“Funny things happen when you dance with another guy,” a male friend tells me, “They just do.”
We are watching the floor at a tango marathon, where several male-male couples are swapping the lead back and forth. In their flat shoes, the followers look a little clumsy and there is a slight inherent comedy to watching the chunkier male bodies perform moves our eyes are used to seeing danced by women. These particular men are not as highly skilled as followers as they are as leaders. One of them giggles a little as his partner camps up the opportunity to decorate, sweeping his foot comically high up the other man’s trouser leg and lightly tapping his bottom with a delicate, pointed toe for good measure as he steps over after a parada.
I welcome comedy in any form, wherever I can find it. But, of course, something more important is — literally — afoot here. Almost every serious dancer reaches a stage at which they want to find out what the dance feels like from the other side of the embrace. And even if you don’t plan to dance both roles at a very high level it is a useful exercise. The men are visibly more relaxed. Freed from any perceived obligation to impress the woman in their arms — and from the fear of manhandling her delicate body — they are able to try out moves which are still in rough draft, can even employ a little force (force which they will, of course, try to smooth away later) without squeals of protest.
For female same-sex couples, the opposite is true. When I am following from a woman I am hyper aware of the need to be soft, to be gentle. Since many women new to leading are, if anything, excessively timid, I am forced to sharpen my awareness of the lead, to pick up on subtler signals. I am very conscious of the relative fragility of my partner’s body — I often follow from women smaller and lighter than I am — and take extra care to keep my own axis, not to burden her with my body weight: all of which is excellent training.
My own ventures into same-sex tango began with the lovely raven-tressed Mariana Docampo at her house on Estados Unidos street in San Telmo. The friend who recommended her class asked me anxiously beforehand, “Do you mind embracing women?” As a result, I was eagerly anticipating milonguero-style snuggling and was rather taken aback to find everyone dancing in a very open embrace. There, on the old wooden floors, in the small, intimate class, and later over beers on her pot-plant-filled balcony, Mariana was clearly a pioneer, fostering a tango scene which is one of the most relaxed in Buenos Aires. Afterwards, we decamped to the nearby cafe Simon en su Laberinto. After we had strewed its sticky vinyl floor with talcum powder, everyone danced with everyone else, with earnest concentration and sincere friendliness, fortifying themselves in between with slices of huge, greasy shared pizzas.
But, although I loved the friendly, inclusive atmosphere, it wasn’t my favourite style of tango and I soon stopped going. I rediscovered leading and dancing with other women after watching Ariadna Naveira & Paola Motillo give a spunky performance (pun fully intended) at Práctica X which inspired me to take classes from Ariadna.
At my first class, in the Naveiras’ practice room, Ariadna, clad in a T-shirt which mendaciously proclaimed “I Love Ballet”, gave me the low down. “Dancing with another woman should never be girly,” she told me. “Not like this.” She skipped around the room, miming a loose, open embrace with waggly arms, and intoned in a cheerleader voice: “Oooh, aren’t we two girls having fun together!” She recommended, instead, just stepping right through the centre of the follower’s body, driving through with my step, as if she weren’t there. She fixed me with her huge brown eyes and with a flat hand sliced vertically through the air from her solar plexus to mine, staring intently at me and making a drilling sound. In the course of a number of lessons, she tried hard to instill in me the importance of presence, groundedness and intensity in my walk as a leader. And every now and again she would give me her little reminder: that intense stare, accompanied by dddddrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (the drilling sound).
So, do I feel any different when I am dancing with another woman? Well, I’m not sure that I do when I’m following. But leading certainly has interesting psychological effects on me. At the risk of sounding naive, I have to confess that I used to find it hard to identify with lesbians who choose to dress in a very masculine way. Though of course it never bothered me — why on earth should it? But suddenly, leading, I understood. Having another woman in my arms made me, personally, feel very masculine. And so did the very fact of leading itself. A good leader is a protector as he (or she) steers the follower — trustingly nestled in his (or her) arms with closed eyes — safely around a floor filled with moving bodies. And good leading, I feel, is very giving. It is the followers who have most of the pretty moves (especially with an inexperienced leader like me), most of the lovely footwork. My role as leader is at times more that of a facilitator. I feel I am displaying her lovely loopy boleos and swoopy planeos to a room full of admirers, as if I had a trophy wife on my arm at a dinner party: me in an anonymous black penguin suit; her in a jewel-toned ball gown. I am struck by an urge to slick my hair back with gel and my chin feels naked without a goatee.
Leading also answers a question that has often haunted me as a follower. How do leaders really feel about our decorations? Well, I can answer that question for myself as a leader, pretty unequivocally. I LOVE THEM. Every decoration is like a little unexpected gift, tied up with a satin bow. It gives me a thrill to feel that my partner is enjoying the music and her own movements and that I am the cause of her pleasure. Or, at least, not an insuperable obstruction to it. And I recognise this feeling primarily from a sexual, not a dance, context.
*Please allow those scare quotes to cover as many sins as you require. Consider them adjustable to your personal level of political radicalism/immersion in cultural theory/sense of irony.
Very nicely written article, thanks.
As a male leader I can add that I could really understand some steps only after being led through them, so as to feel what it should be like for her. As a male follower (a beginner-level one) I recently had my first inklings of what it can be to be able to just fly on the music, swim with it, and, very aptly mentioned, offer as a gift some little adornments to him, as a thank you for this protected space and time he gives me.
Very well put!
I like your comments about decorations; I enjoy them too..but with some women the connection breaks and with others it doesnt; they include their decoration as part of “our” dance, others show off to an extent that they seem to be soloing. I dont know how the former feel better but they do and I wish someone would teach decorations without breaking the connection.
It’s hard to find an effective single way to teach decorations. For me, there are two parts to them: the how (a technical question) and the when (largely an artistic one). So a combination of technique classes and musicality classes can help. Decorations are usually a way for the leader or follower (leaders decorate, too) to express something in the music which is too quick or subtle to be easily led or followed. But how much of the music you should try to express, when and how is largely a matter of taste and experience.
Some music doesn’t seem to call for many decorations, whereas other pieces really inspire me to decorate. And some leaders don’t leave many spaces in which the follower can decorate, whereas others really seem to welcome it. You often see leaders smiling and laughing at followers’ decorations, really enjoying them, and that’s part of the reason why followers keep on decorating so much. It’s a thrill to feel the leader’s cheekbone raised in a beaming smile as he feels you do a lapiz or a little tap. We followers aim to please.
But decorating well and appropriately is an art and takes a while to master. If the follower is less experienced you need to have a little patience. Let her play with different ways of decorating and find her own style and preferences. No one decorates perfectly at first.
But I wouldn’t see it as showing off. She’s enjoying herself. I don’t know about other followers, but I don’t do a lot of decorations with a leader I don’t like. If I decorate it’s not for show (except when I’m performing); it’s primarily for my leader’s pleasure. I hope this helps to answer your question. For more on decorations, see this entry.
PS There is such a thing as too many decorations, though, as you can see in this intentionally comic exaggeration: http://youtu.be/98CmUhcJWbw
Learning to follow a man just as tall as I am taught me a lot about being a leader. But the most important thing was that it opened a huge new world of imagining what I would look like if a video was running backwards. Would I extend something like a woman does? Now that is what I attempt to do, and because of this it has transformed the way I go forward. Because of this I am able to indicate two steps for my one which adds an interesting musicality effect when done at the right moment.
This is interesting, Mark. Learning the other role really can be very instructive and enrich your original dance.
What an interesting post. What does it feel like to be a woman who leads, which I do almost exclusively? For me leading does not make me feel the least bit masculine. For me it is a sensation of begin able to feel acutely and express genuinely at almost the same time. If I’m leading well, I feel a sense of near complete connection with the music, the physical floor, myself and my partner. When I can get to that state of dancing (oh how illusive it is), I don’t feel that the words masculine or feminine fit anywhere for me. I enjoy your blog. Happy dancing.
Thanks very much for your perspective, Jesse. One thing I love about tango is that when I’m dancing I can play with sex roles. I can put on my heels and feel very feminine. I can lead and feel protective and masculine. But it is a game — and that means it’s not compulsory. We’re free to use ideas of sex to inform our dancing, or not. The important thing is the pleasure of the dance and the connection with your partner and with the music. Which is why to me the biological sexes or sexualities of those who lead and follow are unimportant. And, while using tango to feel more manly or womanly can be fun, it’s far from being the sum total of what the dance is about. But, actually, I think you put it much better than I could. I’m really glad you enjoy the blog. Happy dancing to you too!