The Difference Between Attraction and Distraction
What is it about someone’s dancing that makes us want to watch, and keep watching? Tango Beat’s post on April Fools’ Day brought me back to this question, which I think about often. Tango Beat wrote the following somewhat facetiously, but it echoes sentiments I’ve heard from many dancers.
This was my realization: Why should I be so meek, dancing just for one person, the woman in front of me? In my dream I reasoned that if my partner were sitting at the tables, she too would be watching his awesomeness. She would not notice me—the guy who was taking subtle steps and moving to nuances in the music. She would not see how I had connected directly to my tanguera’s heart and entire being. She would not see that I was dancing with my partner’s soul, led to move only by the music rather than showing off what I just learned from a stage star.
I think it’s very common in the beginning to look at the biggest, the most obvious, the most dramatic. Unless we’ve had certain experiences in our lives that have made us sensitive to the nuances of movement, connection, and musicality, how do we know what to look for beyond what is most visually distracting?
Only personal experiences of connection, emotion, and insight can fill in the details for us. Over time, we grow more sensitive to the little things and develop an understanding of what makes the bigger things really “work”. Of course not everyone develops an attentiveness to subtlety with time and experience – at least not in some linear or predictable fashion – unless they’re looking for it.
Last year I took a tango friend of mine out to our local salsa club. The dance floor wasn’t too crowded yet, and one couple in particular was doing a bunch of spins and drawing some attention from others in the club. My friend turned to me and said something to the effect that the turns were kind of cool but she didn’t really find anything else appealing about their dance beyond the visual distraction of so much movement. I smiled at my tango friend’s perceptiveness watching a dance she knew little about.
I responded with my own experience watching these kinds of dancers: I only need to watch them for a few seconds to “figure them out”. Beyond that it’s all the same. There’s no need or desire to look further, because there’s nothing to draw me in and make me pay attention. This has nothing to do with level, and everything to do with depth, meaning, and connection.
I had recently visited one of my favorite dancing cities for a weekend, and a night out at one of their salsa clubs confirmed it for me. There were two couples on the floor. The first couple was doing some intricate turns, but it became apparent pretty quickly that they were doing the same moves over and over. The lady did some styling, but it was the same every time she found herself in a particular position and didn’t change based on the music or any unique feeling or response at the time.
The other couple really drew my eye, although I must say it wasn’t the couple so much as the lady. She had a beautiful style and quality of movement that looked so alive and responsive. Every time she turned or did something else it looked different, but not in some obvious way that indicated she just had a lot of tricks up her sleeve. There were little things that accented the music or showed a moment of playfulness, amusement, or even surprise. I could see, even feel, her responses to her partner. There was sensitivity, nuance, subtlety, responsiveness, and context.
I recently stumbled upon an incredible book by Christopher Alexander called The Timeless Way of Building, in which the author writes about “the quality without a name… a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man.” He writes of this quality that “It is never twice the same, because it always takes its shape from the particular place in which it occurs.” Beautiful. There is a difference between letting the dance affect you (a humble way of being) and trying to affect the dance (a rather egocentric and forced way of being). The difference is huge.
I feel this energetic reality when it comes to my own dancing. My best dances have been when I felt my body and my mind and my emotions responding in the moment to the music and my connection with my partner, not when I was focused on keeping consistent technique or presenting a desirable image to others.
And I have felt myself drawing attention from others while dancing, but there is a qualitative difference in how I feel being watched or complimented when I feel that nameless quality versus when I don’t: When I am connected and letting the dance affect me, I feel like onlookers are admiring something both within and beyond myself, something spiritual and universal that flows through me but that I am not responsible for creating or maintaining. It is a pure feeling that makes me feel fully myself and completely unique but in a very humbling way. When I don’t have that connection or when my intention is in the wrong place, I feel like people are complimenting something they don’t fully understand or are complimenting me because I was able to distract them, not truly attract them from the inside out. It is an empty feeling, perhaps momentarily satisfying but not lasting or meaningful.
The difference between attraction and distraction is the difference between something that opens you up, making you look and feel deeper, and something that I can only describe as being like a cup with a hole in the bottom that empties as quickly as it fills.
The more I attune myself to this energetic reality, the less I want to settle for anything less – in myself. It makes me evaluate myself to make sure I am approaching my partners with an energy that attracts instead of distracts, and that I am seeking out and encouraging attractive instead of distracting qualities in my partners. Doing this takes me beyond the surface to what is pure and deep and timeless. Doing this makes my universe expand instead of contract. And doing this opens up formerly-hidden pockets – delicious, delirious pockets – of honest joy.
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What about you? Do you feel this difference in the energy you bring to your dancing?
