Tango is not only a fascinating dance but also a fascinating philosophy, culture and lifestyle. The search of tango is the search of connection, love, fellowship, unity, harmony and beauty, i.e., an idealism that is not consistent with the dehumanizing reality of the modern world. The world divides us into individuals, but tango unites us into a team, community and species. In tango we are not individualists, feminists, nationalists, Democrats, Republicans, etc., but interconnected and interdependent members of the human family. Tango calls us to tear down the walls, to build bridges, and to regain humanity through affinity, altruism, cooperation, and accommodation. It is a dance that teaches the world to love.



December 25, 2011

Social Tango and Performance Tango


The more I think about the challenges that tango is facing, the more I feel the need to distinguish between social tango and performance tango. People who promote performance tango often say, “Why draw a line? They are all tango. The tango is one.” But that is not true. Social tango and performance tango are different dances that serve different purposes. They are different in almost every aspects, including appearances, embraces, feelings, steps, techniques, lead/follow methods, and philosophies. (See Three Theories on Leading.) Any definition describing one dance automatically excludes the other. In fact, people who have only learned one dance are not able to dance the other dance without learning it. Instead of peddling performance tango to beginners, it's better to tell the truth, so students would know what they actually are getting into.

Social tango is a popular dance form catered to the preferences, educational backgrounds, and abilities of everyday individuals. It is danced for personal pleasure in crowded milongas under the guidance of the milonga codes. Typically danced in close embrace with substantial physical contact, it serves the need for connection and intimacy between genders. A spontaneous and improvisational dance, it is danced with uncomplicated and compact steps, allowing dancers to concentrate on the inner aspects such as emotions, intimacy, comfort, and feelings. Dancing social tango is a deeply personal and soulful experience. What matters is how it feels and not how it looks.




Performance tango, on the other hand, is a sophisticated dance form designed for stage performance. It is a theatrical rendition of tango, incorporating intricate steps and techniques that are beyond the scope of ordinary individuals but tailored for trained professionals with advanced skills. It is a choreographed and rehearsed dance, typically danced in an open dance hold to allow for expansive movement possibilities. Its steps are wide, fancy, often dangerous, and demanding ample space. Unlike social tango, performance tango is not aimed at providing an intimate, soulful, or personal experience; rather, it serves as a showcase for flashy figures and dazzling movements intended to impress and entertain the audience. It does not abide by the milonga codes and is unsuitable for crowded dance floors. Safety, comfort and user-friendliness are not its concern. What matters is how it looks and not how it feels. (See Highbrowism and Populism in Tango.)




I believe it's not in most people's interest to learn performance tango, especially before they have mastered social tango, because it's a waste of their time and money since very few of them will ever become stage performers, because without the foundation of social tango they can't perform on stage well anyway, and because the bad habits acquired from learning performance tango, such as using arms and hands to lead and follow, the inability to use the torso to communicate, the focus on the look rather than feelings, the disregard of safety and comfort of others, and the difficult movements and dangerous footwork, not only hinder their own enjoyment of social tango, but also cause disturbance to others in the milongas.

For most students, social tango should be the focus of their learning, because their purpose is to dance in the milongas for pleasure and not on stage to entertain the autience, because they want a user-friendly dance suited to their abilities and not a difficult dance beyond their reach, because they want a dance that serves their need for affinity and intimacy, not a gaudy and uncomfortable dance to show off their ego, and because they want to be a good social dancer and lay a solid foundation before, if ever, they decide to learn performance.

In the US, social tango and performance tango are mixed, which is the cause of many of the problems in our milongas. In Buenos Aires, the two dances are separated. Social tango is danced in the milongas. Performance tango is danced on stage. (See The Styles of Tango.) The professionals who dance performance tango on stage will dance social tango exclusively when they go to a milonga. Those who teach social tango will say they teach social tango, and those who teach performance tango will say they teach performance tango. They don’t hang up a sheep’s head and sell dog meat. Separate competitions are organized for each dance. I believe that is how it should be elsewhere in the world.



December 18, 2011

Highbrowism and Populism in Tango


Art forms that cater to the preferences, requirements, and educational backgrounds of the general public are known as popular arts. Conversely, highbrow arts are regarded as having cultivated tastes and exceptional skills that exceed those of the general public. Highbrow music, for instance, has limited singers because its range and complexity are beyond the capabilities of most individuals. In contrast, a pop song has a narrower range and simpler technique, making it accessible to everyone.

The belief that intricate and challenging forms of art are inherently better than straightforward and accessible ones is flawed. Painting does not necessarily surpass photography, and pop songs can be just as beautiful as those in opera. In fact, simplicity and ease often result in superior outcomes. Being simple does not equate to being artistically inferior, and being easy does not imply a lack of skill. In truth, attaining simplicity and ease requires a great deal of sophistication. Accomplished artists can execute their work with ease, and those who simplify their craft are often more virtuosic than those who cannot. (See Simple Is Beautiful.)

Individuals who believe in art for art's sake don't understand that arts, particularly popular arts, are for people. What’s the value of a pop song if it is too complex for the general public to enjoy? What's the worth of a social dance if only the elite can dance it? Argentine tango is a social dance. It was created by sailors, gauchos, immigrant workers, and street women. It remains a grassroots dance in Argentina today. Most people who dance tango are ordinary people. They love tango because it is a simple and easy dance that serves their need for connection and affinity with other souls. Those who regard themselves above the crowd try to make tango increasingly intricate and challenging. I don’t think that attempt serves tango well. Tango will continue to evolve as an art form, of course, but transforming it into a highbrow dance akin to ballet is a step in the wrong direction, in my view. The life of tango lies in its popularity and sociability, without these qualities, it risks becoming a castle in the air.

Schopenhauer's well-known quote "Man is either vulgar or lonely." can be interpreted in various ways. It can be taken to mean that one should embrace their individuality rather than conforming to the crowd. It can also be interpreted as a warning against becoming too aloof and ending up lonely. Alternatively, it can be seen as a call to balance refined and popular tastes to avoid extremism. Concerning tango, I believe the latter interpretation is more prudent. As a Chinese proverb goes, "Water that is too clear has no fish, and a man who is too high standard has no followers." Schopenhauer's words, therefore, can also be viewed as a cautionary note.



December 14, 2011

Tango and Romanticism


When people comment that someone's tango is like gymnastics or acrobatics, they are referring to a lack of romanticism in the dance. Gymnastics involves skilled athletic movements, while acrobatics are eye-catching physical stunts aimed at entertaining people. Both of these activities prioritize athletic ability over creating a romantic atmosphere.

Tango, on the other hand, is an art form and social dance that emphasizes artistic and social aspects like music, emotions, feelings, relationship, and aesthetics. Dancers' attention should be placed on the intimate, soulful, comforting, and beautiful nature of tango rather than on physical feats of tricks and complexity. Tango is intended to evoke feelings and facilitate intimacy between partners. It is suggestive of a beautiful romance. In the soul of tango is romanticism, which separates tango from gymnastics and acrobatics.

If we take romanticism away from tango, what's left is a sport or show. Unfortunately, in a culture where games rather than classics, sports rather than art, and technologies rather than humanity are the main emphases, that is what tango increasingly becomes. People, especially young people brought up in this culture, exhibit a lack of depth and lasting quality. They focus too much on the flashy forms rather than the substance, and constantly seek for change and novelty. To retain tango's classic, romantic and elegant beauty, we have work to do. One of which is to reflect more romanticism in our teaching and dancing, for example, using simple and natural steps, focusing on the elegance rather than stunts, showing more emotions and feelings, etc. Fashion will go out of style, but never will romanticism, because it resides in our humanity. We only need to awaken it.



November 28, 2011

Tango Is a Language (I)


You might not consider tango to be a language, but in reality, tango is indeed a language, which can be taught, acquired, comprehended, and employed to convey intentions, emotions, feelings, musical interpretations, as well as aspects of movement such as type, size, direction, speed, variations, and more. Those who know this language can effectively communicate with one another, discern each other's intentions and feelings, and dance together harmoniously as a unified entity. Those who are unfamiliar with this language find it challenging to express themselves and respond to others, and they feel awkward and frustrated in dancing together.

Similar to other languages, tango possesses its own alphabet, vocabulary, grammar, and composition. The various body parts, including the head, arms, hands, torso, waist, hips, legs, and feet, can be seen as the alphabet of tango. We use these elements to make steps, which are the vocabulary of tango. Musicality and communication are like the grammar, according to which steps are improvised to form a dance. Choreography is the composition of the dance, which combines various movements into a coherent and artistic performance.

Like studying any language, learning tango should start with the alphabet and grammar. Without using alphabet, we can't spell words. Without understanding grammar, we can't put words into proper use. One of the problems in our tango learning is that we focus only on studying vocabulary and don't pay nearly enough attention to the alphabet and grammar. We don't embrace our partner correctly. We don't understand the functions of verious body parts and often misuse them when we dance. (See The Functions of Various Body Parts in Tango.) Our posture is ugly. Our connection is broken. Our body is stiff, heavy and inflexible. We are unable to dissociate the upper body and the lower body. There is no balance and stability in our movements. We don't listen to music. We don't step on the beat. We don't follow the sentiment and mood of the music. We don't communicate well. Our lead is unclear and follow is clumsy. As a result, although we've memorized a lot of steps, we can't put them together in a meaningful, coherent, musical, harmonious and beautiful way.

Like any language, tango has a large vocabulary. No one can do all the steps in tango, just as no one knows all the words in a language. The fact is, we don't need to memorize the entire dictionary to speak a language. For example, in Chinese language there are more than 60,000 characters. The Kangxi Dictionary includes 47,000 characters. The official Xinhua Dictionary includes 8,550 characters. Among them only 950 characters are the most frequently used, which cover 90% of the total characters used in popular literature. An addition of 2,800 characters of the second highest use frequency increases the coverage to 99.9%. Most Chinese characters are rarely used.

Tango is the same. There are only limited steps that are essential in tango, such as walk, salida, resolution, switch between balance system and cross system, cruzada, pivot, dissociation, cadencia, front ocho, back ocho, molinete, giro, rock, and traspie. These basic steps form 90% of the steps used in social tango dancing. More complicated steps, such as ocho cortado, sacada, sandwich, boleo, rulo, parada, barrida, corrida, carpa, planeo, lapiz, calesita, enganche, volcada, americana, media vuelta, media luna, arrastrar, zarandeo, etc., form the other 9% less common, optional and dispensable steps in social tango. In addition to the above are steps used primarily in performance tango, such as enrosque, giro-enrosque-lapiz combination, high boleo, castigada, back sacada, gancho, colgada, single axis turn, soltada, patada, sentada, kick, lift, flip, etc. These steps are mainly used by professional performers for special effects only. They lack the friendliness of the social tango steps, are difficult, uncomfortable, dangerous and requiring a lot of space to do, therefore are not suitable for social dancing. (See Social Tango and Performance Tango.)

It is unwise to spend time and money on stuffs that are of very little use, but neglect the essentials that can benefit you most, and it is affected to use professional jargon to carry out a daily conversation. Unfortunately, that is what many tango students are doing. A much better approach to tango is to focus on the alphabet, grammar and basic vocabulary of tango instead of jumping into big fancy words without a solid foundation. Frankly, for most people, the basics are all they need to enjoy social tango. If you understand that, then tango is really a simple and easy dance. Those who are particularly talented and want to become stage performers can go further to learn performance, but that should be pursued after they have laid the foundation, not before, and certainly not at the milonga where even the professionals dancers dance sociably. (See Tango Is a Language (II).)



November 11, 2011

Driving and Synchronization


Raul Cabral is a tango master, a brilliant thinker and teacher of the milonguero style of tango. He published a series of essays on http://www.raultangocabral.com.ar. The following is a brief summary of his key message on achieving synchronization through proper embrace.

The most important qualities of a dancer have nothing to do with steps. What are essential for the leader are his musicality and his ability to drive the follower. What are essential for the follower are her abilities to be weightless and to synchronize the movement.

The leader is the driver in tango, who uses his body to effect the movement of the body of his partner. Every step of the leader should be expressed through his partner. Driving does not mean that he moves and waits for his partner to follow. Tango is synchronization, or moving exactly at the same time. This suggests that the word “follow” is an incorrect notion because “follow” implies a moment later. Even if the moment is minimal, there is no synchronization. What is correct for the follower is to enter the moving car of the leader and allow herself to be transported by him on their musical journey.

The unique and magical essence of tango, two bodies moving as one, is achieved solely by the ability of the body to communicate the message of its movement through the embrace. Many people, through tango, are beginning to discover the importance of the embrace, which takes us back to the first years of our lives, to the protection of the chest of women. It is the need of that connection that brings people into tango. The embrace is the reason that tango has triumphed in the multitude of societies in the world.

Driving and synchronization are achieved through proper embrace. Since the beginning of tango, there is only one communication in this dance and it is corporal, from body to body, not arms to arms. The two partners make contact through their bodies, which are weighted slightly forward on the balls but supported by the entire feet on the floor including heels. Each partner is responsible for his/her own balance. The man spreads his chest, offers it to the woman and welcomes her into his body. He embraces her firmly, but puts no pressure on her. There is nothing tense or hard in his body. He leads her with his whole body but his main message comes from his chest, from which he communicates the feelings, the direction, the size of the step, the timing, the cadence, the pause, etc. He never loses his contact to her, not even an instant, and he never cuts the flow of communication.

The woman settles into the man’s embrace, molding herself on him until it feels as if he were wearing her. She leans her body slightly forward against him and properly positions her chest so she can receive every minute message from his torso. She stretches her body from the waist on upwards, as if she were the string of a violin vibrating at his slightest touch. Her body is soft and relaxed. It is upon relaxation that her extremities, legs, arms and head, become void of matter, and her torso, especially her chest, becomes the main focus. This allows her to feel the messages from the body of the leader and move in unison with him. Her weight is on the inside of the ball of her foot, but her whole foot including the heel is in contact with the floor. Her arm lands gently and weightlessly on his shoulder. She doesn't hang on him or use the embrace to stabilize herself, but keeps her own balance, thus she is light. She is supple but toned, soft but with nothing loose (hips, for instance). Her presence is notable with subtle but assured pressure of her chest against his. She does not efface herself or break the connection, knowing if she separates herself from him she won‘t get the information from his body. She is continuously tuned to the messages he emits from his chest. Until the tango is over, her chest is permanently in contact with his. This is the most exact way to achieve synchronization.





November 2, 2011

Tango Embrace


Tango can be danced in a variety of ways. For example, it can be danced in a virtual embrace in which the two partners dance around each other at a distance without any physical contact. The man leads the woman with a visual signal from his torso to show how he wants her to move, and the woman follows the visual lead to carry out the step. A visual lead is difficult to perceive because it must be seen and cannot be felt. The differences between different signals often are so subtle that they are difficult to discern with the eye. It's quite a challenge for the man to send a clear visual signal and for the woman to apprehend it. Also, a virtual embrace lacks the physicality, sensation and comfort of a physical embrace. It disables movements that require physical support. Despite these limits, the virtual embrace discloses an important distinction between lead and follow. The former is ploting the dance, and the latter is beautifying the dance. (See The Gender Roles in Tango.) It also reveals the fact that lead and follow is not just a physical process but also a psychological one, demanding mental concentration and comprehension. The awareness of this fact is important because we cannot dance well with the feet unless we can dance with the heart.

Tango can also be danced in an open dance hold like that in ballroom dancing, where the dancers only make connection with their arms and hands without the direct contact of their torsos. Arms and hands are extensions of the body. Even in absence of direct bodily contact the dancers can still sense each other’s intentions via their arms and hands. The open dance hold, also known by its fine-sounding name “open embrace,” provides more room for the dancers to maneuver their bodies, thus is favored by the movement-oriented dancers who like to do fancy performance. It is arguable, however, that in open embrace the dancers still lead and follow with their torsos as they theoretically should. In reality, due to lack of direct bodily contact, dancers tend to rely on their arms and hands to send and receive signals, which is not as seamless as leading and following with the torsos. Also, open embrace lacks the intimacy, comfort and soulfulness of close embrace.

Tango can also be danced using only torso communication without the help of the arms and hands. Torso communication is unique to Argentine tango, which separates it from other dance forms and makes it an intimate and feeling-oriented dance. However, beginners who are not used to this way of dancing often prefer to use their arms and hands to send and receive signals. To help students overcome that habit, tango teachers may ask them to dance only with their torsos connected, free from the help of the arms and hands. Some tango teachers may even put a piece of paper between the students' chests and ask them not to let the paper fall as they dance. People do not actually dance tango that way, but the torso leading/following skills obttained from this training will lay a solid foundation for their tango dancing. (See The Fourteenth Pitfall of a Tanguera.)

The most comfortable and communicative embrace is the close embrace in which the partners lean into each other chest against chest and face touches face, with their arms encircle each other's body. Close embrace provides the most intimate connection and most effective communication, thus is favored by the feeling-oriented dancers who enjoy the intimate, cozy and soulful interactions between the partners more than gymnastic acts.




Beginners may find close embrace hinders their movements, but that is only because they are novices. Dancing in close embrace requires skills and techniques different from those used in open embrace tango, such as dancing in a compact way, using small, simple and rhythmic steps, the command on dissociation, the mastery of cadencia, the ability to do spot dancing, the knack in floorcraft on a crowded dance floor, the focus on feelings rather than steps, and the emphasis on the elegance rather than flaunt of the movements, ect.

Experienced dancers also use some variations of close embrace to increase movement possibilities. One variation is the V-shaped embrace in which the two partners are connected with one side of their torsos and leave the other side open. Another is increasing the lean of the body to allow more space between legs. The combination of the two is yet another option. These variations require more flexibility and stamina of the body, and are less comfortable than the standard close embrace. In actual dancing the embrace often varies. For example, when dancing ocho the woman alternates from one side V-shaped connection to a chest-to-chest connection to another side V-shaped connection.

The choice of embrace dependends on many factors, including physical conditions (flexibility and stamina of the body), dance styles (movement-oriented or feeling-oriented), purposes (social dancing or performance), environment (floor density and milonga codes), music (fast or slow tempo), movements (fancy or simple, large or small steps), maturity (age and experience), and genres (tango, vals or milonga). Every embrace has its merits and limits. In the milonguero style of tango, close embrace is used to facilitate the communication of feelings. In the Villa Urquiza style of tango, a loose embrace is used to ease fancy footwork. In stage tango, open embrace is used to deliver intricate performance. (See Three Theories on Leading.)

Close embrace won tango a reputation of the “dance of the brothel” and caused its rejection by the hypocritical "polite society." The emergence of the open-embrace style contributed to the spread of tango. Some dancers of the younger generation saw a new vein for fancy performance in the open-embrace style and launched the tango Nuevo movement, which gained the momentum especially outside of Argentina where intimacy between the opposite sexes is a cultural taboo. (See Tango: Historical and Cultural Impacts.) As tango moved in that direction, it lost its original feel. Gymnastic tendency, antisocial behavior, the break of the embrace, the adoption of non-tango elements, the swap of gender roles, alternative music, same-sex partnership and other attempts to reform the dance come in succession, transforming tango into a hybrid dance. The old guards in the home country of tango, the Argentine milongueros, strongly defend its roots. Their way of dancing tango, known as the milonguero style danced in close embrace (See The Styles of Tango.), is still the dominant style in Buenos Aires today. But the battle between the traditionalists and the reformers continues.





October 9, 2011

The Signature of Tango


Music plays a critical role in tango. Lousy, unfamiliar, outlandish and non-tango music has never produced a beautiful tango. Well-performed tangos are all danced to excellent classic tango music, which is an inspiration indispensable for bringing the dancers’ skills into full play. Good classic tango music excites the dancers, stirs up their emotions, kindles their creativity, generates synergism, and leads to what the Argentinians call duende, an elated state in which the dancers perform exceptionally well. Without good music, there is little scope for even a master’s abilities.

There are tens of thousands of tango songs available on the market. Only a fraction of which are high quality danceable songs, and the remainder are either of mediocre quality or made only for listening. CD makers are aware of this. They mix the good and bad songs together to avoid selling only a few songs. As a result, a CD with twenty tracks may only contain one or two good, danceable songs, with the rest being subpar. Argentines who grew up in tango culture know what a good tango song is. They buy a CD for that one or two good songs and discard the rest. American tourists, on the other hand, buy a CD and play everything on it. Without adequate knowledge of tango music, they collect tango songs as indiscriminately as they collect tango steps, and they display a preference for exotic and alternative music.

Experts all agree that familiarity with music is essential to an exuberant tango experience. The Argentinians only play well-known classic tango music in their milongas. They don’t even play unfamiliar tango songs, let alone alternative music. Playing such music does a disservice to tango. It is weird. It lacks the richness and depth of the classic tango music. It changes tango to a hybrid dance that caters to the taste of the amateurs and repels the seasoned dancers who in Argentina are treated with great respect, free or discount admission, best seats and their favorite classic tango music, because they are the mainstay of the milongas.

Classic tango music is the signature of tango. It is created and developed with tango and for tango. People recognize it and associate it with the dance when they hear it. There is a sentimental attachment between the two. In fact, tango dance and classic tango music are two aspects of one thing called Argentine tango, inseparable as body and soul. The fact that tango can be danced to other music doesn’t mean it can remain intact when so danced. One may dance tango to the music of Beijing opera, but that is no longer tango. Alternative music from different cultural background does not have the same rhythmic structure and sentimental richness of the classic tango music, which is passionate, multi-layered, manifold, changeful, sentimental and moody, allowing the dancers to interpret and improvise. (See The Characteristics of Classic Tango.) Any music sharing the same rhythmic structure and sentimental richness will be recognized as tango and not alternative music. By definition, alternative music is music that lacks the structural and sentimental depth of tango, therefore is not the best music for tango dancing. It only appeals to novices deficient in good taste or weird dudes seeking novelty, and those who choose to pander to their taste in order to make money.

Those who love tango more than money, on the other hand, can do one thing for tango. A three-hour milonga only contains 15 tondas or 60 songs. If we meticulously select 600 best classic tango songs and play them repeatedly in our milongas like the Argentinians do in the milongas of Buenos Aires, we will change our tango culture and raise the level of our dance in more ways than we can imagine. After all, tango is intimately related to its music. The better the music, the better the dance, the better the milonga, and the better we all will be. (See My Two Cents on Music Selections.)



September 17, 2011

Simple Is Beautiful


In societies of scarcity people are used to simplicity and frugality, while in societies of abundance like ours luxury and waste are the norm. For tasks that other people do with a simple kitchen knife, we use one equipment to chop eggs, another to cut meats, another to slice tomatoes, another to peel apples, another to shred cucumbers, etc. Our kitchens are crammed with junks. Our houses are more and more cluttered. So are our shopping malls, governments, and tax codes. Our national debt has passed $14 trillion, with an interest of $350 billion per year, and we still spend like there is no tomorrow. Our commercial culture is all about catching and impressing, which is why TV ads are made increasingly weird. I don’t think it's coincidental that our young people confuse weirdness with beauty. Just look at the punk hairdos, tattoos, rings on the nose, lips and eyelids, and pants that are about to fall down… Everything is about catching eyeballs rather than genuine beauty.

The way we dance tango reflects this culture. Like life, tango is actually a simple dance, but we insist on making it complex and difficult. While in Argentina tango is danced in natural, normal, simple and comfortable steps, our tango is cluttered with showy, gaudy, farfetched and awkward movements. Simplicity and naturalness are an acquired taste that we don’t have. We regard complexity and bizarreness as beautiful. While in Argentina tango is all about music, feelings, physical pleasure and harmony, our tango is characterized by fancy footwork, showy figures, thrilling performances, exposed costumes, luxurious hotels, and pricey festivals. We are too focused on the superficial things.

Let me proclaim a different aesthetics that values simplicity and naturalness. Nature is simple and it is beautiful. Light makeup looks more comfortable than heavy and queer ones. A house simply decorated is more pleasant than that cluttered with ostentatious ornaments. Concise writing is superior to redundant expression. Simple movements look more elegant than intricate figures. Empty space adds design and depth to a painting. Silence often expresses more. Too much can be worse than not enough. A kung-fu master practices his skill with great ease. The best way oftentimes is the simplest. (See Highbrowism and Populism in Tango.)

Artistic simplicity is among the most important principles in aesthetics, which can achieve unexpected and often superior results. The video below, which uses dance to recreate a classic Chinese painting, is an example. It is best viewed in full screen.




The same is true for tango. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - a quality those who focus only on superficial things do not have. Tango is not an extravagant luxury. It is a simple pleasure, an inner experience, and a personal expression that should not cost an absurd amount of money to enjoy. (See Boston Tango Marathon.) One has to sublimate oneself from the noise and bustle of the world to enjoy tango. People who love tango must keep it free from the contamination of the commercial world and the frivolous custom of our times. There is no need to spend on fancy steps and flashy dresses to enjoy tango. Tango can be danced in a simple and natural way, like how the milongueros dance it. We have to turn our attention from what is superficial to what is within. An ordinary-looking woman with refined inner quality is much more attractive than a pretty woman without it. Tango is the same. It is for feeling and not for looking. When tango stops to be a show, it will be simpler, deeper, better and more enjoyable. (See The Conceptional Beauty of Tango.)





September 4, 2011

True Beauty Comes from Within


We love tango in part because tango is beautiful. There is nothing wrong with that. People pursue beauty for the same reason that plants bloom and birds sing. Beauty is a natural trait to attract mates. It provides a better chance for living things to thrive, thus is a valuable resource to whoever possesses it. Consequently beauty is admired, idolized, worshiped and emulated. Many methods are developed to make people look beautiful, and billions and billions are spent each year for that. As a result, beauty is no longer natural and real. In many ways it becomes an artificial and deceiving illusion.

When people are obsessed with the illusion, substance are neglected and problems occur. A beautiful woman may have advantages, but at the same time she may also have disadvantages. She may be spoiled, haughty, shallow, and unprepared for the tough realities in real life. She may demand more and be hard to please. A likely prey of men, jealousy of women, and heart breaker to many suitors, she may have more enemies than she can handle. Consequently, she can be suspicious, mistrustful, overly protective, arrogant, and aloof. She may live a less worry-free life. One has to bear in mind the cost of pursuing beauty. Beauty is only a skin deep. It is neither the only thing nor the most important thing in life and tango.

Just as those who focus on the look tend to overlook inner qualities, dancers who are fond of flashy steps tend to ignore feelings. However, without feelings tango becomes an empty shell. True beauty comes from within. It lies in the shared commitment, understanding, cooperation, agreement, resonance, chemistry and harmony between the partners. If you visit Buenos Aires, you will see that is how tango is danced by the milongueros. They don't care much about fancy steps. They concentrate on the relationship, music and feelings, and their dance is so beautiful that it is imitated by shallow-minded foreigners without understanding its essence. (See The Conceptional Beautify of Tango.)

Tango is still young in the US. It takes maturity to overcome superficiality and to understand true beauty. The more I dance with women of all ages, the more I appreciate mature women. I found that, even in Buenos Aires, mature women are better dancers overall. Their youthful freshness is fading, and they start to focus more on the substance rather than the surface of dance. It is my hope that tango in this country, too, will overcome its shallowness and pay more attention to the substance as we become more maturer.





August 14, 2011

Women’s Role in Cabeceo


When a man finds a woman attractive, the first thing he does is look at her intently. His eyes are captured and he cannot take them away from her. The woman may respond by ignoring him if she doesn’t want to encourage him, or looking back into his eyes if she, too, is interested. The encouraged man then may wink or nod at her with intent to approach her, or he may take his eyes off her if he decides not to pursue. This game between men and women is played every day, everywhere.

In the milongas of Buenos Aires, this is also the game men and women play. A man looks around the dance hall to search for a partner. If he finds a woman he likes to dance with, he stares at her. The woman who is also looking for a partner will soon notice him. If she doesn’t want to dance with him, she turns her eyes away. If she likes to dance with him, she fixes her eyes at him and waits for him to invite her. He does so by nodding his head at her, and she responds with a nod of her head to accept his invitation. All these are done remotely without verbal exchange.

This way of inviting a woman to dance is called cabeceo. Cabeceo becomes a practice in the milongas mainly because tango is an intimate dance. Argentine tango is danced in close embrace with considerable physical contact between the partners. For a woman to engage in such an intimate activity with a man, she has to do it by her own will. Otherwise, even if she reluctantly accepts the invitation, she will be reserved, cold and dry. She will not surrender herself to him and dance with passion and feelings. That's why cabeceo is considered as a requisite part of tango. A milonguero will not dance with a woman unless she shows a clear desire to dance with him by looking into his eyes and responding to his cabeceo with a smile and nod.

The advantage of cabeceo over a verbal invitation is that it puts women in an advantageous position. For tango to be a satisfying experience for a woman, she needs a partner matching her in skills and musicality. To find such a partner, she cannot sit there passively waiting for someone to come to invite her, but must actively choose her own match, and she must select among all men, not just a few who come to her table. An Argentine woman does not sit there waiting for someone to pick her. She takes initiative in the process by willingly showing her desire to dance with the man of her own choice. In that way she invites him to cabeceo her and prevents herself from being bothered by those whom she doesn’t want to dance with.

For men, cabeceo is also a more convenient way to ask a woman to dance. When verbally inviting a woman, the man must traverse the room to reach her. If she declines, not only does he have to swallow the embarrassment, but he also has to make the return journey. By that time, other potential dance partners may already be taken, forcing him to wait until the current tanda concludes for another opportunity. But by using cabeceo, he can quickly and remotely secure a dance partner without the potential of facing public rejection from a woman.

For cabeceo to work, women must participate in the process. If women do not actively search for a partner, then men cannot cabeceo them even if they want to. But for women to be active, tango must be an intimate experience so personal to them that they don’t want to do it with anyone other than the man of their choice, just like they don’t want to sleep with anyone other than those they love. The reason cabeceo doesn’t work in the US is that our tango has not yet reached that level. Most women here are new to tango and are unable to dance tango in a deeply personal way. They dance in an open dance hold with no physical contact with men. They do not surrender themselves and intimately engage themselves with the man in the dance. They focuse on the steps and neglect the partner. They sit there talking to each other and don't give a damn about men. They avoid men's eye contact for fear of giving them ideas. They turn a blind eye to men who wink at them because they do not know what that means and how to respond. (See Tango Etiquette: Eye Contact, Talking, Clique and Hierarchy). Consequently, they can only sit there for someone to come and accept any verbal invitation.

It is ironic that in macho Argentina women get to decide with whom they want to be intimate by using cabeceo, while in feminist America women have so little control on a matter so personal to them. Cabeceo is a product of a mature tango community. It results from women’s active participation in the partner selection process. Most importantly, it is a sign of a woman's experience and maturity in tango, which, by the way, is another reason why milongueros only use cabeceo to invite a woman to dance. (See How to Get More Invitations in the Milonga.)



July 14, 2011

Tango Is a Relationship


Tango is an intimate dance. It allows your partner to touch your body, enjoy your snug embrace, gentle obedience, attentive leading, accommodating following, and loving protection. It also allows your partner to access and listen to the inner voice of you. In fact, your partner can learn a lot about you in dancing. How you connect, move, communicate, respond and adapt tells a lot about the somatic, psychological, ethical, artistic and aesthetic qualities in you. The way you dance unreservedly reveals who you are: refined or rough, musical or unmusical, sensitive or sluggish, calm or irascible, coordinated or clumsy, sentimental or indifferent, agreeable or disagreeable, compassionate or arrogant, yielding or demanding... all are exposed in the dance.

Tango is a relationship. Like any relationship in which the well-being of the two involved individuals are related and interdependent, you have to be and do your best in order to bring out the best of your partner. In tango, as in any relationship, your ego is your worst enemy. It’s the ego that makes you self-centered, arrogant, controlling, inflexible, irascible, rude and counteractive. Tango is fully enjoyed only when the two partners act as one in complete agreement and harmony. You need to let go your ego, surrender yourself to your partner, listen to his/her inner voice, follow his/her intention, accommodate yourself to him/her, tacitly complement him/her to make up his/her weakness and bring out his/her strength, and let him/her feel totally comfortable and enjoy dancing with you. If you focus on yourself and neglect your partner, you will fail the dance even if you can do all the fancy steps in the world. After all, tango is a social activity that requires good manner. Learning tango is much more than learning steps. It is, among other things such as acquiring a taste, value system, and culture, learning to be one with another person. Unfortunately, this very important perspective is often being overlooked.



April 30, 2011

Tango as a Philosophy


Tango is different things to different individuals: for men, it is leading; for women, it is following; for beginners, it is steps; for seasoned dancers, it is the expression of music and feelings; for lovers, it is a relationship; for attention seekers, it is a show; for heterosexuals, it is a gender expression; for homosexuals, it is a gender-neutral play; for social dancers, it is a dissipation for personal pleasure; for professionals, it is a job to entertain audiences; for casual enthusiasts, it is a recreation; for devoted milongueros, it is a lifestyle; for foreigners, it is a simple interest or fascination; and for Argentinians, it stands as a deeply ingrained cultural emblem that bears their history... We all dance tango differently because of who we are and how we understand tango.

Tango philosophy involves issues that make us different. The following is an incomplete list of such issues. Each may have many answers. Some answers may be more or less correct or incorrect, others may just be personal preferences and neither right nor wrong. But collectively these opinions and preferences decide the way each of us dances and behaves, and divide us into diffferent categories. Studying and exchanging views on these issues can help us deepen our understanding, learn from each other, improve our dance, and, hopefully, achieve mastery through a comprehensive grasp of all aspects of tango.

1. What is tango
2. Why people dance tango
3. The gender roles in tango
4. The relationship of the two sexes
5. Gender neutrality vs. gender expression
6. Feminism and its impact on tango
7. Individualism and its impact on tango
8. Individual performance vs. teamwork
9. Tango as a skill vs. tango as a fellowship
10. Elitism vs. populism
11. Steps vs. chreography
12. Cultural bias and impacts
13. Social tango vs. performance tango
14. Close embrace vs. open embrace
15. Embrace-oriented dance vs. footwork-oriented dance
16. Movements vs. feelings
17. Romanticism vs. gymnastics
18. Prioritizing look vs. prioritizing essence
19. The unity of form and content
20. Classic tango music vs. alternative music
21. Dancing steps vs. dancing music
22. Dancing to rhythm vs. dancing to melody
23. The danceability of tango music
24. Tango styles
25. Three theories on leading
26. Self-centered leading vs. partner-centered leading
27. Active follow vs. passive follow
28. Simplicity vs. fanciness
29. Comfort vs. beauty
30. Reform vs. tradition
31. Creativity vs. standardization
32. Imitating steps vs. developing skills
33. Progressive dancing vs. spot dancing
34. Cabeseo vs. verbal invitation
35. Artistic sublimation vs. vulgarism
36. Freedom vs. milonga codes
37. The freedom in tango
38. Tango and the outlook on life
39. A dance that teaches the world to love



January 27, 2011

Walk


The traditional tango pedagogy put a lot of emphasis on walk. In those days tango masters spent an extended length of time teaching walk before they started any figure. There are good reasons for that. First, tango is a walking dance. No other dance uses so much walk in the dance as tango does. Second, there is a correlation between walk and dance. Those who can walk well usually dance well. Those who do not dance well, their walk usually sucks. Third, walk is the simplest step in all steps, yet it is the foundation upon which other steps evolved. If one can't do the simplest step right, it is unlikely that he/she can do complex steps well, and their problems usually can be traced back to walk. Finally, because walk is the simplest step, it can be used to train other basic skills such as embrace, posture, connection, communication, balance, dissociation and musicality. People new to tango can't evenly distribute their attention to all aspects when learning complex movements. They need to develop good embrace, posture, connection, communication, balance, dissociation and musicality before learning figures, not after or at the same time. In order to train these basic skills, the exercise needs to be kept simple, and walk is a perfect way to achieve that.

The subpar quality of our tango is due in many ways to the insufficient walk training. American culture holds that learning must be fun and painless. Our schools have the most entertaining environment and least homework. Our teachers do not want to bore students with dull drills, and our pupils want to get fancy before they can walk, which they think they can already.

Nothing is farther from the truth. You look normal only till people see you try to learn walk in tango. In fact, everybody looks clumsy and funny in their first tango walk. That's because walking chest against chest with a partner in close embrace isn't something people usually do. You are uncomfortable of being intimate with a stranger. You feel awkward to walk backwards in a leaning posture. Your body is stiff, heavy and unbalanced. You do not step on the beat. Your leg does not reach back far enough. Your toes are frequently stepped on by your partner. Your behind sticks up and knees bend too much. You bounce up and down like a grasshopper, or wobble side to side like a chimpanzee. You fail to dissociate your upper and lower body when walk on the side of your partner. You break the embrace and drag your partner out of his/her balance… Until you regain your comfortable zone in the embrace, you are not ready for the next step. That is why walk is so important. It is simple. It keeps you focused. In fact, it is not just walk. It is about everything fundamental - embrace, posture, connection, musicality, balance, stability, flexibility, lightness, dissociation, communication, elegance and harmony. (See Women's Walk in Tango.)