Tonight’s Goodnight Tango… continues on the theme of memory from last night, but this time on the other side… oblivion!
One of the things that I remember from these years of the research project is the nurses telling us that in order to minimize the risk of dementia one must be active physically, mentally, and socially.
Tango easily fits the bill for the physically and socially but one might think… how does it keep you active mentally? Well… it does… and in these times I guess it does so more than any of the other two aspects. The thing (one of the many) I loved in tango from the moment I started understanding it was the improvisation. Yes. The fact that you do not have a written script… a set of specific moves… figures… sequences… and the fact that you can always play with the endless possibilities to invent your own moves/sequences. Add to this the possibility of doing the exact same sequence with a ton of different rhythmical/musical patterns and with a number of different styles… and you get the perfect mental creativity challenge!
I bet that there are quite a lot of dancers out there, who these days have had endless hours of fun, mental exercise, and discovery just by re-thinking and re-inventing what they usually do on the dancefloor.
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