"And I'd love to here some comments from the ladies - especially those who live
in Buenos Aires, or at least visit a lot. Does this happen there?"
When you dance Argentine Tango in Buenos Aires, you go a milonga, you choose a
particular lady you feel a desire to dance with, and stare in the proper way,
to see if she has a desire to dance with you. If she shows interest, she
stares back, and nodes.
You meet en la pista de baile, (the dancing floor) and start dancing.
Tango is a manifestation of Argentine popular culture, a society where
traditionally men and women do their best to cooperate with each other rather
than to compete or antagonize.
So when you enter a relationship or start a tango in Buenos Aires you can
expect cooperation, not indifference, resistance or quarreling.
You are certain that she accepted to dance with you, because she likes to dance
with you and therefore she will do her best to be attentive and follow every
lead with every little nuance.
If something does not work perfectly well, while dancing tango, one has to look
for the reason.
Assuming that you are a good dancer who leads with clarity, perhaps she is not
as good as you thought she was, then you attempt to hide this fact by making
sure you lead moves, you are certain she can follow.
It does not even cross your mind that she could be undermining "that tango" on
purpose. The base of our culture is cooperation and respect between the
sexes, each one in his own world, different but equal. ( I do not care if some
foreign woman, have a different perspective, she has the right to her own
opinion).
I in my masculine role, offer protection, feel the music, lead with clarity,
(when I say lead, I mean everything including the embellishments she executes
and the type of ornaments she does), allow enough time for her artistic
expression, weight the type of response I receive, and adjust my future leads
in relation to that response, trying to make sure she dances with ease and
pleasure.
So we say that tango is a conversation because whatever she does, affects what
I will do next. I am conscious that this is "our" tango not "my" or "her" tango.
In her feminine role, she comes to my arms like a bird that has entered the
nest, she is hyper-attentive to make an accurate interpretation of my lead, she
adds her feminine touch to every move she executes, I realize how much easily
she does everything with beautiful simplicity, elasticity and harmony, than I
do.
At certain moment there is a surrendering of both to the embrace, a real fusion
of the spirit and the body. It is like a dream that ends when the music stops.
Best wishes, Sergio
PS. If you dance with a woman that ignores your lead, antagonizes you and
fights the lead, you are not dancing Argentine Tango.
If you want to dance tango, stop right now, take her back to her seat and
never ask her to dance again. Hopefully you can introduce her to some guy you
strongly dislike.
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