True Beauty Comes from Within

We love tango in part because it's a beautiful dance. This affinity for beauty is intrinsic to our nature. Just as flowers bloom and birds sing to attract mates, beauty serves as a natural advantage, enhancing the chances of survival and prosperity. Consequently, it is coveted, revered, and imitated. Yet, the relentless pursuit of beauty has led to its transformation. What was once natural and genuine has become an artificial and deceptive illusion.

In our fixation on this illusion, substance often takes a back seat, leading to a myriad of issues. While a beautiful woman may enjoy certain advantages, she may also face drawbacks. She might become entitled, superficial, and unprepared for the tough realities in real life. She might 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 arrogant, aloof, suspicious, mistrustful, and overly protective. She may live a less worry-free life. It is crucial to acknowledge that everything has a cost. Beauty is only a skin deep. It is neither the only thing nor the most important thing in life and tango.

Just as an obsession with appearance blinds us to inner worth, an infatuation with flashy steps obscures the essence of tango - connection and feelings. However, without these tango becomes an empty show. True beauty emanates from within. It lies in the shared commitment, understanding, musicality, agreement, 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 superficial foreigners without understanding its essence.

Tango is still young in the US. It takes maturity to overcome shallowness 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 true essence of this dance. It is my aspiration that tango in our country will also overcome its superficiality and focus more on the substance as we become more mature dancers (see The Conceptional Beautify of Tango).