The Metaphysics of Tango
What I try in a Tango class is to transmit my own experience of what I understand about Tango, which is not necessarily something that is useful to others. However, what I want to aim at in the classes I teach is to give the initiate tools that can help them find their own identity in dance and in its expression.
Do not try to dance like anyone else, look within yourself for those particularities that make you different, create a character and an atmosphere in your experience with that world …
I think that the important thing about Tango is to create an atmosphere and to enter a kind of trance, like entering another world with defined physical laws and exploring them, understanding their nature, their functions and making them their own, in this way to be able to play with those laws. and create movement and sensations.
I am going to use the analogy of the laws of a universe such as time, gravity and space to explain in a symbolic way the different aspects of Tango as a social dance.
UNIVERSAL LAWS OF TANGO
1) Musicality (Time): Music is the means through which the dance takes place, it is the water through which one swims at all times, one has to become familiar with its substance in order to flow in it. If the water is a torrential river the movements will be different than if one swims in a calm lake. Likewise, one can play with the flow, regulate, stop and fluctuate his gait constantly.
2) Connection (Gravity): It is the interaction and exchange of energy between our dance partner and us, also, like gravity that spirals with galaxies, the dance floor also has a direction with which we must flow and it is the given by the energy of interaction with couples dancing around us. We must use that energy to flow through the track.
3) Navigation (Space): The dance space is generated by one, actively looking for sectors through which to travel, adapting and playing with the possibilities that are generated, always using creativity to improvise with the conditions that arise.
4) Posture and hug (Matter): Our own body is the malleable matter with which we connect with our dance partner. Therefore, the main function of matter is to be a clear and effective means by which to transmit and receive impulses, energy to and from our dance partner and by transitive nature we receive and externalize energy from our own subconscious.
5) Walk (Movement): Walking is almost an extension of time, walking is the manifestation of musicality. Just as the movement, walking must be an interpretation of time, being able to find complexity in factors such as distance, speed, slowness and even pauses, but it also finds diversity and creativity in the patterns and lines that this walk describes in interaction and harmony with the walk of our partner.
Do not try to dance like anyone else, look within yourself for those particularities that make you different, create a character and an atmosphere in your experience with that world. Creating a movement from your own imagination and instinct is finding yourself within a universe, it is very different from the process of copying a routine of steps and becoming someone else. Inventing yourself in dance is creating by letting yourself be carried away by your own dynamics and flow, which for me is much more valuable than trying to be or do like someone else.
Matias A. Acosta.
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