Friday, July 28, 2006

Can you have the first lesson twice?

This week a saw a tango show with dancers from Buenos Aires, and I haven't been so depressed at a stage show since I saw Les Miserables when I was sixteen. It was, however, depressing in a good way.

Well, except the woman who did the milonga with feet so fast I couldn't follow. And the woman with the leg extension two feet past what's humanly possible. And the woman who broke her ankles so that her stilettos were flat to the floor and dragged her instep in tiny, perfect circles.

I wonder what it was like for the people in the audience who weren't dancers, or who didn't care to be that good, who just enjoyed themselves, clapping mellowly. I honestly can't imagine - "Mellow" has never really been a trait associated with me. I'm not studying tango so it can be competent. I want it to be beautiful.

Having seen this show, I have to go home and start walking with my instep to the floor. My apartment isn't big enough to walk backwards with the extension I saw, but that's why subway platforms were invented.

I wrote a really long run-on sentence here about what tango has done to me, but it should be evident what tango has done to me, and extreme run-ons are annoying.

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