Blather

9/15/2006

Suzie- ready for a fantasy? Good- here's one of mine:

http://wwwp.musicmatch.com/album/album.cgi?ALBUMID=1606480&type=cl

Here it is again: http://www.kqed.org/programs/tv/program-landing.jsp?progID=13529

It’s the same program- Tango. Why is this a fantasy? I dunno- i think it could be the beat- quick-quick, slow, slow. It could be that the dancers are all healthy and attractive. It could be that the partners look like they're having sex while they dance. And in my mind, I make the leap from dancing with your clothes on to the lagniappe of actually making love with these women whose faces promise so much in the way of passion.

The dancers also are elegant, in the classic way- like cabaret Berlin, or like the artificial yet romantic way tropical places were depicted in pre-Vietnam life. Ever see "The Three Caballeros," Disney’s cartoon-with-live actors? Towards the end Miranda Aurora dances with cartoon cacti. Elements of Mexican life (her costume) are blended with cartoon fantasy. They don’t lose the contrived and so much more than real feeling of what it *might* have been like to live in Mexico after WWII, when the world was yet innocent.

Similarly, this show about tango is telling me a story about the history of Argentina through guitars and accordions, through songs and movement, through narration and location. History is the dry, dusty retelling of elections, wars, inventions. But this particular quick-quick, slow, slow cadence reinforces the artificial history of Argentina through tango. Pretty women/girls in shiny red dresses, or white sequins with a flapper headband move across the stage, like too-strong cats on the prowl. These girls are lithe, strong, and they have intelligence to memorize the steps, either alone, as a tandem pair of girls, or with a partner. And they have a look of intensity on their faces- desire, strength, and passion bubbling below the performance surface. These female dancers aren’t pretty, they’re alluring and magnetic. One nose is a bit long, another has a bland face. But they’re all dynamic and alive and enticing beyond belief.

Six couples in perfect synch, with violins plucking and accordion tremolo .... It’s a performance that I want to watch for myself. And then I can slip sooo easily into my fantasy- ME dancing like that, with one of those gals, all of those gals. Remember I told you that dancing is like sex with clothes on? Well, this sure is!! And moi is more than a bit crazy about sex. Is there more here? Where’s that modern relationship-means-commitment thing? What about the inner tension between throwing yourself into a casual fling and abstaining from everything sensual until the Perfect Life Partner comes along? We all fret that this PLP will be outside the temporal, emotional door while we're frivolously frittering away our life and bodily fluids with some casual copulant. Well, I don't want to marry any of these gals, I don't want them to have my baby, and I don't want to share my deepest thoughts and feeling with any of them. I just want to put my right arm around one of them, hold her right hand in my left, and see if I can lean into her and smell the rhythm, feel her blood thumping through her muscles and hear her hips move under my wrist as we look into each other's eyes and live for the moment. Not the week or month or year, just the moment it takes the music to trill up and down a bit, sucking the tempo from my marrow. Red hair, a waist and strong legs below a bum that's too big for a fashion model. Fishnet stockings, slit skirts, flowing hair and a plain, unsmiling face with eyes that mesmerize. Desire and motion, rhythm and action, restraint and promise. We’re one couple alone in the universe surrounded by the cast and orchestra.

These dancers are professionals. Yet they project the sense that they're just people. They’re just like you and me, except they have a live band behind them and costumers and choreographers and decades of experience you and I don't have. That’s all. We’re practically there, aren't we?

This is my evening tonight. Thanks for being here with me, darling.

# posted by rich @ 10:13 PM