Through the tanda glass

There are many things on my mind and they feel, tonight, as though they had been literally placed there like a high, wobbly stack of books balanced precariously on top of the squishy grey cauliflower of my brain. And there are many feelings pulsing around in there, too, a swarm of busy wasps.

 
But not least among those feelings is an impatience to dance which has been mounting for several hours. It has been growing as I stand in the dark, lukewarm drizzle of the bus stop for an entire hour, scouring the avenue for the elusive squared-off blue numbers of the bus which seems as though it will never appear; as I perch uncomfortably on the plastic bar in the centre for want of a seat, holding on to a post for support with a tense, tired arm at full stretch; as I finally arrive at the milonga and cheek-kiss and exchange mumbled names with a dozen strangers at the long table (this will be our only interaction of the evening); as I sit waiting through an interminable series of indecipherable announcements delivered in the harsh, distorted shout of a poor-quality microphone over an echoey sound system; as I listen to the little flurries of clapping as the organizer acknowledges an endless number of professional dancers, milonga organizers and other minor celebrities of our little tango world whose presence here tonight is to be applauded in brief, desultory bursts; as I perch up high in the bleachers like a sports fan, watching the performer’s precisely flicking feet in their lovely mint-green sandals. I want to dance. Now, at last, after another speech which would surely tire the patience of Job and which sounds as though it were coming from amid the dank stalagmites of a deep cave, the milonga is about to continue.  A friend and I are exchanging impatient glances as the familiar, hypnotic repetitions of the cortina sound. I sit on the edge of my seat, feeling the heels of my tango sandals against the hard floor, ready to leap up in response to a cabeceo. But, with deep disappointment, I hear the opening metallic swish of an old-fashioned big band — it is time for the customary tanda of swing. It has been more than three hours since I spritzed my wrists with perfume, slung my double-pouched shoe bag over my shoulder and left my flat for the milonga and I haven’t been out on the dance floor yet.

I pull myself awkwardly back in my chair to make room for a table-wide toast to which I have not been invited, as people stretch past me to clink wine glasses. I feel alone in a city of strangers. I want to dance all the more because I am pensive tonight: tense with unvoiced personal anxieties, achey with unspoken emotions. But, tonight, dances will be a relative scarcity.

I would like to watch the beautiful young professional couples translate the rather tinny sound of this music into the smooth somatic language of tango salón, but my view of the floor is blocked by the crowd at my table. I can just make out the smooth sailing of the dancers’ torsos, the men handsome dandies in their dapper suits, the women in glossy, strappy dresses, their long dark hair pulled away from their lovely faces in French plaits, twists and buns. I watch them approach and recede from each other as they move elastically between open and close embrace, dipping and rising in paradas, progressing around the floor in overlapping circles, as if tracing around the cut-out of a round stencil with their bodies, like a parent creating a nursery wall mural.

But now the opening notes of a punchy Tanturi-Castillo number are sounding and I spot a friend craning his head above his table mates from far across the room. I love the romance of the long-distance cabeceo. Magically — over and around and through the many intervening bodies — his gaze meets mine and I know at once that that nod is my signal and leap happily, eagerly to my feet and squidge my way through to the edge of the floor (waiting for him to collect me at my seat would take far too long in this huge, crowded sports hall).

And now, at last, I am falling down: down, down, down through the rabbit hole, in the company of this skinny-legged March hare. I am no longer thinking about myself, pacing around in my own troubled head. Instead, my reflection is dissolving, the mirror has evaporated into a fine, silvery mist and I step through. This is another world. Like a reader absorbed in a compelling novel, my feelings are no longer my own. Instead, I am carried along by the narrative of the tango: empathising, identifying and responding to the emotions in Castillo’s rough-edged, nasal voice and to the tale told by the bandoneons. I am not I: I am possessed. My leporine companion strides through this song with a lovely urgency. We mustn’t be late for this tea party – quick, drink this sweet, strong tea before the cups are snatched away. We are twin Red Queens, running to stand still, running for the sheer joy of motion.

Oddly, as so often in close embrace, I feel as though the front of my body has disappeared. My senses seem to shift away from the feeling of his chest in the moist wrapper of his white cotton shirt making contact with mine at the solar plexus, the mirrored curls of hands around each other. Instead, I am aware of the play of muscles in his back, which forms the edge of the magic circle which surrounds us and separates us from the outside world. It is the boundary, the skin not of the individual, but of the couple. I am not focused on touching or feeling for its own sake, for the sensual pleasures it can bring, but on communication. I am intent on the message, not the medium, in the same way as, when he talks, I hear — but do not dwell upon — his clipped, lispy peninsular accent in Spanish, focusing instead on the content of what is being said, the words which the voice transmits. In tango, the body is a message bearer, the movement a declarative speech act. I hereby take this tanda.

I wish it were not customary to exchange small talk between songs. I don’t want to break the spell, to return to real life. We squeeze each other for a moment at the close of each number, reluctant to end the experience, cheekbones lifting in a grin, little, brief mmm noises escaping from a happy purring place deep within — or is this just my response? I cannot even tell. I am pleased that he says little between tracks, that he doesn’t flirt or make chit chat, that he lets me grasp him in the embrace again as soon as the floor conditions permit, making the most of our brief time with this music.

But, even so, the experience is over all too soon. The hated fake jollity of the cortina is now sounding in my ears: like an alarm clock waking me from a beautiful dream. My Cheshire cat smile hangs in the air on its own for a moment, the last thing to fade. I leave Alice behind and return, reluctantly, to me.