Herodotus and Tango

                I often wonder what the first historian, Herodotus, would have thought about the Tango. His chronicles of ancient cultures often describe customs that we would consider bizarre today. Whatever our perception, these rituals were social mechanisms that helped people cope with the realities of being human while living and working together in a community. 

                These traditions offered each society a different way to deal with things like sexuality, puberty, old age, marriage, etc.

                He tells us about the Lydian girls who earn their own dowry through prostitution, how elderly Scythians commit suicide at a feast and are then eaten by the rest of the tribe, how Egyptian wives shopped while their husbands stayed at home weaving baskets.

               Herodotus is the person responsible for letting us know that the Persians invented democracy.

               If he had gone to Buenos Aires, I’m certain he would have written about this dance of the Argentineans known to us as Tango.

               In today’s fast-paced cyber-world, two people touching can be an awkward situation. Tango is popular today because it satiates a hunger in modern societies, an urge to socialize in a way that is both recreational and provides an opportunity to make physical contact with another person in a way that is meaningful. 

               One might argue that other dances also fill the same void but I would say that is not so. 

               The tango connection is crucial to this dance, as is spontaneous choreography. In other dances: salsa, swing, etc., partners frequently disengage from the embrace. These other dances are also heavily reliant on patterns which, I believe, stifles creativity, a necessary nutrient for mental health.

               For some of us, there comes a time in our lives when we are so scarred from life’s battles that we need a place to retreat and to heal. Tango is such a refuge.

               In a world where medicine tries to cure every ill with a pill, our bodies seek out another, more natural remedy. Instinctively, we seem to know that a myriad of prescriptions is not the answers to what ails us.

                I have to wonder if this is not the first revival of tango in the annals of history. 

                Maybe one day, we will find a clay vase filled with descriptions of people who danced to the rhythm and the melody as one body; people who needed to escape the monumental demands of a culture building a pyramid or a Great Wall or whatever; people who found healing by sharing their passion with another, through a dance called the Tango.