Tango lessons

Now and then, in the spare minutes of the day, I would think wistfully to the days when my husband and I used to take ballroom dancing lessons. It was a wonderful ritual. Two or three nights a week, we would meet up in Crows Nest, down a wonton noodle soup, then disappear into one of those one-room office suites that had been transformed with disco lights and loud music into a dance fantasy land.

Of all the dances we learnt, our favourite, without a doubt, was the tango – not the ballroom tango, with the arched backs and jerky heads, but the Argentine variety – heads bowed, hands clasped, faces and sides touching. Think Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. (Regrettably, the only dance we were any good at was the stiff-legged foxtrot, but this did not discourage us from setting our hearts on the tango for our wedding dance!)

So what business does an Asian, un-co tomboy have with this unashamedly sexy Latin dance? To begin with, I love tango music. I was captivated the very first time I heard the dramatic run of notes on the bandoneon. (A bandoneon is like an accordion, used often in tango music, along with strings.) Those who are familiar with the songs of Astor Piazzolla will know that they typically juxtapose a slow, sweet, dreamy melody in major key with a fast, dark, agitated melody in minor key. So in the space of three or so minutes, these songs traverse the entire landscape of a passionate affair – the innocence and the betrayal, the tenderness and the violence, the glory and the tragedy. It is indulgent, irrepressibly sensual, sure to capture the complete attention of any romantic.

But the most appealing thing about the tango, is the dynamic it creates between man and woman. In the Argentine tango, the woman never steps forwards, always backwards. Now, before jumping to the conclusion that it is a chauvinistic dance, note this is also a dance where the woman gets to do all the flourishes – from the seductive “ochos” – where she twirls in front of her partner in a figure of eight; to the aggressive “gancho”, where she steps to her partner’s side and deftly flicks her ankle backwards between the man’s legs in a kind of momentary leg embrace. And most unusually, compared with other dances where patterns and timing are everything, the woman is completely at liberty to do whatever flourishes she likes for however long she likes, until she decides to return to the waiting arms of her partner, or when he wants her back! So the whole thing is less like a structured dance and more like a free and natural conversation. The tango maestros call it simply, “walking”.

How then does the man communicate all the subtleties of movement without a word, with his gaze obligingly averted? How, in the words of our instructor, does the man “create the space for the woman to walk”? By nothing more than the momentum of his body! Any ballroom dancer will tell you that a man leads not by his arms or hands, though he embraces the woman with these, but with his chest – they way he carries himself, the way he moves, the way he – well – creates a space where a woman might feel completely protected and encouraged to take a brave stride backwards (hopefully not onto someone else’s foot). This is a much harder task than the heavy lifting! If you have ever seen a live tango performance, you will feel the extraordinary tension and release between partners. But if you have seen a husband and wife perform (as our instructors were), that is altogether something special. With expressiveness like this, who needs to talk?

This is where I think dance imitates life. Leading your partner in a tango, is much like leading another person in real life, especially in the context of an intimate relationship, like a marriage, in at least 3 ways that I can think of:

1. Leading is about having vision. In the tango, this literally means being able to see where you are going when your partner has no idea and trusts you completely. In the same way, leading in life requires vision – a goal for the future that is big and high and real enough to inspire through the good times and bad times.
2. Leading is about encouraging and bringing the best out in the other person. In most dances, and especially in the tango, the woman is often the one who dazzles the crowd with her costume and her flourishes. But she is still following her man's lead. Leading is not about being in the limelight, or being dominant, but being supportive, encouraging and when necessary, pushing the other to be the best they can be. This is as much about courage and confidence as it is about modesty and humility.
3. Leading is not by strong-arming but by the consistency and integrity of your person. If a man tries to lead his dance partner by pulling and pushing her arms, he actually makes it impossible for her to follow him, even if she wanted to! This is because he is not maintaining a consistent “frame”. A frame, in ballroom dancing lingo, is the poise of your upper body, primarily your head, neck, shoulders and torso. A man keeps his frame still when moving; he therefore leads with his whole body. I see the same principle at work in real life. Leadership is not by compulsion. Leadership is about opening up your mind, your heart, your soul to the other person and winning them over with your honesty and integrity.

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But the tango is not just a dance for intimate lovers. In the milongas we frequented (milongas are social dances; in Sydney they are put on in RSLs and community halls), seventy-year old grannies in sequenced gowns and silver heels “walk” together with dapper, olive-skinned young men in white suits and a rose in their lapels. It is, in Argentine culture, a family affair.

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There is a grey, pony-tailed busker who sometimes sings and plays tango music on his bandoneon outside Chatswood Westfield. In between numbers, he would jovially court conversation of passer-bys. I can’t help but feel he is underappreciated there. But transport him to the town square in Buenos Aires, in the cool of the night, I imagine they must, surely they must, stop in their tracks and break into passionate dance.