Tango is strange; danced socially, so much of the nuance is in the feeling between partners that what seems to you like a spectacular dance can look relatively low-key to other dancers. To casual observers, it can look dead boring.

There are things that are easy to notice. In the video below, it’s clear that the embrace is fluid, opening and closing a few inches as needed. You can see the perfect balance of each dancer (wheeee!); you can see her articulate adornments that accent the music; you can see the skill and precision of their footwork.

What I can’t know any more is what else comes across, things that I didn’t know before I started dancing it; the invisible third axis created in the space between partners? The ease of long partnership in the way their chests always meet, even in the wider embrace? The way he adjusts the embrace before the complicated steps when he knows she’ll need his support? The drawn-out pauses that highlight the melancholy chorus? How GOOD they are? How much they love it?

P.S. If social dance in New York was anything like this, ever, I wouldn’t have stopped dancing. I couldn’t have; just look at them.