Last Tango in Seoul
By JL Copeland
Alright? Ready for a last tango in Seoul with yours truly?
Music for this post? It’s not quite tango, but if you want a boogie, turn this baby up loud and shake and shout:
Is tango still popular today?
You bet. My wife has been dancing tango for over ten years.
A few months back, I went to watch The Taming of the Shrew, and it just so happened that the theatre was next door to my wife’s tango bar, and at the same time she dances on a Saturday afternoon.
I’ve never seen her tango. After the play had finished, she invited me to watch the end of her social dance session (a milonga, for you tango aficionados).
Now, before you get your hopes up, no, you’re not going to find photos of my efforts at the caminata or ocho below.
I am NOT a dancer.
Don’t get me wrong, chuck me in a club with decent rock and roll (and sufficient lubrication) and I’ll get funky, but well, you can probably imagine the results.
My wife, on the other hand, has always danced: ballet, salsa, modern, belly, swing, tango.
When we married, she was dancing swing.
In an effort to step out of our comfort zones and try new things, we made a deal: I’d learn swing for six months if she learned to box (my hobby back then).
Dancing is also one of the traditional skills of a gentleman. I had mastered chewing with my mouth closed and ceased urinating in the shower; now it was time for a new upgrade.
I pushed through the embarrassment and awkwardness and dutifully attended swing bars for six months, on my own (back then, we were living at opposite ends of Korea).
Did my wife strap on the golden gloves?
Of course not. What do you take her for?
Anyway, to correct the above statement and be fair to myself. I am not a natural dancer.
My wife would strongly disagree with that qualification, violently, even. She’d have me straitjacketed at the merest hint of a melody near a dance floor.
I’ve accepted I’m a slow learner: after forty years of swimming, I’d still describe my front crawl as disjointed, I’m typing this post with two fingers, and my egg-frying skills ‘require improvement.’
Don’t even ask me where you’re supposed to insert paragraphs.
Still, after six months of swing, I felt I could pretty much hold my own. Okay, at least get through a song without drawing too much unwanted attention (and without causing death or serious injury to my partner).
Tango is very popular in Korea, there are tango bars in most cities, a dozen or more in Seoul.
When my wife’s interest in tango became a mania, I considered taking it up so I could dance with her. But tango is different to swing. Tango is — in my wife’s opinion — bloody hard, especially for men, who have to lead.
What makes it worse in my eyes is this whole cabeceo thing. In swing, if you want to dance with someone, you just go over and ask them. Swing dancers are an affable bunch, and I was never refused.
However, in tango you make eyes at each other across the room (cabeceo), seeking the nod from the prospective partner. It’s quite snobby, apparently, and there are a lot of refusals (not only due to dancing skills, but also looks, age, dress sense, who you roll with, etc.).
But the bottom line is if you’re a beginner/shit dancer, prepare to be blanked, prepare for a heap load of rejection.
You know me, my ego is like the Eiffel Tower constructed from Twiglets and candyfloss. I wouldn’t last a month at a tango bar.
So, having waded through that Napoleonic invasion of Russia via Vancouver and Venus-sized digression — no, I wasn’t in that Seoul tango club to dance.
The club was in a basement, and it was a shock to descend from blinding sunshine, tourists in hotpants and crocs and the snarl of Seoul traffic, into a murky room with string music, a dance floor packed with women in elegant dresses and men in snappy outfits.
My wife had told me to wait at the side, and she’d come and find me. The dance floor was ringed with Chesterfield-style sofas, but I perched on a stool against the wall, waaay back from the action.
There were so many pairs shimmying up a storm, I couldn’t locate her.
And to be honest, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.
Is tango a sensual dance?
Are you kidding? Jesus Christ, it looked so damn sensual.
If you saw that recent movie, Sinners, the bit where they’re all in the speakeasy, sweatily grinding away to the blues, and all the ghosts of music from the past and future appear to jam along? Yeah, something like that.
I’ve seen dozens of tango videos my wife watches on YouTube; I know what it’s about. But to see it in the flesh, with low lighting, the soft sway then aggressive bite of the music…
Within a minute I was trembling; I just couldn’t stop fucking trembling.
I don’t know if it was nerves, the sense of not belonging there or maybe that the sight of it was so stimulating, and this was coupled with the thought of what must it be like to be actually dancing it — as my wife was at that very moment.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m an open-minded kind of chap; I trust my wife; but every dance felt like a three-minute love affair — and of course, that’s tango. I knew this.
But still… to be there, jellying away.
A woman came and sat beside me and chatted. I told her what I was doing there, and she encouraged me to take it up.
Nah.
Even with a bucket load of lessons, I’d struggle.
And if I did get a handle on the technique and overcome the cabeceo, I don’t think I’d get a handle on my emotions; I’m too temperamental/sensitive/nuts. I’m sure lines would blur, I’d feel uncomfortable, confused; it’s too friggin’ alluring.
Finally, my wife spun into view, and I was relieved to find watching her dancing wasn’t as uncomfortable as I expected; it was even joyous.
She’s a great dancer. Now, of course I’m going to say that — but she is. When I pointed her out to the chatty woman, she remarked on my wife’s reputation,
‘One of the best dancers here.’
See?
As I proudly watched my little cabbage kick and turn, the only negative thought was the sense of impotence, that I was unable to dance with her as the other guys in there could.
Told you my ego was fragile.
The music finally stopped, and my wife came and sat with me. My teeth were chattering as I tried to converse; I blamed it on the air-con. She bought me a beer, and I managed to drink it without shaking it all over the table — just.
Then the music started up again, and a woman came over, winked at me, and nodded towards the dance floor.
Now I’m all for taking chances, but I’m not that insane.
‘Er, I…’
My wife laughed and explained to the woman, who smiled graciously and sought out another partner. She was surprised, saying that the woman had never spoken to her in all the years she’d been attending that milonga.
‘She must have thought you looked like a good dancer.’
What can I say? The mind was —partially— willing.
But not this dance.
I envisaged a likely cocktail of heart attacks, ruined trousers, prison time.
That was my last tango in Seoul.
Is there anything you’ve ever thought about trying but never juiced up the courage to go for or been dissuaded from doing?
Hit me with a reply.
Speak soon,
JL
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