Hips

I’ve been wanting to write about this for a while, and after reading Miss Tango’s post called Porteños vs. the Others, as well as Elizabeth’s post called Owning It, I’m particularly inspired.

Here in Argentina, I notice something that I rarely see “up north” - the women move their hips. Watch just about any porteña walking down the street, and while it’s not exaggerated, there is a particular sway to the hips that you don’t see in Anglo countries. Go to a milonga and you’ll see the women effortlessly disassociate their hips from their upper body. And not because they were taught to. They do it because they just do. Their hips have more freedom of movement when they dance. They move grounded, connected to the earth, and they allow their feminine bodies to move as they are naturally supposed to move. (Living proof would be in my ex’s niece, who we taught to walk and do ochos as she was curious - she has never danced Tango in her life but she instinctively knew just what to do with her hips. It was amazing. I have never seen it up north. Ochos are so much nicer if you just let your hips be!)

I was always concerned with being as straight and stiff as possible with my Tango, maybe because so many people have related it to ballet for some reason. Yet since I’ve been down here and had two different private lessons (each with a different teacher), I have been told the opposite of what I’ve been trying to do and I realize that I agree with what they are telling me.

Each teacher, coming from totally different tango backgrounds, told me the same thing - to walk like a woman and let my hips be what they are (NOT to force them to move - but just to let them be hips). Both teachers told me that they see this problem quite often with North American women - we don’t move our hips naturally. We stiffen up. We are afraid to be sexy. Afraid to be labeled as whores or criticized if we let our hips sway a little.

Javier really drove this home with me in our lesson. He made note of my curves and said that I seem to dance like I’m afraid of them. Normally I’m not, but when I dance I get a little shy. So we worked on my body confidence and on walking like the woman I am. He reminded me to be proud of my hips, proud of my curves, proud of my soft tummy, proud of my breasts and to dance like it. (Not to prance or wiggle or do salsa moves - but to be ME.) He wanted me to walk “all’Italiana” (his words)… “Channel my inner Sophia Loren?” I said. He laughed, “exactly!”

Vilma, the other teacher, said more or less the same thing, but came from the point of view of being grounded, centered, connected to the earth. She made me realize how much more comfortable it is to dance if I just allow my body to dance. Embrace fully, and let your body do what it needs to do. Being ashamed of your body or being afraid of your curves or sexuality makes the dance only half of what it could be.

Whenever I return to Seattle from a place like Italy or Argentina, I notice a huge difference in the way women move. Up “north”, they walk straight and tall, striding, careful not to let the hips move even a inch. It’s like watching boxy, sexless, suppressed robots move down the street with no hint of individuality or freedom or happiness.

When I was in high school I wanted to be a model - I got a couple of jobs but it was hard as I didn’t look like a boyish waif - I looked most definitely like a woman then. I was always told NOT to move my hips at all when I walk. I remember hearing people in the industry criticizing a particular supermodel for letting her hips sway on the runway. I quit when one agent told me that my hips were too big and that I’d have to lose weight to make them smaller - um, I was quite skinny at the time so the only way to make my hips smaller would have been to perhaps remove my hip bones entirely!

I find it interesting - it’s as if women are expected to be men or boys. It’s why I flourish when I’m down here or in Italy - I find it so free and easy to be 100% woman in the way that I want to be. Curves are celebrated. Femininity is appreciated. It’s okay to be sexy. It’s okay to move your hips.

Just some observations… Let’s let my favorite Colombian-Lebanese belly dancer Shakira take over, shall we? After all, hips don’t lie…