The Language of the Fan: Tango Edition

Fan that reputedly belonged to Marie Antoinette, purchased by Queen Victoria; from Britain's Royal Collection.

In the French royal court, in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, so I am told, there developed an elaborate system of communication, coded in the ways in which a lady moved or positioned her fan. For example:

Carrying in the left hand, open: Come and talk to me

Carrying in the right hand, in front of the face: Follow me

Carrying in the left hand, in front of the face: Desirous for acquaintance

Clasping the hands under the open fan: Forgive me, I pray you

Cover the left ear with the open fan: Do not betray our secret

(Source: Fabulously French: The Secret Language of Antique Hand Fans)

The message here is, perhaps, rather less subtle. (From Sofia Coppola's 2006 Marie Antoinette.)

Having carried a folding fan to tango for several years, I've noticed that I've begun to develop my own coded language of the fan. It goes something like this...

Quick, delicate fanning, movement in the wrist: Goodness, tango can be quite warm exercise, can't it?

Big, sweeping fanning, movement from the elbow: Just finished a tanda of milonga, and I'm sweating like a sinner in church! (As they say.) For your own comfort, you may want to wait to ask me to dance.

Fully open fan raised to cover lower half of face may be an attempt to disguise any of the following reactions with an aura of mystery and allure:

-- Frown
-- Inappropriate smile
-- Yawn
-- Gasp
-- Indigestion (Shouldn't have eaten that spicy curry for dinner! *Urp*)

Tapping closed fan against free hand in rhythm to tango music, especially while tapping foot in rhythm with bass: Somebody please ask me to dance, already!

Folding and unfolding fan, in rhythm with non-tango music: Boy, this electronica song just goes on for miles, doesn't it?

Quickly tapping fan between finger and thumb, out of rhythm with music: I really need to work at learning not to fidget so much.

Putting fan back in purse before midnight: There is nothing for me here; I'm cutting my losses and going home to spend some quality time with my good friends Ben and Jerry.

Two to tango

My sweetie has finally come to an intro tango lesson with me! In the practice embrace, with his hands on my shoulders, he is awkward, but when we take a real embrace--heart to heart and cheek to cheek--it is as though something clicks for him. Suddenly we are dancing--I mean really dancing, even though we are still just walking--and I have never felt anything like it on the pista: holding the person I love in the tango embrace and feeling the way that he holds me.

That awkward moment...

...when you mistake a random look for a cabeceo and end up making faces across the room to no one.  :(

(Fortunately not a permanent state of affairs!)

Those daring young men

At the most recent milonga, held in a local fitness center, I found myself intrigued by these sort of x-shaped metal brackets mounted to the walls above the dance mirrors. Not being one to frequent such places, I had to ask a staff member to confirm their purpose--as I suspected, they were for looping elastic cords through for isometric toning exercises (or something like that).

I thought they might work just as well for hooking up aerial harnesses for my partners, whom I seemed to be determined to trip up.

(One time, my heel caught on a hidden rough spot on the floor, but the rest of the time I had no such excuse. Simply not my very best night.)

Stilettos

"Is this a dagger that I see before me?"
A tanguera removing a pair of particularly deadly-looking--and
beautiful--shoes at the end of the evening.

In a clumsy move, I accidentally strike my big toe with the sharp heel of my other shoe while executing a cross. (I do that sometimes. I think the truth is that I'm just a klutz who sometimes manages to hide it well enough to fool people.) In the past, I might have whimpered with the pain, but tonight I manage to keep quiet, although I half-expect to see blood oozing when I next look down, between songs.

At home that night, I trim the splintered nail and remember an Argentine teacher who, when I did a similar thing once while dancing with him, told me that the tops of the older tangueras' feet are scarred with scratches from doing the very same thing. I think of the times I've been on the sharp end of other women's heels when dancing on crowded floors.

If we love tango, and dance it enough, is it inevitable that we will bleed?

Tango Shoes: The Agony and the Ecstasy

Facing the approaching need to retire my custom-made shoes from Buenos Aires--which, though not entirely falling apart yet, are starting to show definite signs of wear, seeing as I've worn them nearly constantly for three years now, my true tango workhorses--and unable at the moment to return to BsAs to do some serious shoe-shopping or to visit my cobbler in person (and also dance, but whatever), I've been searching the web high and low for months, for worthy successors.

But nothing I've seen has really inspired me in ages. Nothing has jumped out at me and said "You've got to have me!" Not even any Comme Il Fauts* and certainly not any of the more solid, padded options that I prefer to wear for classes and so on--more everyday shoes. And what's the point of spending the kind of money you need for good tango shoes that you plan to wear frequently if you don't love them?

Part of the problem has been that what I really wanted was exact replicas of my own shoes. I'm like that about good clothes that I like and that work well for me; I generally just want to keep wearing exactly that forever and never have to worry about it again if I don't choose to.

(For example, if I could afford it, I'd buy a warehouse full of my favorite jeans in every likely size in case of gaining or losing weight, and never have to go jeans-shopping and struggle with cut, color, length, rise-height, etc., etc., ever again! Ah, but a girl can dream!)

Having duplicates made by the same cobbler in Buenos Aires would be possible but not very easy; I've had trouble before with the practicalities of trying to get shoes from them to me in the States.

Finally the other day I thought I'd found The Ones to replace my red custom pair (my Ferraris, I fondly call them). The new pair actually made my heart skip a beat when I saw them--the first time I've been really excited about any potential replacements since I'd begun the search. Although I wanted a few modifications, the site advertized the ability to customize, and I even came up with a back-up plan based on another of their styles, in case it was not possible to adjust that particular model the way I'd like.

Them, I knew. Those are the ones that I want. (It should always be so easy to know that a lover is right for you! But that's another conversation.) They glowed, in true lipstick-red patent leather with suede accents, like Dorothy's Ruby Slippers. The styling was pure Old Hollywood elegance. Beautifully and femininely detailed without being at all overstated, I could picture wearing them with almost everything I own for dancing, from jeans to my best formal dresses.

I had it bad for these shoes.**

When I wrote to inquire, biting my nails with anticipation, I got a very polite response the next day ... that the company is currently on a hiatus of indeterminate length.

I nearly cried. "But ... but my shoes! Those! I want those!"

I've realized that in addition to being quite picky about my tango shoes to start with--I want this heel height, not too low or too high; the heel should be solid enough for comfort but not at all clunky; I like peep toes for sexiness with some protection; I need good padding under the ball of the foot, or room to add my own; and the shoes must have some interest about them without being overly flashy--I quite like being able to have shoes that are, if not completely unique like my custom-made ones, at least a little unusual. Not just character shoes (with very little actual character) from the local dance supply shop.

Not that there's anything wrong with very basic dance shoes, especially if you're just starting out and don't know whether you want to make a big investment. How many beautiful and expensive pairs of CiFs languish in the closets of novice tangueras who bought them early on but gave up tango within the first year? Such a waste; let's hope they all go to good homes through eBay or the like.

But after these nearly seven years of dancing, it's not too much to say that my tango shoes have come to be a means of self-expression, reflections of myself, the things I value, and the way I want to dance.

That's the most personal part of why I want them to be comfortable, elegant, and of high quality; I want all those things in myself and in my dancing. And I want to be able to pick them out in a crowd the way I hope my loved ones could pick me out--my face, my voice, the things I might say.***

I think that's the real reason why I fell so hard for those red shoes: Because they looked like me, who I am on the inside--or at least who I want to be.

For now, I've tried to console myself with a quite different pair from another maker, in black. They weren't such a coup de foudre as the gorgeous red ones, but I do like the look of them very much. They seem to fit all my requirements with no design modifications, right down to the heel shape and height, along with subtle but attractive detailing. I hope they'll be good for me.****

So the quest for new red ones must simply continue. Alas, the course of shoe love never did run smooth!
 

TL;DR: OMG, SHOES! (Again. Still. Forever.)


* Maybe it's partly overexposure, with regard to Comme il Fauts: I regularly get e-mails from various distributors, and I wonder, sometimes, whether the brand can maintain their image of daring and unique sexiness forever when there's been such a lot of demand for them. Might the brand have jumped the shark, or is it rather that I've grown calloused from seeing so many of them? Or could it be true what I've heard, that maybe they don't let distributors sell their very best designs, keeping them for the store in Buenos Aires? (Which would be understandable...) But the human capacity for creativity is very great, and I'm very fond of my CiF babies, so I certainly hope the brand will be going strong for a long time to come!

** The final factor, of course, and not the least important, is comfort, and that you can't know until you try the shoes out. Of necessity, my love for the red beauties was born from looks alone. But immortal sonnet sequences have been written with as much grounds!

*** There's an element of competition involved too, but it's an ugly thing that I don't want to get too mired in. But I'd be lying if I tried to pretend it wasn't there.

**** Why do I always seem to fall for unattainable shoes and men? With these shoes, I move from a grand passion that perhaps burns too brightly to last long (ah, cruel fate!) to (hopefully) a happy, stable relationship with a good, solid, handsome pair that I'm sure will be excellent providers and good parents. 

...Did I just take that metaphor too far?

At the festival, with Charles

His nametag shows the formal version of the name of a famous cartoon character. Completely bald, his eyes ringed by round-framed glasses, tall but standing slightly stooped, he even looks like a grown-up version of the character. As I recall (but maybe I'm just wishing for this part) he's even wearing a pale yellowish shirt with a broad stripe across the chest.

I can't believe my eyes. I have to ask whether that is his real name.

"No," he answers, smiling. He says that he just likes to have some anonymity at festivals like these.

As we practice the instructor's newest idea, I stumble in a simple step and reflexively apologize.

"There's no room for apologies in tango," he gently chides. "If I apologized every time I messed up, people would think the refrain of the song was 'Sorry!'"

I laugh and thank him, unable to resist adding, "You're a good man, Charlie Brown!"

Tango crushes

And there is no doubt that an embrace that is too deceptively beautiful can be emotionally dangerous for an overly sensitive and boy-crazy girl like me who spends so much time crushing on someone unattainable or mourning a relationship which ended sadly. The tango embrace is only a simulacrum, the holodeck version of intimaccy.

--"Terpsichoral," the Tango Addict: "Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you."

Oh boy, can I relate.  So, I suspect, can many others, because, as she also points out,

If you find someone attractive anyway, how can you not crush on them, when you are holding them in your arms and gliding around the floor in a daze of tango happiness?

--Terpsichoral: "Dancing and crushing."

It is so reassuring to know I'm not the only one--that, in fact, it may be very natural in a dance like this. But there is something important to try to keep in mind:

What many dancers are searching for is that magical connection on the dance floor which is not a means to any kind of an end, but just a beautiful thing in itself.

--Terpsichoral: "Dancing and crushing."

I leave by myself. All that I have of him is the memory of our dances and the scent of his cologne that lingers on my dress.

The iconoclast

I'd come to think of him as a deliberate contrarian; the faster the music, the slower he dances, until creeping to a complete stop in the middle of the floor, in the middle of the song, holding some pose with his partner. I'd ruled out dancing milonga or vals with him, his languidness had come to irk me so; to me they are hardly worth dancing if they don't feel different from a tango. I was sure he could feel me pulling against his embrace, trying to urge our movements onto the strong beats.

And then with smooth, flowing orchestras like Canaro--"Poema," still my favorite of all--hopping up and down, or doing polka steps. To "Poema"! I recall it with chagrin. Other times, whipping his partner around into sudden, sharp boleos, while the music flowed gently along.

Fine, I told myself; he believes in experimentation, and sometimes that takes him beyond what I find appropriate to the dance. He could do that if he liked--but I began to be careful of the music that I would choose to dance with him. I figured that we stood the best chance of mutual compatibility with moderately rhythmic, mid-paced tangos. At the very least, only tango, not milonga or vals.

At the last milonga, he asked me to dance to a tanda of DiSarli tangos. At first, I thought I was going to have the same frustration I'd had before, his smooth, slow leading not fitting with my feeling for the rather strong rhythm of the music. But I surprised myself: I found that his long pauses gave me the chance to play with the rhythm with my feet.

At one point I was able to extend my free leg back as if to start a step, stronger than the little toe-taps I mostly sneak in, to match an interlude of particularly accented beats in the song. I enjoy it when a skilled leader who knows the music well can lead things like that--but this was unled, I'm pretty sure, though not contrary to his leading. He just gave me the time to figure it out for myself. It was all mine then, and it really seemed to fit the music and our dance.

I felt as though I'd made a breakthrough in learning how to follow him effectively--and enjoy myself with him. What had annoyed me could actually be an opportunity. Maybe his slowness didn't need to hold me down after all but could ... create a chance for play? Experimentation? Collaboration?

At the end of the tanda, he pressed my hand in both of his and bowed a little bit. "That was beautiful," he told me. (Praise from him still always surprises me.) And I wholeheartedly agreed.

Echoes

The other day I was sitting in a local cafe, when a particular blues song (that I'd first heard as part of an alternative tanda) started playing, immediately followed by electrotango. I looked around to see whether DJ Oblivious was working behind the counter.