My young friend Amy, recently in Comme Il Faut purchasing her obligatory pair of red shoes, met a woman who was buying NINE pairs of tango shoes to take back to ONE friend in the States. A bit excessive? What’s she compensating for?

If you can’t blame a man’s tools for the work he does then you certainly can’t attribute a woman’s dancing to her shoes. Why then do some women need so many pairs of tango shoes?

I’ve been dancing for eight years and I have not quite that many pairs of tango shoes. I rarely wear them – partly because I don’t go to a lot of milongas. I haven’t purchased a pair in the past year that I’ve been here. But, before I go home I will probably buy one more pair of stllettos and a pair of Darcos new slipper style. My first tango partner used to say in his feigned foreign accent – “It is more important to look good than to feel good.” He was kidding of course . . . I think . . .

Most of the time I wear my very comfortable tango runners or my jazz slippers. I’ve been known to dance in my hiking boots, my Birkenstocks, and my bare feet at Plaza Dorrego. Today I rather successfully led and followed milonga in my flip flops. It’s true that I look and sometimes feel better in heels. It’s likely true that I dance better. I also dance better if my feet don’t hurt. I don’t always carry extra shoes with me and am not going to give up the opportunity to dance just because of ‘improper’ attire.

Insider information has it that milongueros speak very little amongst themselves about women at the milongas but when they do it goes something like this:

“See that one? She looks good but she don’t feel so good. That one over there – she don’t look so good but she feels good.”

He may ask you once because you’re gorgeous but if you don’t dance well he won’t ask you again. It may take him a while to ask you if you’re not complementary eye candy but once he does and he enjoys his dance with you – he’ll not only ask you again but he will also recommend you to his friends.

As I was walking home tonight in the rain after class, instead of the milonga music continuing in my head as it usually does, I am remembering a song from my childhood. As a very young bailarina I listened repeatedly to my Rosemary Clooney record and I still remember all the lyrics to all the songs. I’ve heard The Little Shoemaker used in a short film about The Red Shoes – my favorite Hans Christian Anderson fairytale about a young girl whose dancing gets out of control when she wears a special pair of red shoes. I am obsessed with the many songs and stories based on the theme of the Red Shoes.