Tango is
an attempt by two people to spontaneously choreograph, together, their
individual interpretations of a piece of music.
That’s a
pretty complex statement but it is the reasoning behind the colloquialism that says,
“In tango, there are no mistakes.”
Once a
person accepts this idiom for what it is, The Truth, then he or she can
discontinue the pursuit of the perfect dance because it is an unattainable goal,
and carry on with the real reason why we dance tango: to find the perfect
partner.
I
encounter many novices, and even some not-so-new dancers, who are obsessed with
absolutes.
“I was
told never to do this,” they say, or, “I was told always to do that.”
There
are no ‘nevers’ nor are there any ‘always’. There is only your balance and the
fundamentals: forward, back, side, pivot, in-place, pause….and your partner.
What
makes a perfect partner? One way to find out is to dance tango with as many
different people as possible. When you find the right one, and there may be several or maybe just one, you will know it but not right away.
On the
drive home or sometime the next day, it will occur to you that there was
chemistry between you and a particular dancer. The perfect partner is not a person,
it is the memory of a person you danced with when everything was just right:
music, mood and tempo.
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