went all out in that respect. One fancy wide move after the other. Whipping me around in boleos this way and that, triple/ quadruple wraps in all directions, ganchos galore…High energy sweaty stuff, conquering the floor, getting the attention from the on-lookers. There was I’m guessing at least a 35-year age difference between these two gentlemen so it wasn’t just a youthful exuberant Nuevo thing. The music was traditional. The embrace was mostly closed V-hold with smooth variations sometimes closer sometimes slightly opening a little more. Both were very well trained and had a huge vocabulary, coming up with one interesting exciting thing after another.
There are two reasons I’m telling about these details from my experience related to our current topic.
a) there was no space for me (or any need to) add anything more to spice it up. My musical contributions were limited to the amount of energy or shifts of energy I put into transitions, the precision of my timing to a next beat, ability to follow a sudden sequence of a bunch of quick steps and being able to predict from the music when it would be the most logical spot in the music to stop such a sequence, and if the music went from a rhythmical to a lyrical section I might time my leaning into a more square closed embrace just at that moment.
In terms of ornamentation, only a quick flick of an ankle, or the hight of which my leg went up after a gancho, or an extra little circle during a planeo or such were kind of the only things in my control. The rest was controlled by him him him (both of them).
b) At one point I was thinking what a pressure it must be for them to have to come up with one fancy thing after the other instead of building into the dance a bit of space for me to contribute.
Now, both must have danced for a very long time. Maybe the fact that they felt I could handle them (although I really don’t often dance like that) that they wanted to show off. Or simply dance like that because they could.
I had immediately before each of them had a couple of dream tandas with one of my favorite partners that I hadn’t seen since last summer - I think I even recently spoke about him in a post about simple variations on a theme with the same small handful of moves repeated but never boring - the opposite of these two other guys in question. Traditional square close embrace, extremely good connection. Very sensual. We both commented that we felt it was exactl like last time (just as wonderful) and I said that I would have known it was him even if I had been blindfolded.
So, after ultimate dream tandas like that, the extreme style difference was just like a completely different dance type. We did it because we could. The connection was there, but the kind of connection that’s more based on telepathically transmitting information in a split second. I wouldn’t say it wasn’t musical, just not the kind of subtle musical expression I prefer, where *I* feel I’m more than the conduit of his 99% control of the music interpretation
Was it satisfactory to me although not my preference? Yes. I was challenged on a technical level. Tango is a never-ending learning jouney and it’s good to keep challenging ourselves. We don’t have to pick just one narrow version of our preference and not go beyond that. I had also just had (my view of) my essence-of-tango fix.
And besides, no humans were hurt from flying heels.
