The Taxi dancers!
Picture this, Girlfriends:
It is midnight and your pumpkin turns into a chariot. You arrive to a grand ballroom, all stained glass and chandeliers and ornate ironworks curling through the marble staircases. At the entrance there are stacks of casino chips on a small table. You buy a few, they’re only $3.00 each, why not? How does this work? You’re not quite sure. You walk into a fairytale land of live music that tugs at your heart and nearly makes you weep.
You are in Buenos Aires and it’s your first Milonga, tango dance parties that begin at midnight. You look around for familiar faces and finally spot you friends, sitting at one of the many tables circling the old wooden dance floor with its ceiling up to heaven. Each chip buys you a “set” of 4 dances from a taxi “dancer.” You look around the crowded floor and spot them in their black tight Tshirts and black pants, hair slicked back..
Do you dare call a taxi Buenos Aires style? The music pulls you to your feet, your arm goes up slowly, your chip visible between your fingers. This feels so strange: sugar mama, wanton creature, you, you want to dance and you’re willing to pay for it! OK, here we go. That one over there – you signal him, he comes to your table smiling, gallantly offers you his hand and off you go. The sacred tango teachings are swirling in your head: line of dance, body slightly forward, relax but don’t collapse, don’t look down, keep you axis, relax your shoulders, elbow pointed down and on and on and on.
Then you close your eyes and remember to simply follow his chest, his heart It is here you connect in the immediate moment with no plan to plot or follow. One dance is over and you stand around for a minute talking about nothing because, of course, he doesn’t speak a word of English The music starts again and this time it is easier to get into the tango zen of now. Finally, it is over. Wasn’t that only three dances?? You are relieved you did not fall flat on your butt, didn’t slice up somebody privates with you deadly stiletto heels, only stepped a few times on your taxi’s toes and only crashed into a few others, coupled in tango tangles.
You open your eyes, look around slightly dizzy, dazed…pin the tail on the donkey?? Wait a minute…where the hell did you friends go??? Interesting, but completely unfamiliar faces glance at you from your table. What jerks to have deserted you in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, in a place you don’t know. Wait! You spot them on the opposite side of the ballroom.
Ah, the taxi dancers of Buenos Aires…Essssooo…One of my friends really lucked out. She said, “Galina,not only was my taxi a taxi dancer, he was also a taxi driver, so I got to dance and get a ride home too… Esssooo…….to be continued
Galina Brouwer,
May 2 , 2006
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