Category Archives: Components

Individual components

Starting to Hear Tango in 3D

I am feeling like a new world is opening.

For the very first time I am able to listen to different layers of Tango music – simultaneously. It is a very new experience – so much richer, deeper – and full of information. Like white light broken down into it’s components – each ready for me to react to.

The music comes to me as a whole –  pre-packed and launched by the lyricist, composer and all of the individuals in the orchestra to match a creative vision – handed down and perhaps embellished with new variations through the decades.

This entire song is there for me to listen to and react to – but now perhaps I start to have the tools to break it back down to its components – to react as a dancer  in my upper or lower body as best I can.

I have my torso and my legs – and her. They have the melody and the rhythm – and each other. They have the limitations of notes on a page, but a charismatic orchestra leader with a vision – I have my hearing, my understanding and my emotions. And  her.

Then I must move.

And most importantly – as I move of course I invite her to respond based on whatever she hears when she listens to the same music.

I  choose a melody and my torso responds – but perhaps she hears the underlying pattern of the beats – so stays in contact with me but her feet are with the floor and choose to dance to the rhythm.

Upper body, lower body – melody and rhythm. Her and me – us and them. Dissociations ripple around us. The light is broken down and analysed.

It doesn’t come easy – nothing in Tango does – I have to concentrate – but yes – for the first time it is possible. Perhaps. If I really care, if I focus – if I listen and then I actively choose. If I work hard. Maybe I can do this.

If I dance to one, and she takes the other – can we then together reassemble it? Can she clearly communicate with me? Can she lead me through these joint decisions?

Can we by moving together recreate the white light of Tango but illuminated now by dance?