Memoirs of Tango

After dancing minimum 5 hours  day, practicing my Tango, within one week, this was the condition of my feet and my Tango practice shoes that have been discarded. Have you ever seen such bad condition of shoes within one week? But I am so proud of myself. Still I have to reveal the reason for such hard core practice. In some time I will.

Some Tango Gyan. My teacher already calls me, "Tango Mata". And says that I give "Tango Pravachan". (These are some Hindi words that I do not feel like translating).

For me, tango is an elegant and powerful language that can express many things, among them camaraderie, romance, respect, curiosity, playfulness, and joy. Therefore by accepting a wider scope of emotional experience, beyond sexual attraction, we expand our creative potential.

In order to dance well, we must develop a physical sense of our own body and that of our partner. By “physical sense,” I don’t mean simply that we visualize or imagine the shape of our bodies, but rather that we enter the visceral, non-intellectual experience of the body where there are no words, where there is a different way of communication.

As tango dancers, we learn to trust our senses of touch and hearing without intellectual analysis, and this brings us into the world of sensual experience on which our creative self thrives. 

Changes in haircuts, wardrobes, and home décor are common amongst new dancers, and I believe this is in part because dancing tango makes us more creative people. The tango teaches us to be passionate, expressive people.

In the words of one thoughtful dancer: “I began dancing tango to meet women, but in the end I met myself.”

One woman I know had frequent arguments with her husband over taking tango classes (He was not a dancer himself). In his mind, the tango was by definition a sexual experience, and he couldn’t stand the idea of his wife dancing with other men. I shared with him the perspective of sensuality linked to movement and music, rather than sexual attraction, and eventually he was able to appreciate his wife’s passion for the tango, rather than what he imagined was her passion for other men!

I think it is very human to feel jealous, and the tango’s closeness tends to push this button more than other activities or hobbies we might choose. In few other situations do we witness  wives, husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends wrapped in the “passionate” embrace of another person’s arms. 

However, here is where it helps to interpret “passion” as simply intense feeling, not necessarily sexual feeling. In talking with social dancers, most of time the intense feeling is coming from the sensation of the tango connection itself, or from their love of the dance itself, not from sexual attraction. Dancers love to dance, period, and the sensual connection between partners is a central part of the tango experience.