QUESTION:

When did you last go dancing?

I don't mean out at a pub bopping to some old tune; or at a club, swaying mindlessly to whatever electronic rhythm is on offer (is there any difference between them?)

I mean... dancing. Like above. Look at them! Look at the movements, the beauty of two bodies in absolute sync. It's like watching magic.

When did you last feel that 'power', the surety of a partner's confident maneuvering- the 'svelte' you matching them move by move; the ying yang joining of two bodies... fitting, flirting. In love.

When did you last hold a partner in your arms and feel their suppleness and their bending, twirling form gathered to you... The seductiveness and sensuality- and that machismo- you know?

Call me old fashioned. I'll wear that with pride in this instance, thanks.

I know that dance above - not this particular song alas - but I know the dance. I also know it without love.

A very long time ago, my father would 'get me up' at family and other social gatherings and make me dance with him. We put on quite a show- he had the moves. (He held me exactly that way, I can still feel the pressure of his thumb in the middle of my back.) I just closed my eyes for the most part else stared off into space- my body abandoned, following instinctual patterns of movement after many years of practice. My head, hating this 'showing off', dreaming of a lover in his stead.

So I know all of the above- sans the 'couple intimacy' of course. I can dance like her (if it's like riding a bicycle) and can attest that the scene above is real. It exists outside of movies.

It's been a thing with me, to be sure: Someone else to dance like that with. Not necessarily an expert in the tango- just someone in a sense holding the opposite qualities to my father: commanding instead of ruling, certain instead of vainly insecure, at ease with himself... instead of masking weakness with control. (Someone who I can surrender my movements to willingly and someone to 'flow' with- in that sense of ethereal motion?)

There's something intrinsically personal to dance- least this variety. Yet in the decades past we removed the intimacy and the tension and the power-play and the suggestiveness and the mystery and... replaced it with rhythmic, isolating, electronic hypnosis. 

Tell me you've danced... the old-fashioned way? Tell me you know this and that you do it often?