Getting to accept yourself, overcoming fear and trusting everyday life … it's all a big challenge in our day and age. You need to be firm with your convictions and trust yourself to be successful and make the breakthrough. But where is the courage to make all this? There's no other place than within yourselves. But why is it so hard to fight your own demons and dissatisfaction? Why is it so difficult to change yourself? Why don't we trust our intuition and feelings? Maybe it's the very loud surroundings and fast lifestyle we're living. So it's time to get away from it all and tune into ourselves.
Buenos Aires is one of the cities that offer the key to inner peace and cheerfulness. With its history and Argentinean Tango it refreshes us. It's a city that dances and enjoys the passionate rhythms, allowing us to get in touch with ourselves and put our best foot forward, get to know and experience something different and unforgettable. Buenos Aires awakens emotions, love and passion, you become aware of who you are and what the world around is like and it all begins with a simple look and an invitation to a dance.
It's not really easy to look a stranger in the eyes, but with tango it's the look that decides who you'll embrace closely to enjoy the rhythms of the dance. Cabeceo as part of the tango means nodding the head and it's a non-verbal invitation to a dance between a man and a woman. It sounds easy, but it's not. There's a strict hierarchy on the dance floor and so it's not easy to entrap a dancer with your level of skills allowing you to blend into one. This is where the fight with the inner you begins, to look somebody in the eyes and have them realize they should dance with you – or to take rejection gracefully waiting for somebody else, who hasn't noticed you before. Tango means you should work on yourself, but not only on the dance steps, but also on social acceptance of yourself and accepting you as you are.
Tango is a social dance emerging from poorer parts of Buenos Aires. It was developed out of the need to communicate and being close among people who migrated to the new land and were really lonely and often couldn't speak other languages. The root of the word "tangere" is latin and means to touch, which is a big part of this dance. It's a dance where the couple dances embraced. At milonga (dance evening) tango music is usually performed by orquesta tipica that often includes a violin, piano, guitar, flute and above all a bandoneon. Today many DJs took the role of the live music, playing the legends such as Carlos Gardel, Francisco Canaro, Anibal Troilo, Carlos di Sarli, Osvaldo Pugliese and Juan D'Arienzo, but the milong tradition continues with all the rituals and rules. The Argentinean tango has no combinations you could learn in advance, as it's a constant communication and improvisation of both dancers that keep getting along and interpret the music in their own way. It's a dancing game that takes a lot of skill to listen, feel, understand, respect and be open, on behalf of both dancers. During milongas music is joined in tandas, which are a combination of three to five songs. The musical breaks between tandas are cortinas, and they allow for the short break and a chance to find a different partner.
The tangled web of looks, music, dancing moves make for a great dancing evening letting you explore yourself and your body along with all your feelings. "Life is caught in a moment of motion" they say. But why?
Long and firm steps are the bases for tango and attracting the looks from others. It's not easy to go firm and with long steps through everyday life and its challenges. Upright posture elevating you and still keeps you firm on the ground makes for graceful movements on the dance floor. But can we walk with self-confidence and upright in everyday life, but still not have our heads in the clouds? There's a constant search of balance which you need to dance. And there's a constant fight between keeping and losing your balance either by not paying attention or the partner making a mistake. Life keeps us searching for our balance as well and it often takes our courage or will away.
Tango helps us with successful communication both in personal and business life. If there's no communication there's not really dancing in pairs, as it becomes real dull. If you want to build a successful communication with a partner in those few minutes with the violin, piano and bandoneon and achieve harmony, you must trust each other and listen to one another, which is the essence of good relationship in everyday life. Improvisation is elementary in tango and makes each day more vivid. How many times are we in crises and must improvise to get out? Tango helps you learn this.
With tango you need to have patience as it's a long process that takes a lot of practice and effort. But there's no way back and we get to enjoy the interpretation of music, which is the added value of this dance. There's melody and rhythm that puts life into our dance to liven it up. We make a story that never ends. It's the same for speech. With right choice of pauses and stresses in everyday life we can attract other people to listen. We become better in public speeches and leading groups.
Our daily chores take a lot of concentration and calmness and tango helps us learn those as you really have to be here and now while dancing. You need to be focused on the partner and music and achieve a state of meditation.
And feelings? Tango is all about being close to another human being that we all need to be emotionally stable and satisfied. But it's easy to become greedy and this can destroy even the best relationship, so it's one of the things we need to get rid of. It's also interesting to become part of somebody's intimate space and let somebody into your own. Together we make something supernatural in a harmony to feelings and love of life. The moment is pure and honest, but doesn't last long. After tanda is over we need to control our EGO that wants ever more. So we need to go on with our life and keep searching for those important moments that happen only here and now. We must also allow people to enter our life to experience something extraordinary and have to be grateful for it all.
You can experience all of this in Buenos Aires, in one of many dance schools. Among more popular is the
DNI Tango. They have a great choice of beginners and progressive classes and there are price worthy offers for group classes among milongas, where the price is included in attendance fee. To learn how to dance faster I suggest a personal teacher who'll tend to you only and you'll progress faster. But don't forget that tango is a process that can take up to a few years. Let this process be fun and give you joy for life as we are learning all of the skills above that are the key to happy life and even if beginnings are hard, Tango can get under your skin and there won't be enough of it. Enjoy each moment of tango, which is important for you and the environment around you.
Milonge are spread throughout the city of Buenos Aires and every day there are more than fifteen locations where you are sure to get a dance in. You can choose the early milongas that start in the afternoon or got in the evening which won't end until early morning next day. There's some time needed to see which fit your style the most. Until then you can use the
list or visit the web site
Hoy Milonga, where you'll be up to date with all the news about milongas.
And don't forget your dancing shoes, which must be beautiful to look at, but also comfortable and of good quality. There are many shops with good dancing shoes in the city and you can chose between known marks such as Soy Porteño, GretaFlora, Neo Tango, Souple ... The prices are high, but you should be kind to your feet and good shoes will make the dancing much nicer.
