Tuesday 21 February 2012

Tango Till They're Sore

Dance is the simplest, most eloquent and perhaps honest expression of the human condition that we have as sentient beings. Music comes a close second.  However when it is your body that is the instrument of expression, it doesn't get much more intimate than that.

My body has not been my own for many months.  It has belonged to Dragon. It has served her needs, day in, day out to the point that I did not know it anymore. I do not mean that it had sagged and bagged beyond all recognition. I simply did not feel a part of it. I had detached. Exercise and the physical demands of looking after a baby did nothing to re-engage me with my corporeal self.

I knew what I had to do and finally last night, I got to it.

I went dancing.

Tango in fact. Argentine style.

As my feet slid across the floor in the familiar sinuous shapes of my past, I felt serene for the first time in a long, long while. Tom Waits (of all people) flashed through my head

Well ya play that Tarantella
All the hounds they start to roar
And the boys all go to hell
Then the Cubans hit the floor
And they drive along the pipeline
They tango till they're sore
They take apart their nightmares
And they leave them by the door

Instead of the usual tango feet image, I give you Tom Waits. A man I'd like to tango with

Dance has been the longest relationship I've had with anything or anyone, apart from my parents. And I had been neglecting that relationship for far too long

The body remembers always and reminds you of what you have forgotten.

It's all there; waiting beneath the surface.