Feeling

Phi Lee

It always feels like a meditation and a journey into everything that you hate about yourself [laughs]. No, I mean it can illuminate a lot of what is present for you at the moment, whether it's being able to be present with the other person or feeling disconnected from the body, and then it's like you don't know how to dance, or feeling protective of yourself…All this becomes more apparent, because when you're moving with the other person, you have…Why is it that today I move a certain way and tomorrow I move a different way? Because there are all these experiences and emotions and feelings that are present that affect the way we are.

Mati

You feel a lot of things…Sometimes it’s a bit difficult to put in words, but I think that you feel your state of mind, you feel how comfortable you are in the space you’re in, you feel the same, but for the person you’re dancing with, and also you feel an opportunity, like I said earlier, to connect with other people through an unspoken, corporal language.

Norma

Total plenitude. Plenitude and…like what someone who can fly would feel. Or, if I want to be vulgar: it’s like an orgasm that lasts for three minutes [laughs]. It also depends on who you’re dancing with, to what song, and everything, but when you get to dance with someone with whom you connect really well it’s like that. And it’s not sexual at all. Or, it could be; if you’re interested in the person you’re dancing with, then it will be a bit more pleasurable. There’s a certain, I’m not sure how to explain it—spiritually, mentally, corporally. Yeah, I feel something that is orgasmic, volcanic perhaps. It’s incredible.

Leo

For me it’s a moment with myself and a disconnection. It’s a way to extract whatever is inside and let it go in the dance. A way to transport and relax myself. It also fluctuates because it changes in each embrace. It depends on who you’re dancing with. There are friends where you don’t see them for ages and suddenly you connect and dance and it brings you those memories from those times when you were with them and what happened in those moments when you used to dance with them…it’s a return. And when you dance with new people it’s like you’re driving a new car and you don’t know how it drives—less or more? You have to be more attentive. Or dancing with the person you always dance with and it’s like coming home—”boom.” I don’t need to think; I move, we move together and everything flows. That’s the magic of tango. It’s always interesting because it changes. It changes in every embrace because what you feel when you dance is one thing, and another thing is what they make you feel, because sometimes you listen to the music and say “ah, this is the tango I want” and “pum!” It changes for you because the other person’s energy makes everything change. That’s when the magic really happens. For better or for worse, but it changes.

Mikael

NW: What does it feel like to follow?

If it's a close embrace, I can just melt in their arms and experience their sense of musicality and experience them as a person and also show myself in that embrace. It feels like a hug on clouds. It feels like sex a little bit because of the connection of being so in the moment and feeling each other. It’s a little bit like falling in love.

NW: And what about leading?

Leading is taking care of the other person, about making it musical and connecting.

Arty

The feeling really is indescribable because it is a language that is not words, so it's similar to saying what's it like to speak Chinese? It's a language where you are communicating with your body. You are suggesting, you're proposing, you're saying, I want to move here. Will you come with me? Will you follow me in the direction that I'm trying to go? And when you’re following, you’re saying, you're going to propose something to me, and then I'm going to propose something back. I'm going to take that and interpret it how I want. It's so beautiful and so magical.