Into the Soul of Tango

Since Friday evening I have been immersed in Argentine Tango.  Not the tango you might have seen on Dancing With the Stars (in its various international permutations) but the real social dance as danced in Buenos Aires.  My local tango community hosted the lovely and talented Alicia Pons, milonguera extraordinaire, for a weekend of workshops and milongas (social dances).  I have been dancing Argentine tango for 3 1/2 years now and find it to be an almost inexhaustible dance.

Outsiders generally dismiss Argentine tango as sex on the dance floor, and little else.  Perhaps in some situations, tango can be reduced to this.  In its early days it was a regular offering in the whore houses of Buenos Aires to get the customers in the mood for the girls.  But that was 1908, not 2008.  I will say from personal experience that tango can be a very sensual dance with distinct sexual overtones, but that is less common than you might think.  Tango is a ritualized means of non-verbal communication between (usually) a man and a woman.  The dance is framed by a whole host of social conventions and etiquette and unfolds for the couple on the dance floor inside of the music and the steps the leader leads in response to this music, his partner and the other couples on the dance floor.  Ideally the tango experience expands from the individual couple to encompass every couple on the dance floor, who begin to move in unison like a many celled organism that is beautifully hypnotic to watch from the outside..

Dancing tango is unlike any other physical experience.  Ideally you are dancing in close embrace with the bodies making contact at sternum level throughout the entire dance.  The embrace is inviting, solid, but not rigid.  As a woman, the embrace gives you a sense of security and connection that is the foundation for good tango.  If you and your partner surrender to the music and to each other, you begin to respond to the music, each with his own emotional responses, in tandem.  Of course you are moving together and you even begin breathing together.  If you turn your awareness to the energy the two of you are generating, you can feel the give and take of that energy as it ebbs and flows in response to the music and to each other.  In the best experiences, you begin to identify not with your own individual energy but with the combined energy you and your partner are generating within the dance.  The feelings can be exquisite while dancing tango with a well-matched partner.  He doesn’t have to know all the fanciest steps.  More important is that he is listening to the music, listening to me and savoring the time we are dancing together.  

My favorite tango partners are male friends who are also members of the tango community.  Dancing together adds a marvelous non-verbal dimension to our friendship and our enjoyment of one another.  I don’t know of another way we could be so physically intimate with no strings attached.  To share something are exquisite as dancing tango with someone you feel an affinity and affection for is a marvelous experience.  Because these men are my friends and we all know one another’s significant others (many of whom are not fellow dancers), we understand the boundaries to our relationship before we take to the dance floor.  Because we know one another so well and are friends, we can relax, let go of any nervousness or performance anxiety and share the marvel of dancing Argentine tango with one another.  When you dance tango your true self is revealed to your partner.  The body does not lie.  Your innermost self  unfolds within your partner's embrace, for better or worse.  To know and be known so intimately  is something that cannot really be described, it can only be experienced.  This is the key to Argentine tango's worldwide success and continuing popularity.  I know I plan to dance until I'm too old to walk.  Until then, look for me on the dance floor where I hope we can share a tanda or two together.