Tango y Té

To Dance Tango is To Be a Good Person

What is natural for man is GOOD tango, not bad tango. Just like rationality, it is a natural capacity for man. But for man, what is natural has to be chosen and learned.

One thing that has become increasingly clear to me, along my path of learning tango, is that the potential of GOOD tango movement opens naturally, only, from a state of being fully relaxed, yet fully aware and awake. It is the movement of a person who faces life smiling openly, going forward without hesitation, innocently, without bitterness or caution. It is a state of a man who suddenly realized: "so after all, what I felt as a child was true: THIS is how it feels to be all big and grown up!"

In this state his movements are relaxed and effortless, and they are totally for his own enjoyment. They don't have any quality of strain, demonstrativeness or "lashing out." Didn't we learn from maestra Mimi Santapa that, in embracing, one uses the muscles on the inside of one's arms? The outside muscles are, as she explains, the ones used for clutching and clawing.

People have asked me, why do I put all this work, week after week, year after year, in organizing a milonga? The answer is, only two things: it is this GOODNESS that I recognize in tango--the same goodness that I have sought to improve and bring out in my own person. And, it is to create a PLACE--a place that celebrates this goodness and proves that it exists. I did it all for my own sake.

The vision is more clear in me, more clear than ever. What a beautiful thing this is: a milonga. The image that I have is: people smiling, sitting at small tables lining the edge of a dance floor, with the feeling and expectation of dancing in their bodies. They have cleared the floor. They watch and ADMIRE a couple dance a demo. The couple moves with elegance and cadence. They make us listen to that piece of music like we have never quite listened to it before. They are nearby enough to touch. In this kind of "temple," we listen to our own thoughts, and we silently thank the couple for letting us see something so beautiful.