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Tango: The Space Between

by Caitlin M. Kelly | 2009

Tango does not interest me as a dance. I am not drawn to learn it because I live in Argentina. "Why not?" I am asked by a puzzle-faced traveler in town to eat a few steaks, go to a tango show and say they've been, seen and done in one more place.

Tango does not interest me as a dance. For me, it is not a dance at all, but the space between.

The intimate space between those embraced on the dance floor.
The fluid space bodies create moving together.
The space for legs.
The space for feet.
The space for clasped hands in the air.
The space between people on the fringes, watching, like me, watching the changing spaces.

Tango is to share space reserved for personal relationships. For three tunes. Only.

Then it is back to the edges of the dance space where one can feel safe inside the agreed upon set of codas and clues. The safe space enshrouded in etiquette.

A set of behaviors and norms.

Eye contact, a nod, and each breaches the space between to combine again on the dance floor. To eliminate space, to create one space for two bodies, floating, moving, dancing.

The swirl of a woman's leg, the lead of the man, the technical this and that makes up tango-the-dance. But tango does not interest me as a dance. Forget about the dance, look at the space.

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