Carole Edrich Weblog

young potential

A last opportunity to dance tango before I travel to Colombia for work, this was never going to be a big night for photos. But I took the camera because I really enjoy the challenge of constantly moving dancers in low and inconsistent light and can always do with the practice.

I get on well with and really like a number of people who I’ve danced with over a number of years but have never known their names. While we’re dancing all I feel is necessary is to compliment their musicality, follow as well as I can and have fun in the process. People have so many interesting things to say between dancing too, so all too often the exchanging of names often feels unnecessarily burdensome to the conversation and when it isn’t I may not think of it, hear it or (sadly) remember.

Harry and Wei
(c) Carole Edrich, 2008

Through the photos I take this is slowly changing. TangoWorld publishes names alongside portraits in “Milongueando in the UK”, besides which it’s more courteous and fun to ask subjects if they’d like me to send them the shot for their own use while in the process getting formal permission for the images’ publication. As a result I’m gradually learning the names of those with whom I’ve danced, photographed and interacted with as well as names of those I’ve never met before.

As always the Crypt was friendly and, once the darkness and uneven lighting is mastered very photogenic too. It’s fun to frame people between columns and arches, catch faces half bathed in coloured light or play with the lighting from slide projector, ceilings and walls. Tonight a particularly photogenic dancing duo caught my attention so after catching them on camera I shared with them what I had done. It’s the first time in tango that getting permission was more than a courtesy. The lead was Harry, a well-groomed young man, less than ten years of age.

Wei, with whom he had been dancing, liked the shots and suggested that Harry and I dance a tanda which was great! Harry moved with style and elegance throughout all three of our dances and was one of the clearest leaders of that night. It seems logical that anyone possessed of a diminutive stature must find leading more difficult. Harry was therefore particularly remarkable since he has not yet reached an adult’s height. It turns out that he only started learning around Christmas last year, so his standard’s impressive, but at the time I was happy and impressed that he was able to avoid the collisions or juddering stops that I’ve experienced with more mature and experienced leads.

At a later conversation, after asking Harry his opinion his mother gave permission to write this piece and offer his image for publication in TangoWorld. I hope that we dance together again, that Leandro selects his photo for publication and that in the years to come he continues to tang and gains the skills, pleasure and satisfaction that a young man of his potential so justly deserves.