Social
The elephant in the room
A few weeks ago, a video went viral in the Greek Tango community. Two women, both dancers, were repeating phrases they’ve heard over the years. Comments full of gender stereotypes, casual misogyny, and the kind of phrases that, when unpacked, reveal more than just ignorance. They reveal a culture that sometimes looks the other way.…
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Kindness, Rituals and Values
Some weeks ago, we had a meaningful conversation in the community about the custom of walking your partner back to their seat after a tanda. One member challenged the gesture, suggesting it might symbolise outdated gender roles. Others, including myself, offered a different view. I don’t see this as a “ladies first” gesture. I see…
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Frodo, Sam and the power of Tango
In the last post, I described how the Ring from The Lord of the Rings can symbolise Tango’s power and how it amplifies what’s already inside us. I used the relationship between Gollum and the Ring to show how Tango (The Ring) can twist us when we dance to escape ourselves (like Gollum used the…
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Self exploration
Are you an artist?
A few days ago I asked the people in the blog’s community (if you haven’t joined yet… what are you waiting for?) to answer the following question. “Do you consider yourself an artist when you dance socially?” What followed were some really interesting discussions and in this post, I will try to summarize them as…
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Stagnation
“When you started the blog… Did you know that you will have so many things to write about?” she asked me between songs. “No!” I answered and actually, I told her that there was once a period (when I was still posting these texts only to Facebook) when I decided to stop posting. I posted…
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Classes? Me? Why?
A few months ago I posted an article saying that I no longer care to take classes. The day the article was posted I signed up for a weekend of classes with Paula Tejeda and Lucas Carizio. Now you are wondering if I am a split personality or if I was just trolling you in…
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Musicality
Why do more?
Similarly, another great song is Mensaje. The story has it that the song was written roughly by Enrique Discépolo who shortly after died. Cátulo Castillo who took the composition from Discépolo’s wife, Tania, forgot about it. Until a night when, as he says, Discépolo visited him in his sleep and dictated to him the lyrics.…
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When the leader becomes a follower
A long time ago, I read a blog post from Tangomentor where he was explaining among other things that the woman in the dancing couple is actually leading the emotion. He also used a famous quote from Cacho Dante “Guys to dance tango you need to listen to the heart of the woman.” To be…
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Mutual inspiration
Many times when I am complimented at the end of a tanda I respond with something like “It wasn’t only me dancing… we both contributed to making this a nice tanda!”, However, what I often fail to communicate accurately is that the better a partner is, the more I feel free to unlock and unfold…
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