Night Work: The Tango Book

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Tango Feet

Chelsea Eng

She had the feet of a tango dancer, perhaps by default.

"They're so wide!" she had lamented to her dermatologist upon having a wart removed at age 14. Dr. Jacobitz had beamed back at her and purred, "The better a base to stand on, my dear!"

Yes, she had a firm base, all right. Pollack feet. She'd once stood on the porch in sneakers beside her grandma, her aunt, and her mom. All three sets of shoes sagged on the outer edges, unable to contain those ample Zukowski paws.

She had feet born of mixed blood, blessed with her father's Chinese toes — fairly slender and straight — only the fourth toes were Polish and curled like her mother's. Ever since a childhood friend had eyed them with a grimace, she had challenged the wayward toes, pressing them straight between thumb and forefinger. But the toes insisted on staying crooked and unsightly in most summer sandals.

Such unruly toes were not cut out for ballet. Ballerinas really need to have square toes — that are even in length, I mean. So they lie flush with the end of a pointe shoe. A ballerina had explained this to her.

Though in her twenties and quite tall, she had a peculiar knack for dating short, 40-ish retirees of the ballet. Buenos Aires 1994: Sean removed his shoe on a street corner and plopped his bare foot down on the pavement. "Look at my foot! I have a classic foot! The second toe longer than the first! Look at the angle of my arch!" With that he pointed his toe as surely as if he were Heil-ing Hitler. Some years later: Demien, too, roamed around flexing his foot muscles from concrete to carpet — a perfect point, every time.

Both men wanted her to have ballerina feet. In bed, no less. Sean pressed his weight atop them to enhance her arches, which did little lasting good. Catching the shadow of her lifted leg, Demien remarked, "Pretty nice foot." Doubtless he was accustomed to a much finer pedigree. To this, she promptly retracted her leg and tucked it under the covers. In swimming pools, no sooner did she try to go on pointe for a few weightless moments than her slack little mutts gave her what-for.

Now, with the tango, came a summons. "Pretend your feet are giant tongues and they lick the floor," the beautiful Luciana instructed. Tongues that lick the floor, tongues that lick the floor...YES! She stood on tongues, no question! In tango heels, they found a proper home. Though nearly vegan, she indulged her feet in suede dancing shoes, for the soft skin melted against her toes and shaped itself in her image. She graduated from 1-inch chunky-clunkies to 3½-inch red lamè spikes over a 6-year period, as her feet learned to speak with greater fluency.

She was a quiet girl, with highly conversational metatarsals. They luxuriated in every transfer of weight, every slide and glide, every strategic tap. The balls of her feet loved the tango though it made them ache for Advil and ice, and they knew the relationship was not an entirely unproblematic one. Fishnets complicated matters, so at the risk of being brazen they often went naked inside the suede. They became rather strong — just landing pads for her 130 pounds of body and 5 pounds of breast. She poured her weight into one and teased with the other, playing the music through to the tips of her ruby toenails.

And one evening, without the aid of mirror or silhouette, she knew. She had the feet of a tango dancer! Yes. She had the feet of a tango dancer, thank God! Tanguera feet by design...by delicious, delirious, divine design.

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Chelsea Eng, professional tango performer, teacher, director, and choreographer, holds a M.A. Education - Dance Specialization degree from Stanford University. She has performed and taught in national and international venues. She is a featured dancer with MonTango. You can visit Chelsea's website at tangochelsea.com