We are emotional beings. We rage, we weep. To combat our emotions we numb them, using whatever distraction we can use to distance ourselves from feeling. To think and to feel are becoming foreign ideas. It is preferable to hover near the surface, engaging in relationships that are stable, consistent and predictable. The new Bubonic Plague is romance. To name a thing beautiful, or to experience a sublime, beautiful moment is a rarity, best reserved for our memories. We fear exposure.

Tango is a subtle romance. A romance that celebrates our emotions with movements. These movements — pivots, turns, pauses, steps, postures — are part of a language that expresses vulnerability, our willingness to connect, sensuality and confidence. Tango is not a solitary dance.

Let go.

Tango’s close embrace is a defining moment in a new dancer’s journey. It is the both the most challenging and simplest theme in any tango lesson: connectivity.

It looks like a lovers embrace. A breath’s width separates two lips from touching. Her nose nestles in your neck, or her cheek presses against yours. The warmth of her skin, the lilting smell rising from her neck, the light sweat of her scalp, the music’s rhythm a new heartbeat mutually shared and the feel of her body as you move around the floor. Your eyes are hazy, dim, focused only enough to avoid moving into other couples. There are times the music inspires you to lead her in a movement that creates a small space between your bodies. This sudden acknowledgement of two bodies shifts the momentum. It almost feels unnatural.

It is easy to confuse these experiences with lust or sexual desire. Typically, when our lovers face is that close it is a step towards another intimate experience, albeit with less clothing. In tango this intimacy is sensual not sexual.The celebration is not of two bodies unraveling, but of two bodies — two souls — orbiting a shared central axis.

The awareness of this center of balance, of her movements, the foot her weight is on, the space on the dance floor, where other couples are and the rhythm of the music are all meaningful details. Now it is a language shared between two people. Others may observe, but in close embrace all worlds are centered on two people and how much they’re willing to express. It is simpler to do these things in open embrace, where you can orient yourself and watch your partner, but close embrace is a swimmers first deep dive into an ocean. It is the hushed hour of night, where lights create tiny atmospheric hazes, and there is a slight, but perceived excitement.

The central tenet of dancing tango in close embrace is, like all beautiful things, love. It is a discovery of our own vulnerabilities and how transient they truly are. It is the more in eyes brightened in a face damp with sweat, mussed hair and a long exhalation. Love is the more in everything human. In tango, love is the perennial second chance. In close embrace, it is an exultation shouted out not with words or raised arms, but in the elegant, quiet movements of two people existing around a focal point. It is as personal and varied as our perspectives, outlook and opinions.

The self merging with another self.

Your self blurs and coalesces, leaking slow and hot like blood from a wound. The presence and heat of your partner in such close proximity enhances, rather than diminishes your awareness.

Love is part compromise. At its height it is fully reciprocated. In tango’s close embrace the amount of self-love we bring to our partner creates an opportunity for them to offer theirs. When it works, it is like two waterfalls falling into the same pool. That pool is tango, it is us and finally, it is love.

Images used courtesy of Kagan Photography. Click here to find a wonderful array of tango photography.