Taking the red pill*
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How did I find myself here? Strange music is sounding, with a wailing falsetto singer and a powerful, thumping beat. In the semi-darkness, I can make out the shapes of bodies, moving in a way which seems somehow strangely familiar. Those jerky movements and sudden, vicious kicks; those teetering leans and wild, uncontrolled spins where both partners throw their body weight precariously backwards and cling onto each other’s forearms with desperate force — can those be the weird, misshapen offspring of what were once ganchos, boleos, volcadas and colgadas? Have I landed in the midst of a satanic ritual? My doubts begin to dissolve as the metallic tones of a familiar Malerba cut through the noisy murmur of conversation. This is tango, but not as I know it.
The couples hold each other stiffly off at arms’ length, staring down stolidly at the floor. Right from the opening bars of this lovely, heartsick ballad about a Russian gipsy, free legs are flying through the air, knees and ankles clashing as feet stretch out, searching for places to hook legs together in sudden ganchos, bone against bone. Leaders kick at their partners’ feet, legs rigid, and shove them roughly along the floor in painful-looking barridas. The contrast between the smooth, lyrical music and the rough, jerky movements makes me wince. Not one couple embraces tenderly. No one walks around the room together.
I watch as a man approaches a partner, hand outstretched in the casual insolence of assuming she will not refuse his offer of a dance. She is sitting sipping fizzy water. He pulls her firmly to her feet and the water slops a little in its glass as she places it hastily down. He immediately pulls her body forward into a dramatic 45° volcada and she paws the ground frantically with her free foot. Then, restoring her with difficulty to a vertical position, he steps deeply into her space and nudges her free leg out of his way with a thrust of one hip. They have been dancing for perhaps twenty seconds now and there has been no foreplay, no cuddling, no walking: it was straight to the rough stuff. I am trembling for her, but she seems happy, flicking up a leg now and again, seemingly at random, with obvious relish.
A small, rotund man is approaching my seat. I catch his eye and then look pointedly down at the floor. As he comes closer, I turn my head and, as he continues to loom over me, even incline my whole body slightly away from him. But he is undeterred, tapping me on the shoulder with a sharp finger. “Hey, you,” he says in clipped German, “time to dance, Missy.” Some perverse, self-destructive impulse has me on my feet and on the floor before I know it. The orchestra is now my beloved jazzy, syncopated Biagi, though no one but me seems to be aware of the change. “I love Biagi,” I confide. When he says nothing I add, “I think this is Biagi now, although there wasn’t a cortina.” He shrugs: “We’re not really big on that kind of stuff here, you know, tandas, cortinas and all that traditional shit.” He grabs me, pokes his fingers into my back, thrusts me hastily through several back steps and then proceeds to pull and prod me through a series of back ochos, ending with a sacada which sends my free leg crashing into a table leg. Deaf to my little startled squeal, he is off again, careering around the room at twice the speed of the musicians, shaking me at one point with seeming fury to try to force my leg up into a high back boleo. By this time, I am no longer listening to the Biagi, just trying to get through a polite three tracks without injury. But I cannot. After a second number, I call an end to the ordeal with a mumbled “Vielen Dank”.
He strides off to the bar, but quickly returns to hover over me menacingly. Bending down towards me, he hisses in my ear. “I am a tango teacher. Some of the dancers here are my students.” I try to disguise my horror. “You are a bad dancer, a very bad dancer.” I try not to look too pleased at what I interpret as a perverse kind of compliment.
We have changed back, seamlessly and without warning, to the strange pop music. This particular track has a very insistent bell-like repeated refrain: “Drrrring, drrrring, drrrring,” it goes.
DRRRING DRRRING DRRRING. I clutch at my alarm clock, fumbling for the off button. I am back in my own bed, in my own flat, with bright Buenos Aires sunshine streaming in from the balcony and, from my neighbour’s flat, the faint strains of the announcer on the 2×4 radio station: That was Rodolfo Biagi’s orchestra, with the voice of Jorge Ortiz, performing “Romantico Bulincito”. “Thank God,” I think, “It was just a nightmare. No such milonga exists, no such music to tango to, no such tango instructor.”
And then I spot them. The two little pills on my bedside table: one blue; one red. Take the blue pill, Terpsichoral, the blue pill, says a quiet voice in my head. I gulp it down with a swig of water and, with a shudder, open the rubbish chute and throw the red pill in.
*With thanks to the film The Matrix, which inspired this entry.
PS Here’s the kind of dancing I might have seen at the milonga, had I taken the blue pill instead:
The original “Taking the red pill*” blog post can be found here
"Terpsi! I love your post and this genre of writing -- the dream sequence. It can have more power than reality. Although I have had nightmares during waking hours with tango, they have never been in Germany. My reality has been great in Germany -- with absolutely wonderful music and levels of skill. Germany's tango scene is my dream. I love going there at least once a year."
"Thank you, Mark! I've noticed that you have a tendency to have some rather vivid tango dreams which can be almost Coleridgean in intensity. Do you eat strong cheese before bed? ;-) I'm glad that not all German tango is the way it was in my nightmare."
"I really enjoyed your sharp eyed humorous review about the Berlin Tango Scene. It is like this I must admit. There are some so called Tango Teacher who are blocking your way when you like to go to the ladies bathroom because they want to discuss your misbehaviour (I refused to dance with somebody because I was a shy beginner years ago). The following dialogue scene is not a hollywood script: So called Tango Teacher: "Excuse me!" blocking the lady's way. "Yes (a shy voice)". "Who do you think you are? The tango teacher was asking - The shy lady with the innocent voice: "Oh I am XYZ!" The Tango Teacher furious: "Are You KIDDING me, don't you know who I am! I am XYZ, I am famous for my music and my Tango Teaching! I used to play there and there and there..." You are unpolite and a snobby lady"! I (the shy lady) was running in the bathroom with tears. Then I had a hsyteric laughing attack in the toilet (I think everyone was thinking I am on a pill (red or blue)) and then I was furious because my eye make up was ruined and I had no mascara in my bag which was even worse than this crazy tango teacher. I see this man from time to time on Milongas here in Berlin (he is still teaching..) - he is ignoring me but I am always smiling and saying hello with lifiting my eyebrow. So the famous Berlin rudeness is unfortunately existing at the Milongas, but there are also polite gentlemen among the dancers as Peel is and even others. So next time you are here let me know."
"Thanks for this, Moneypenny. I should point out, however, that this particular dream was <em>not</em> set in Berlin. I'm sorry to hear that such scenes are not unknown there, either. And I commiserate with you on the idiotic bully of a so-called tango instructor you describe. He definitely doesn't sound like a man worth wasting good mascara on."
"So it is a global problem ;-) I guess? Of course it was not worth my prescious mascara tears....! Anyhow I have forgiven but not forgotten because it is a strange funny tango story..."
"You know, one of the things I enjoy about writing my tango blog is that when I have a terrible tango experience, while part of me might be upset/frustrated/bored or even angry another part is thinking <em><em>this might make a good blog entry. </em> Thinking about the blog helps me to retain a sense of humour sometimes."
"I wonder why so many German commentators in this blog are feeling ashamed, sorry, unhappy and all sorts of other uncomfortable things about your entry, Terpsichoral. Assuming that the people who are commenting here are not the ones to blame for what you are writing about. Besides, it is only a story you made up, not something that really happened, perhaps not even a real nightmare you had after a dancing night in Germany. Although it might happen, of course. But at least some of us seem to agree on that it is NOT an exclusively German phenomenon. I'd like to repeat that there is a lot of good dancing in Germany. Thanks, tango therapist for mentioning this, too. You only have to find the right places. I can only encourage you to search further, even if it means taking the red pill. :) I don't mind taking the red pill myself. On the contrary, I don't think it's possible for a dancer outside BsAs (perhaps even there) to discover what tango dancing really is by taking the blue one."
"Thanks for this comment, Ann Marie. When it comes to national shame of any kind I agree with whoever said (I think it was Virginia Woolf but can't find the quotation) "It is as foolish to be ashamed of one's country as it is to be proud of it." We don't choose where we are from. I have danced very little in Germany and, even within that little, I found some great dancing: for example, in Berlin and at the Hamburg Tango Marathon. Some individual German dancers are some of my favourite leaders to dance with. See <a href="http://tangoaddiction.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/berlin-tango-part-1-chaos-in-kreuzberg/" rel="nofollow">here</a>, <a href="http://tangoaddiction.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/berlin-tango-part-2-knit-one-purl-one/" rel="nofollow">here</a> and <a href="http://tangoaddiction.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/a-tale-of-three-leaders/" rel="nofollow">here</a>. I will certainly be happy to search further in future (though I don't spend much time in Germany). And yes, of course, the entry was a dream, a story I made up. Of course it was. ;-)"
"Ann Marie I am glad that you are happy with good dancing in Germany. You are right: there are the right places to dance for everyone I found them so I am happy and I avoid going to the wrong places for me even with a red or blue pill in my pocket - which means chacun à son gôut. I think there are a lot of different opinions about "good" dancing. For some dancers it is only the quality of technique and the music. For others it is also the aspect of social dancing when they go out in a Milonga. So there will always be different opinions on what "good" dancing is. I am happy that Terpsichoral shares all "fictional or unfictional" observations with us in this blog."
"Thanks for this comment. I'm glad that you enjoy my shared experiences! Happy dancing at good milongas in Germany and elsewhere!"