Putting the Romance into Tango Is Hard Work

               Any man worth a salt can tell you that putting romance into a relationship is hard work. A spaghetti dinner is just another meal until it is accompanied by a red and white checkered table cloth, lit candles and opulent displays of etiquette and chivalry. The presentation of a gift in any romantic endeavor is almost as important as the thought that goes into its selection and acquisition.

               I don’t think all tangueros are aware that this applies to tango as well.

               Romance is man’s work and it is a big part of the illusion in tango. The observer is clueless to the signals being conveyed by the leader to the follower. Learning how to communicate clearly through body language is an arduous task. Acquisition of this skill takes a lot of thought. How this expertise is presented is as important as what went into the educational process.

               Listening is how we gather the necessary information to achieve proficiency. Paying attention to the follower’s balance, mood and performance is imperative. The man leads the movement but he does so with respect to the aforementioned indicators. Stability is realized through practice. A woman’s disposition is influenced by her partner’s hygiene, expression and utterances. The maneuvers attempted should always be within the tanguera’s ability and should never make her appear awkward or unattractive.

               The most difficult part about romance is the fact that we are men: people who started off life as tiny wailing babies peeing all over creation without any control; we then became mischievous little boys who grew into oversized frames in a world full of expectations that we act like men. To our surprise, women are not the little girls we knew as children whom we tortured with insults and physical abuse before subjecting them to the noxious fumes leaching from our bowels. They are something else. Just what that something else is will remain unknown until we acknowledge our ignorance and begin to remedy the situation.

               Tango has a reputation as the world’s most romantic dance. Dancing tango is more of an altered state of consciousness than it is an exercise to the rhythm of the music. It is not so much a dance as it is a goal to be attained. Getting there is hard work and that is how romance makes its way into tango.



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