Tonight, my body feels as though it were not my own. My right arm is stiffening unnaturally, as though some slow-acting basilisk were turning it to stone, and I have to focus on relaxing it, from shoulder to wrist. My legs are leaden, too and move with awkward clunkiness. I feel my feet clumping against the hard black-and-white tiles of the floor. And, as my partner’s body moves forward, my free foot slides out, but cannot find a purchase. I end up awkwardly close to him, keeling back on heels that feel spindlier, more precarious than usual — or just a few centimetres too far, leaning forwards, tensing my tummy in an attempt to prevent my weight from slumping heavily against his chest, my hand on his upper back scarcely touching him, the fingers just brushing his shirt in my fear that I might grasp or grip him like a climber searching for a foothold.
Tonight, I realise just what a complex neurological procedure this is, what a delicate balance. How did I ever find it effortless, this precise calibration of my step lengths to his, this game of somatic Chinese whispers as messages are sent from his brain to his torso and from there to my brain, to my torso, to my feet? I feel as though I were puzzling over a multisyllabic word, one I have written many times, but suddenly cannot remember how to spell. I write it out with different letter combinations, searching for the spelling that looks natural, but each version appears more alien than the last, until the letters are reduced to arbitrary black lines and curves, signs with no signified. Some processes are mysterious in their complexity and to dissect them is to murder. I feel the same panic I have felt in yoga class. Focus on your breathing, the teacher intones. And suddenly I am conscious of what a cumbersome process it is, filling and emptying the lungs, and I am panicked: how can I do it? How do I keep it going day after day, moment after moment, without exhaustion? And how can I dance? How can I let someone else’s impulse decide where I place my foot, where I transfer my weight? I need guidance, I need taped blocks on the floor like an amateur thespian, frets like a guitar so I can place my feet correctly. I am as uncertain as a novice trombonist, trying to stay in tune, trying to slide this unmarked tube out to the exact spot where the note will sound true.
But, as I dance, stiff and clumsy, hesitant and tense, there is one thing that is clear. A line of breadcrumbs through this labyrinth, a ball of yarn to guide me through the maze. He looks shifty on my CD cover, in three-quarter profile, a Latin Lothario with melancholy eyes and a flamboyant moustache. But his orchestra are my allies. I pounce on the off beats — perhaps a little wobbly, a little uncertain as to where to step, but powerfully confident as to when. As I take a back step, I tap once with my free foot here, marking a syncopation, twice there, leaving the virtual trace of triplet beats stamped on the floor. I take a side step with deliberate slowness, brushing my free foot along the floor in imitation of the violinist’s action with his slow legato bow stroke: horsehair represented by leather. I take teeny tiny nervous unled weight changes at the end of the phrase, my feet mimicking Biagi’s long fingers on the piano keys, black and white like the floor of this milonga: the ebony keys higher than the ivory ones, just as the black edges of our floor are slipperier than the white tiles. I sweep around a planeo into a parada, stippling the floor in time with the bandoneon as I go. I walk my stiff-legged, ugly duckling walk with closed eyes, letting Ortiz’s syrupy voice be my guide as he sings of humiliation and delirium. And now it seems less important where my weight is centered. Whether my arm is tense. I don’t have time to think about that. Like a bloodhound on a scent, all my attention is focused here: on hunting down the marcato of the bandoneons; the violins’ repeated shrieks as the singer exclaims “I hate this love!”; the chords of Biagi’s right hand in playful staccato; the bandoneons’ sudden bursts of syncopation; the strong sounds and sudden, unexpected silences of this tango. And now, however clumsy, awkward, off-balance I may be, however difficult my coordination with my partner tonight, she is here with me, accompanying me, soothing me, taking me with her, giving me strength and confidence, giving me voice. Seeming to transform my stumbling steps into the full rich timbres of violins and pianos. Turning my inadequate movements into timeless art.
