In the beginning..
In the beginning of this blog there was the tango argentino...
It
has now been one year since I have embarked upon the path of tango.
I´ve been through the stages well known to all other tangueros - at
first the weekly lessons, the pleasure of learning and concentrating on
my body (a ´I dance, therefore I am´ sort of a thing), then the first
milonga where, to my horror, I realized I could hardly walk - yet it
was there and then that I completely fell for tango - and then lots of
work and dancing to improve, and then my first tango trance when I
danced my eyes closed until my feet were sore, limping happily back to
my place at half past two on a summer night, still more dancing, and
finally becoming a real tango addict (I still remember that week, in
Paris, when I went out to dance almost every night, to the practicas,
milongas and, of course, les quais de la Seine - most romantic, but
deadly for your feet). My feet would hurt non-stop, a night´s rest was
no longer sufficient to make the pain go away and, as I walked to the
metro station, I had the feeling of stepping, barefoot, on sharp
blades.. Yet I do not think there´s any inherent masochism in tango, as
a friend of mine (not a dancer, of course, so what would he know?) once
suggested when presented with this recollection. Yes, I suppose one
COULD dance in sneakers... but it just wouldn´t be the same! It´s not
just the shoe fetishism which, I admit, is a part of the whole tango
thing, even for someone like me, who had always scorned high heels
before and thought Doc Marten´s were the hight of cool; it´s also the
undeniable fact that the whole of tango aesthetics is based on
high-heel shoes - both the figures and the walk. One simply cannot
achieve the same result without that bloody heel.. :) Anyway, one
learns to minimize the damage, eventually, and most of the time a good
night´s rest will suffice (plus perhaps a massage, a foot-bath, and
some exercises - all these do make quite a difference).
I have noticed some women will
wear high heels throughout the day, to work or to walk around the town
in (though how far they actually get, or if they ever manage to catch a
bus, I would be very curious to know); but I have never been one of
these women and I find it rather
alarming to see what a girl - including myself - will do to her feet
when she gets into a tango trance (except for the fortunate specimen
mentioned above, who can indulge in high heels without any apparent
self-mutilation). Though, on second thought, it may not be so
surprising after all. I suppose we all know that fairy tale about the
little mermaid - the one that fell in love with a human prince and, in
order to become human herself and be able to walk the earth accepted
the condition set by the witch who helped her in her predicament, i.e.
that every step she would take would feel as if she were stepping on a
sharp blade.. That´s where I got the idea, of course..