Some years ago two girls came to the Carmencita milonga in Ljubljana. I saw them for the first time. I thought they were beginners. For the first hour they were just sitting in a corner and observing the milonga. Then I invited one of them to dance.
When we started dancing, something felt odd. She was a tiny girl, but, when we were dancing, she seemed so big! I knew exactly what she was doing with her body: through our embrace I felt her feet! So much was happening that it seemed as we were dancing in slow motion. It was amazing! She was definitely not a beginner.
I was very tired afterwards, but not because of her. She was never blocking me, never hanging on me, never putting any force, any tension into our embrace. I just could not handle that much information. I was not used to so many details in each step—and that I see my follower so clearly. More than I could handle, but still I wanted more!
I was watching her a lot. She could dance with anyone, she somehow managed to adapt. Later that evening we danced again. I never saw her since. She was only passing through Slovenia.
Maybe that was the first time when I clearly noticed connection in tango. With the word connection I name something that allows two unknown dancers to form a harmonious couple. It is hard to see directly, but we can see what a good connection allows: it allows the couple to dance both in unison and diversely. Just one without the other is easy.
Movement in unison
It is wonderful to be able to dance in embrace. We are willing to sacrifice many things to keep it. Steps too short or too long? Direction mismatches? We can compensate with our posture, going into a new step faster, or in some other way. We keep the embrace, but we always lose something: perhaps power, stability, perhaps options for the next step, perhaps we lose the expression we seek.
To improve movement in unison, we need to synchronize our legs. We can easily notice that the position and the shape of our legs (angles in joints) define the position of our hips. Therefore, a couple that can synchronize their legs will be able to keep the embrace without compensations: the embrace is built from below. Partners will move their whole bodies in unison: feet, legs, hips, torso, chest, up to the head. They will be in unison in each part of the movement.
Diversity in movement
If there is no diversity, we can not distinguish if the dancers are really working together so well or if they only have the same habits.
With diversity I do not want to merely focus on different elements, like steps, crosses or ochos; instead, I would like to focus on different ways in which each element can be danced. For example, that we can do steps of different lengths or timings. That we can travel through the step with constant speed of that we change the speed somehow. That we can change height in the step, like going up or down in the middle. That we can also step diagonally. That we can change direction during the step and therefore also make it circular. That we can dance without projections, with big projections, and with all variants in between. That pivots are not necessarily separate from steps, but that a pivot could also happen during a step. That crosses are not always the same: they can be deep or shallow, with free leg right next to the standing leg or with feet apart.
To me, a dance has diversity—and feels free—when we can adapt each movement to our feelings, music and dance floor. When we do not depend on habits or a particular style, but we try to build each movement from scratch, exactly as we want it.
Connection starts with feeling our partner’s body
If I want to dance with diversity, there are too many possibilities for communication just with the embrace. Because I do not want to depend on a particular style, movement shapes are undefined. Therefore I have to go deeper, into feeling my partner’s body and responding to changes in it, but she also has to feel me. Only when we feel each other, we can copy our movement and always create something new.
To feel our partner we do not need any pushing or sharing weight: the work of muscles inside our partner’s body working can, if it is in a proper state, gently transmit through the embrace. Although there is no pressure (only touch), we feel physical changes.
For a good connection I therefore need a well connected body and lots of attention. The dancer from Carmencita had exactly that. She was so good that I felt her, even though I was not aware that anything like that was even possible.
I am very happy when I get to dance with someone whose body I can feel clearly. Although a connected body and dense movement seems basic—for me, a basis of tango technique—it is only very experienced dancers that dance this way, with the exception of some lucky ones that just had it in them. Unfortunately, classes do not give it enough attention. I know we can learn it: I am sure that my partner Agnieszka learnt it well, and even I am slowly improving.
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Sara Grdan and Ivan Terrazas also spoke about connection in their v-log. Do watch it! They are fun.