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Volume 6, Number 1 - Fall 2007
Dances With Text
reflections by Lawrence McCarty
We were discussing “Tango” by Luisa Valenzuela, with young Spanish-speaking participants at the Lighthouse, when I was reminded of how different perspectives in culture and history make us partners in the learning process.
“Tango” is narrated by Sonia, a Buenos Aires woman with a passion for the dance. We followed Sonia as she walks to work to save the bus fare for Saturday night’s Argentine tango, where finally she elevates; she flies, “…me elevo. Vuelo.”
We then examined a passage comparing her dance with the art of sailing, “…he’ll put his arms around my waist and we’ll cast off…We navigate at full sail if it’s a milonga, for the tango, we list.”
The men and women at the Lighthouse— young people from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Colombia—love to dance! “I sail and I fly, too,” replied one woman, “but to the salsa.”
“The tango steps are smooth and even, but very difficult; the salsa is freer and more natural and you move your whole body,”
explained a participant.
“Bachata is the best,” replied a young man.
I returned to the dramatic text to discuss the tango steps, the fixed gender roles of leader and follower, the rigid etiquette of the salon. We talked about the Argentine bandoneón accordion as key to the tango’s tension and suspense.
Sonia closes her story by describing how a marvelous partner leads her in a “cosmic” tango: “resulta un tango de pura concentración, del entendimiento cósmico.”
After the dance, the partner rejects Sonia’s invitation to come back to her room; that conclusion, we noted, echoed themes of rejection and melancholy found in tango lyrics. A young woman then declared, “Sonia doesn’t care; she loves the tango, not the man.”
In closing, as I played the nostalgic “El día que me quieras,” to demonstrate a smooth tango, a young man from the Dominican Republic went to his bag and returned with a bachata CD. Then, partners in Caribbean rhythms, we danced, swaying to the tropical waves of the tambor drum and guiro.