First Tango Lesson

Although I didn't think I was going to tango in Mendoza at all, Wednesday night the entire school went out the one and only milonga in the city, Cafe Soul, and I finally got my first tango lesson. The teacher only spoke spanish, and was a little difficult to hear (let alone understand) but it was wildly fun nonetheless. Practically all the students from the school were there and we did a lot of walking around the room in a tango hold, and practicing moving our feet the proper way. Tilke, if you need a solution to all your tango dancing problems, the key is to keep your needs together at all times. Every time I screwed up, it was because my knees weren't together.

We spent the night dancing away. I liked it SO much better than the Milonga I went to in Buenos Aires because the pressure was not there at all, and it was totally acceptable to be a beginner dancer. No one got mad at you, and (I'm sure) the level of dancing was probably a lot lower than the Buenos Aires houses are.

I was struck, once again, with the sad beauty of the dance. Sometimes I feel like the dancers are crying. Because it's quite hard to follow if you see anything, many of the women dance with their eyes closed, which only contributes to the feeling of loss and melancholy the dance emotes. Later in the night, the teachers of the dance class would dance around the room and I couldn't peel my eyes away from them. They weren't doing all the flashy show moves that the dancers in the street do for the tourists, but just dancing tango like they were the only ones in the room. It was beautiful and sad, and entirely nostalgic. One day I'll dance like that too.