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As I read what dancers from around the world are saying in my survey about tango during coronavirus pandemic, this question “is tango an essential activity?” pops up in my mind. Is it essential for the society, and is it essential for your life?

No. Tango is not considered an essential activity. According to authorities in different countries around the world, essential activities include things like healthcare, transportation, communication, food and water, defense, energy etc. Tango schools and venues are not considered critical infrastructure that can assure safe function of society in crisis.

Maybe I’m biased, but there’s a big problem with this answer: tango is not an essential activity for the system, but it’s critical for mental health and personal well being of the individual.

As I see this heated debate getting to extreme hatred, ripping off the fabric of the communities across the world, I feel that I have to say few things. I don’t pretend I know everything – I just need answers as well, so I did little research.

What is considered essential activity?

According to CDC (US Center for Disease Control and Prevention) essential workers are the healthcare providers and those who are “essential to maintain critical infrastructure and continue critical services and functions” (source: CDC)

When providing the list CDC uses THIS LIST of critical industries:

Yes, the institutions defined what are the bare essentials they need for the system to work, but (as usual) they neglected what an individual member of the society needs.

What people need?

The simplest answer of what people need was given by Abraham Maslow in his famous pyramid of human needs.

As you can see, the basic needs are less than a half of what human being needs. One might survive on the basic needs only, for a short period of time. Let’s say in times of crisis or a disaster, everyone focuses on the basic needs food, water, warmth, safety… but if one must live on that for a prolonged period of times, everything crumbles down.

If you think, except the basic needs, tango hits all the tree higher level activities: it gives feeling of love and belonging, it gives one feeling of accomplishment, and it gives one feeling of achieving his/her potential and creativity.

There’s one thing that tango offers that is specially important: the feeling of connection. Even more, it gives people intimate physical contact.

“But physical contact is not that important”, you might say. If you think so, please check out this video:

(CAUTION: Some of the scenes in the video can be emotionally disturbing for some people)

Maybe we are not infants and we don’t need a mother or father (are we?), but studies over and over showed that it holds for adults as well.

We lived in touch phobic society before the pandemic and now that fear of touch is ten times greater.

“Whenever I’m overwhelmed or feeling down, I tend to crave touch. A hug, a hand to hold; a connection that can manifest into something that’s tangible. And even on stress-free days, I may seek out the healing components that touch has to offer. Is the act of human touch an innate need, ingrained within? Not necessarily (in my opinion), but on a superficial level, it very well could be. Research demonstrates that touch contains several health benefits for our physiological and psychological well being.”

(source: https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-surprising-psychological-value-of-human-touch#1)

What can tango offer you that other activities cannot?

Despite the fact that many try to depict tango as just an entertainment, the fact is that tango started as an answer to this deep human need… and it resurrected in late 1980’s as an answer to evermore alienated society.

Osvaldo Natucci started dancing in Buenos Aires when he was only 14, during the Golden Age. In part of this interview, he gives his view why tango embrace is like we all know it: intimate and close.

Skip this interview and pay attention what he says at the end of the video (somewhere after minute 29:00):

“Because tango was essentially made by people who didn’t return to their home land and they compensate for the pain of the loss with the embrace…”

Osvaldo Natucci.

Yes, in this world we all need an embrace and human contact to get strength to face the pain and overcome obstacles.

Tango can help anyone, but I noticed that it’s specially helpful for the older people since it offers them moderate amount of movement, socializing and purpose – something which are great remedies for depression.

Hey, sorry to interrupt…

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What are the consequences of not dancing?

Can you just stop tango after you danced at least 8 hours a week for years? Well, if you’re a person who considers tango “just a dance” that is no big of a deal.

If you consider tango a cardio exercise, go climb a mountain or do some yoga sh*t and you’re all good. You’ll get the same amount of movement for the day, but there will be something missing.

Tango is much more than just doing ochos or crazy ass giros. It’s not a sport!

Why do we love tango?

Not everyone who does tango moves is a tango dancer: tango is a way of life. It’s the emotion, the community, being part of the tribe, the culture and also, being part of something that lives all around the world.

Go and check the Maslow’s pyramid at the beginning of this article: you can’t ignore your needs for extended period of time without paying for it in some way. I have this feeling that societies are not taking all the needs of a person seriously.

Let’s take your mental health for example: you will work from 9 to 5 and society will take care of you in return. You will have house and car, but that will not fill up the big empty void in your soul. There’s rampant depression pandemic worldwide, people feel alienated and the lack of purpose is destroying so many. The lack of meaning and connection, the competitive environment… people feel a need to belong to a tribe or religion… And, know what? Tango is that religion for us.

Why I say this? Because people with community and meaningful connections live longer. Few years ago while reading the book “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell (I think) I stumbled upon the story of a small community of Italian descendants in US who lived the same lifestyle as their neighboring cities, but they lived longer and had no hearth diseases. They smoked, drank, slept the same hours, had the same sport hours. Even racial making of the town was similar – what was different was the family ties.

“…they had traditional and cohesive family and community relationships. It turns out that Roseto was peopled by strongly knit Italian American families who did everything right and lived right and consequently lived longer.
(…)
…forget the Mediterranean diets of olive oil, light salads and fat-free foods. No, Rosetans fried their sausages and meatballs in…..lard. They ate salami, hard and soft cheeses all brimming with cholesterol.”

source: Huffpost (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-mystery-of-the-roseta_b_73260)

Stopping your tango activities is like moving from Roseto (Pennsylvania, US) to New York – the city that never sleeps (but you feel alone all the time).

So, what can you do?

As I can see there are three things you can do:

1. You can give up tango and find other activity that will meet some of these needs

I don’t think that there is another activity that meets the need of deep and meaningful connection as tango does. Of course, if you feel lonely, you can try to find a soulmate – but it’s not that easy. Tango offers instant connection without need to stay attached to someone or put up with their sh*t.

2. You can organize “safe” online activities with your tango friends

Things like online group chats or classes are great ways to stay in touch… and people are organizing online classes and milongas. On the other hand, I have to say it’s a false hope. One might feel connected, but there is no substitution to the real human touch, there is no substitution for the direct live communication. Why? Just watch this video and let Sinek explain:

“There was a time when a desktop meant something horizontal, today it means something vertical. And a folder, a picture, were the things we used to use. Now, that’s a fun example, but technology has co-opted some very human things as well. A friend is not somebody you check their status, your network doesn’t happen on LinkedIn, a dialog doesn’t happen on Twitter and a conversation doesn’t happen on a blog; those are human experiences and they require human beings to be in a room. Even bloggers… I love how they talk about internet being the be-all and end-all of the world and yet every year, they come together, 20.000 of them, descend on Las Vegas, to have a conference. Why couldn’t they do it online? It’s because you have to have the human union.”

Simon Sinek

Yes, hope of the online connection is the same as the Harlow’s experiment and the pit of despair – it’s like expecting the wire person to substitute the real human touch.

3. Create a support bubble

Other fellow dancers feel the same need to embrace again. You can partner with someone and dance from time to time. Consider that as your “tango family” – people whom you trust that they will do their best to stay protected and protect you and if they have any symptoms, they will tell you.

You can also do this with a small group of friends whom you trust. Take care when you do this to take all necessary measures – for example dancing outdoors or having fresh air at all times gets the virus load significantly lower and limits the possibility of infection even if you are exposed to it.

Masks can help, but, sincerely, I personally don’t consider dancing with a mask on pleasurable. I had a friend who was infected few months ago and now I feel much safer to dance with her – because there’s a lower chance for her to get infected and also to infect me.

Conclusion

The fact that authorities in your country do not consider tango as an essential activity doesn’t mean that it’s not essential to you as a human being. Don’t think that you can get away with prolonged periods of staying away from your community and without meaningful human touch, without consequences for your happiness and emotional well being.

Of course, please, don’t take my words as an excuse to get people and your community in danger, but when considering your future actions, have the importance of tango in mind.

If you were active tango dancer for years tango is an essential part of your life!

Dancing milonga is pure joy and happiness. Unfortunately there are many communities where the the milonga tandas empties up the dance floor. For one reason or another, the group of dancers who love and enjoy milonga is often minority.

“I want to dance with you”, she said over the table during our dinner with a group of milongueros after the daily milonga.

This goes against all invitation rules of traditional milongas, but who cares… I also wanted to dance with her and even without this I would have invited her.

That evening I came late! I spot an empty chair next to her and I happily took the opportunity.

“Let’s dance!”, I said without even thinking of cabeceo.

“Oh, but it’s a milonga tanda”

“So?”

“So, I don’t dance milongas”, she said.

“Let’s dance anyways!”, I insisted.

You don’t even know how many times this happens: women are avoiding to dance milongas and gentlemen are considering it as time to rest a bit. The bars are usually full when milonga time comes.

Let me be honest: I often do this as well.

That is very unfortunate since milonga tandas can be the most uplifting parts of the evening. That’s why when I’m DJing I pay very special attention to them. I sometimes think that you can tell if someone is a good DJ just by checking out his/her milonga choices.

The old masters

In this article I will try to give you some inspiration. Milonga can be danced in a wild way doing crazy steps, but it can also be danced in a subtle and controlled way. My preferred way is the second one, but I know that both can be very enjoyable if you connect well and respect the partner.

These masters are not show dancers, although as you are going to see, many of them perform for the camera – even when they are recorded dancing in the ronda.

I know that many of them had health issues so they had problems dancing full milonga tanda of 3 songs (some of them couldn’t even finish one song alone), but that didn’t takes any of the value of these videos.

Watching these videos will not only give you inspiration – they are a great way to give you ideas about musicality. I strongly believe that tango world is saturated with the same style of the show dancers and champions. Whenever a look I see majority of dancers doing the same steps ans sequences – take these videos as a chance to shake up the tree and learn something new.

Watching these milonga masters will also give ideas to some of the dancers that dancing milonga can be also done with very simple repertoire, using 2-3 steps – no more; and be fun and elegant in the same time.

1. Jorge Garcia “El Gallego”

I guess many of you herd about his more known brother Dany “El Flaco” Garcia, but I consider Jorge Garcia a better dancer. This is why I included him into this list.

What I don’t like in this video (as you’ll see with some of others as well) is that he focuses on performing so much that often forgets about his partner. Please, try not to learn this!

2. Chiche Ruberto with Mirta Tiseyra

Not long ago I read Monica Paz commenting about his dancing and explaining how excited was she when she first time danced with him – he is a great master and serves as a great inspiration to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3wgnWvre04

3. Ernesto Jorge De Gouvea and Irma Barrientos

Unfortenately I could not embed the video directly here (due to the limitations set by the owner on Youtube), but it’s enough for you to click on the image and you will be taken to see it directly at the source.

If I had to choose one of these videos to be the best one – I think it’s this one. Why? Because they dance in a very very simple way and yet, it’s perfect. All they do is just traspie. That’s it!

4. Pedro Sanchez with Eva Garlez

Pedro has great musicality and watching him gives me great inspiration. He uses simple repertoire and yet, the sequences he creates are not simple by any means.

5. Osvaldo y Coca Cartery

Watching Osvaldo y Coca is always show. Even their interview on Practimilonguero is a more interesting than others – not because of its content, but because the personality of Osvaldo. He was a great star of the milonguero scene.

In this video, in my opinion, he performs too much, but you can still get valuable lessons and inspiration.

Hey, sorry to interrupt…

Do you like reading my articles? If you do please consider a small contribution to the existence of this blog.

I don’t sell a book or run ads: I share these articles for free. Unfortunately I also have to pay my bills, so if you see value in my work please consider a small donation/gratuity (the same way you tip your favorite bartender).
From my heart to yours!
Ivica

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6. Jorge Kero with Josefina

What I like about this video is the way he expresses great musicality with very simple repertoire. The energy is calm and grounded, but the movements look easy and with clear intention.

7. El Pibe Sarandi with Naoko Hirai

My impression of the videos I’ve seen is that Ricardo Maceira aka El Pibe Sarandi is a great performer and he loves to act. Although I’m no fan of performing and acting, I get great value and inspiration when I see how he interprets the music with very very few steps: in fact I can count two or three, no more.

8. Ricardo Viqueira with Mirta Tiseyra

Ricardo Viqueira is also a great performer, but he is not acting. He is a proof that one can dance milonguero with a lot of steps. This video gives me great inspiration and ideas about musicality.

I want to here mention Mirta (if you go up, you will also notice her name in the video with Chiche) – she is also great teacher and inspiration, and had great influence on my dancing as well.

9. Santiago Cantenys and Adela Galeazzi

Santiago is not well known dancer, but the few videos of him dancing made great impression on me. But the greatest inspiration here is how Adela gets the best of the dance with him – stealing little pauses between beats to express her own personality.

I must add here that the Santiago’s style reminds me of Jorge Garcia’s dancing and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was his student or admirer.

What are your favorite milonga social dancers? What non-celebrity tango masters inspire you?

They say being out “in the nature” without understanding it is like being in a museum where all pictures are hanged faced towards the wall.

I don’t remember who was the wise person who said that, but I get the point: without understanding we are destined to see just the surface of things. It’s like looking at their shapes and forms without truly having a grasp of their meaning and the content.

Many people come to tango without being properly introduced in the meaning of what it’s all about and many feel need to find it (because we are meaning searching animals). They try to find it or, if they can’t, they create it.

I am talking here about the meaning of all things we do in tango: the codigos and why they are set the way they are; the embrace and what’s the purpose behind it; the milonga and why is like it is and not any other way… I am talking here about everything about and around tango.

Tango evolution

There’s nothing wrong when people add their meaning to things we do in tango – in fact that is enriching for the dancers and for the dance itself. On the other hand, when people are never exposed to and can’t understand the original meaning of the tango culture, there’s something which is lost. In a way it becomes something else, something which is not tango anymore, but a hybrid.

“But wait Ivica, it’s normal for things to evolve, you might say.

Yes, things evolve – the only thing that is permanent in this world is the change. The problem is that in order for something to evolve it has to first exist. How can a tango culture that never existed in dancing communities around the world evolve. It didn’t existed – so it can’t evolve. We are not talking about evolution here.

It would be a completely different picture if we had educated communities and dancers where people understood why we do certain things in tango and why they are done in a certain way. Than, I’m quite sure, things would evolve in a different way than they did.

I’m fully aware that the tango culture was never one unified phenomena: even in the Golden Age there were varieties and specifics, but that doesn’t mean that teachers are free of obligation to teach it. You can’t just dump bunch of steps and techniques to people who never had contact with tango (except Hollywood movies) and say, they now know how to dance.

There’s something more to know apart from learning how to do pivots or ochos. It’s not a sport. …and even in sports you don’t just give a ball to kids and tell them you have to run and to kick it – you have to tell them that the purpose of all that running and kicking is to get the ball between goal posts.

Well, the idea why these articles are so important is exactly that – they can tell you what’s the point. They can tell kids (let’s use this football analogy) that the point is not to just run and kick the ball, the point is to get it between those white posts we call goals.

Here you can read my notes and the extracted lessons I learned from these 5 articles, but I highly recommend you to read them by yourself as well and extract your own lessons…

1. The origin story

“Clichés about Tango Origins of the Dance” by Christine Denniston

The article starts with busting the cliche that tango was created in brothels of Buenos Aires, but that is not the most valuable lesson one can learn from this.

Of course, it’s interesting fact and it can explain the corny obsession with cheap tango fashion which is favored by tango show dancers. Like they’re trying to sell us this fake origin story of tango as the dance of the prostitutes. There’s nothing in tango that suggest that woman who dances should dress like a prostitute from the wake of 20th century Buenos Aires.

The lesson I want to turn your attention to is the one about why tango was invented in the first place? And, also who invented it?

We have quite unnatural situation in tango today. In the beginning there was lack of women and that was the driving force behind the development of tango. Today the opposite is the true: it is the men who are in deficit and women that are in abundance.

The fact that tango was created as a gift that a man gives to a woman, and that in it’s core it has something that appeals to the heart of the woman – is the exact reason today women are majority. Since in the world we live in there is no lack of women like in Buenos Aires when tango was created, there is no incentive for men to “invest” in learning tango to attract a woman. So, the social motivation for men to learn tango today is out of the picture. At least it’s not in the picture for most of men.

What we are left with is “the pleasure of the dance itself”, the most superficial part – the movement. That part, has to do with showing ones abilities, showing off to other people, competing; and unfortunately the ego. This doesn’t mean that “the pleasure of the dance” is not genuine or that it was never part of the tango – it just means that when decoupled from the social incentive explained above, it often cripples tango and makes it passionless caricature of itself.

BTW. you will find in the article another myth busted – that tango was first danced by men between each other!

2. The big lie

“Ground Rules” by Rick McGarry

If the whole debate about tango styles seems too complicated (and unnecessary) to you, than the only thing you should remember is that there are two reasons people dance tango: to socialize (social tango) and to show off (show tango). That’s it!

Of course, the one can go further (as we will see with the next article), but an average folks like you and me don’t really need to know all that. The separation between social and show dancing has impact on our dancing and that’s why I strongly believe every dancer should learn about it.

In fact, if I have to choose one single article that truly transformed my dancing it was this one. It made me aware of the fact that me and those show dancers I admire – we don’t really dance the same dance. Our goals are not the same and what we do should reflect that.

That was the point when I stopped to push myself to do all these crazy-ass super-duper fancy techniques and ganchos, colgadas and back sacadas… things that I don’t really need to know to be able to dance well. And that was the point when I had more time and energy to practice things that are really important (like walk, embrace and simple musicality).

In reality the show tango is on sale branded as “tango salon”. To be honest I don’t really see any difference between what famous performers do on stage and what is being taught at workshops and classes. It’s like teachers are preparing everyone to perform.

I will here go step further and say that it looks to me like it’s a big scam of the tango industry: amaze newbies with crazy acrobatics and then promise them that you will teach them to do that. It is never mentioned to the students that you can dance tango without all that. But learning shiny techniques and steps is hard and takes many years and classes to learn – and that costs money (money that go right in to the pockets of the performers and show professionals).

3. Tango styles

“Tango Styles, Genres and Individual Expression: Part I – A Rationale for Classification by Niche Adaptation” (Tango Voice)

Let me start this part with quoting Tango Voice, because I think it’s a great summary of the article:

“The blurring of distinctions among tango stylistic variations is perceived and publicly stated as accommodating tango diversity, a valued sociopolitical perspective in liberal democratic societies, but this fails to address the issue of the adaptiveness of each tango style to a particular environmental niche and thus does more harm than good in breeding tango harmony.”

I must make a confession to you: the first time I read this article in its entirety was for the purpose of explaining it to you. Before this I was reading different parts of it, as needed. I mean, it’s written in somewhat philosophical way and it cannot be considered the most readable material. On the other hand it’s so useful that I find every paragraph a jewel that can be developed in separate article – in fact, this article is a great outline of a tango book.

The article touches many topics and explains them deeply and with great knowledge. But does an average dancer needs to know all this? In fact, no. You can become a great dancer even without knowing that much details, but there comes a point where one wants to know more and I think this article is a great point to start.

Yes, there will be a moment where you will encounter a debate about the styles and when that moment comes this article will be great reference.

Hey, sorry to interrupt…

Do you like reading my articles? If you do please consider a small contribution to the existence of this blog.

I don’t sell a book or run ads: I share these articles for free. Unfortunately I also have to pay my bills, so if you see value in my work please consider a small donation/gratuity (the same way you tip your favorite bartender).
From my heart to yours!
Ivica

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4. Getting the point

“The Tango and Trapeze Acts” by Cacho Dante

I’ve quoted parts of this article so many times that I’m sure if you read me regularly it will sound familiar. I believe that every paragraph should be printed out and hanged on the walls of every tango schools out there.

The best part is that it’s short and clear. If the previous article (the one from Tango Voice) had somewhat scientific style and it was not light reading – this one is the opposite, but without losing anything from it’s value. On the other hand, it doesn’t even try to take neutral position: it’s a confession and advice of an experienced dancer from the Golden Age of tango to the rest of us.

Why is it important? Well, as I said, every paragraph is a lesson to be learned, but I think the most valuable one is in the first and the last sentence.

“…the woman was not just a follower, she was to whom the tango was dedicated”, says Cacho at the beginning.

And then, after all things he explains, he finishes with a direct message to the men in tango:

“Guys, to dance tango, you must listen to the heart of the woman.”

Yes, that’s the point of dancing tango. Understand that and use it in your dancing, and you learn everything. The steps are the easy part, the main is to make her feel like a woman for at least 10 minute on the dance floor.

5. “Gender neutral” cabeceo

“The ‘Cabeceo'” by Rick McGarry

I know many who think that the tango in general is macho dominated environment where women are just a passive objects. Watching what is going on in some of the tango communities I had chance to visit I can agree with this assessment, but I don’t think that the reason for this are the rules. If the milonga becomes macho dominated environment it’s not because of tango – it is because the culture in the society is like that in general.

The rules (codigos) in tango are there to “discipline” the bullies and ego-tripping dancers and allow smooth functioning. If there were no defined rules – the rules are being defined by those without consideration about others.

Let’s take the cabeceo/mirada rule. It makes the woman equally active participant in the game of invitations, giving her opportunity to reject or choose – even to active pursue the dancers she wants to dance with. Unfortunately this part of the tango culture is almost never being taught. In some cases it’s been misrepresented as the part of the problem.

During his/her tango journey the dancer will encounter different codigos in different environments, and of course, one must sometimes be flexible, but I believe that this article is a great starting point to understand the rules of tango.

There is a part in the article which also explain the power-games people play at milongas; and that is present not only in Buenos Aires, but everywhere you go. To be honest, this is my least favorite part of tango, but a dancer must be aware of it and how the codigos can help him/her navigate these games.