PERSONAL BACKGROUND/OVERVIEW
The first time I saw tango I became ecstatic and knew
immediately that I had to learn it. This kind of instant "addiction" is
fairly common among tango practitioners. Only in the recent years did I begin
to understand some of the deeper reasons why tango speaks and calls so strongly
to people (more on that below). In retrospect, I now realize that tango at once
filled many voids which I had been experiencing in my life - lack of a
meaningful cultural ritual, lack of creative expression, lack of a non-sexual
physical interaction, lack of a regular "flow" activity - the list
can go on. Not the least of the benefits was that within the tango community I
found it easier to meet people, particularly women. I also found the tango
community to be warm yet non-intrusive; I felt it was a way to share sincerely
with others without a major commitment. Back then I did not analyze it too much, I just knew that I had found something I really
enjoyed. I started dancing in Miami - Ft. Lauderdale area, where I was working
as a high school teacher of physics and mathematics. In 1996 I moved to New
York City. In spite of the great variety of entertainment here, I still found
myself enjoying the milongas more than anything else.
I was dancing more and more, and then some people started offering me work as a
professional tango dancer and teacher. My career plans had been uncertain for a
while, so I gladly took the opportunity, though now I doubt the wisdom of that
decision. I certainly had not been
dancing long enough to be putting my dancing under the spotlight, and ended up
developing a lot of counterproductive habits. On the other hand, my professional
commitment to tango initially let me pour all of my energy into it, allowed me
to live and breathe tango with no reservations.
At first, all the aspects of my tango activity -
social dancing, teaching, performing - seemed connected in a harmonious way.
But then, gradually, I started perceiving some dissonance. A telling event
happened during my very first stay in Buenos Aires. I went to see a show by one
of the top tango couples of that time. The speed, the precision, and the
inventiveness of their choreography were all very impressive. Right after the
show, I went to a milonga (public tango dance). A few
elderly couples were on the floor, and when I began watching them, I
experienced a powerful emotional response which the professionals had failed to
evoke. I saw that there was an essence in the dancing of the milongueros that somehow did not make it to the stage.
That whole first trip to Buenos Aires was an
enchantment for me. I saw tango that was an integral part of the culture of
Buenos Aires. I saw people who had danced it for decades, for whom it was a
natural part of life. I saw a cultural ritual where young and old came together
and communed on the basis of their love for an art form, and, even more
importantly, their practice of it. I fell in love with it all, as many
foreigners do. Probably because of my fervor and infatuation with the dance, I
was received very warmly - many older people encouraged me and shared stories
and advice.
The more I listened, the more I watched and danced at
the milongas during my trips to Buenos Aires, the
more I felt that there was some central essence of tango which was only found
in the milongas, and which tango shows at best only
imitated. I became determined to not only unlock that mystery but also to bring
it to my professional activity. I watched the old-timers, listened to their
advice, studied with them, and tried to infuse my dancing and my performances
with as much "authenticity" as I could. Those attempts were not very
successful, however. I saw that much of what the old-timers did with a natural
ease turned out to be very uncomfortable for me, as well as for most dancers of
my generation, Argentine or not. Some attributed this to decades of practice,
but I saw very clearly that there was something else. The old-timers seemed to
move differently from the younger generation, and I saw that it was their basic
movement that allowed them to connect so well with the partner and to do so
much more and so much better in close embrace. The very way they stood and walked
looked more efficient, more elegant and graceful as compared to the younger
dancers. The contrast was easy to see also because tango had been out of
fashion, almost forgotten, roughly between 1955 and 1985, so that in the 1990's
most people at the milongas were either older than 60
or younger than 30.
At first I thought that there was some trick, some
technique, which they would not or could not tell me in any of the numerous
lessons I took. I set out to understand it by watching, imitating, practicing. I spent hours, days, months
trying to understand the secret of the "tango walk", with very little
success. It was all the more puzzling because I knew that most of the dancers
of the older generation who I admired had never taken a dance lesson, and definitely
had not worked on their walking. I was not alone in my perception of the
problem - many older dancers commented on the younger people's inability to
stand and walk well as the main impediment to their progress. But they could
offer virtually no insight on how to fix that problem. Dancing with an
old-generation tango dancer felt markedly different from dancing with a partner
of my own age, even if she had studied a lot. Many young women reported that
dancing with an old milonguero was an experience of a
higher order. Some of my teachers did acknowledge the problem of walking, but
they all tried to teach a certain technique, which at best imitated "the
walk" but somehow was not the walk itself. At
times I also imagined that I understood the right technique and even began
teaching it to my students, but in the end I always had to admit to myself that
I did not really have a good grasp of the issue.
For several years I struggled with the question of
walking. My dancing felt somewhat better through hours and hours of practice
and some conscious or unconscious "tricks" which one invents to make
this dance work. But I felt that it lacked some essential quality which I saw
and on occasion experienced in the milongas of Buenos
Aires. There was not enough ease, precision, spontaneity in it. I sensed that
tango could be a much more intense experience, a "flow" of a higher
order, which many of the old-timers seemed to be able to produce on a regular
basis. At rare moments I did experience such states, which made my inability to
sustain them even more frustrating.
It took me a while to accept the fact that the
old-timers naturally had something that our generation did not. It took me even
longer to understand what to do about it. The fact that something can in fact
be done is not very well known. I have seen many people quit after deciding
that they just didn't "have it" or could not improve any further. But
it turns out that "it" can be developed, though it takes more time
and effort than most people would expect.
The crucial insights came from outside the tango
circles, through my studies of Alexander Technique, Nei
Kung, Tai Chi Chuan, and Bioenergetics. I became aware of a trend in our
civilization, which is not yet acknowledged by the mainstream culture: roughly
speaking, we are forgetting how to move well. The voice of the instinct in the
modern human is becoming weaker and weaker, fading under layers of conditioned
reflexes. All kinds of environmental influences and psycho-somatic factors are
corrupting our physical functioning. We are getting "out of shape"
much more literally than is commonly understood. It is not just the weight, the
strength, the stamina. We are not using the body according to its design - the
breathing is not natural, the legs do not bend right, many joints are not
allowed their proper range of movement, the spine is not allowed its natural
freedom. Of course, conditions vary from individual to individual, and some
people develop less problems than others. But an
average modern person has fallen far from the natural coordination of our
tribal and peasant ancestors. The growing pervasiveness of foot, knee, hip,
back and neck problems in our culture is an easy testimony to this fact (I
discuss this in more detail in the Body
Conditioning section).
When I understood this, I experienced a sudden clarity
about the old-timers: they did not have any special way of walking - they were simply less corrupt in their
movement than the younger generations! Their conditions enabled them to
dance with integrity, with a more natural rhythm. For them, there was no
question about how to stand and walk. Most of them learned tango by watching
and dancing with each other and used their natural movement and coordination
for dancing. Their good physical conditions allowed for their tango to just
"grow out" of their very walking. Back then, people for whom it did
not happen naturally did not study any technique - they simply did not dance
tango. In the younger generations, the average physical conditions are much
worse, I have seen no young dancers who were able to just "pick up"
tango without changing in some way the way they moved, without using some
conscious or unconscious adjustment. The only people who avoid such adjustments
are the ones who choose to dance "open" style, sacrificing the embrace,
which is essential to tango as I explain in the Partner Connection section. Most younger
dancers are to various extents trapped in anti-natural patterns of movement. To
begin with, most people in modern culture develop improper body coordination
since childhood. On top of that, when one tries to learn tango with such
improper conditions, one is forced to adopt, consciously or unconsciously, all
kinds of special techniques and adjustments, just to make the dance work. I
finally saw that there was no special trick for me to learn - on the contrary,
I simply had to get rid of all my "tricks" - all the improper,
anti-natural movement. The mysterious "tango walk" was nothing but a
good natural walk!
All this meant that I had to ask certain questions
about proper basic movement which the old-timers had never considered.
Initially, such inquiry is like opening a Pandora's box
of painful self-consciousness. As a result, one may get a case of
"paralysis by analysis" in the words of a Tai Chi instructor. This
can get ugly, like in the case of the fabled caterpillar who, when asked how it
coordinated its multiple legs, could no longer take a step. So, if one is able
to enjoy dancing and feel a gradual improvement happen by itself, one may put
off such self-exploration until a later time. I could not do without it though,
for I had hit a wall in my progress and could no longer ignore the corruptions
of my physical functioning. After the first couple of years of very
discouraging awareness of the anti-natural patterns in my body, I began finding
ways to move out of them. Ultimately, I believe that the awareness and
purification of one's physical being is necessary for this art form to truly
evolve. This principle is widely understood among serious martial artists, but
is still ignored by most tango dancers.
Uncovering, purifying proper natural movement and
general coordination of the body turned out to be a daunting task. Most
problems of the body are inextricably tied to the problems in one's psyche.
(This is another commonly ignored fact.) Bioenergetics specialists talk about
"muscular armoring" which a person adopts sub-consciously as a reflection
of psychological defense patterns. Such patterns are often ingrained since
childhood, and dissolving them can take years or even decades. One may never
see the end of it. However, every step along this way opens up new levels of
dancing and overall well-being. As I began working in that direction, my
dancing began improving steadily, my enjoyment of it
and my ability exceeded much of what I had previously imagined. Steps which I
had practiced and practiced to no avail years before suddenly started coming
out spontaneously. But even more importantly, that was when tango started
attaining a larger meaning for me, becoming an instrument of a much more
general personal improvement. It was no longer just about learning how to dance
well - it was about learning how to stand, walk, breathe, think, sense, and
feel better, how to improve my whole way of being. Through the bodywork which I
have been doing mostly for the purposes of better dancing, many of my chronic
health problems have subsided or disappeared, including back spasms, knee
pains, foot pains, common colds, and even allergies to a certain extent. There
has been also a marked increase in my overall energy level.
Next to Alexander Technique, the disciplines which
most helped me understand how to work on my body were Nei
Kung (a form of Taoist yoga) and Tai Chi Chuan. Through my study of these arts,
I was becoming increasingly aware that in the East, there had developed a
notion of art as an instrument of an overall positive transformation of an individual.
I realized that tango potentially had similar depth, but greatly lacked clarity
of principles. I understood that my longing was always for tango as an art form
of this sort, in which the heightening of the artistic experience is
interconnected with the improvement of one's overall nature of being. I believe
that my initial strong attraction to this dance had been largely due to my
half-conscious perception of this deeper potential of tango, of its wider
cultural implications. So far, however, tango is seen mostly as a form of
entertainment - either as a show or as simply a pleasurable pastime. But though
many would like to dance tango, only a few actually get to do it, for learning
it has become very hard for the present generations. A person expecting to pick
up tango as one learns bungee jumping is in for a humbling experience. Women
can still sometimes learn with relative ease - they often retain more natural
conditions than men, and their part is considerably easier in the beginning
stages. For men it is almost sure to be a challenge, requiring a lot of
patience and effort, though ultimately a very rewarding one.
Eventually, I began noticing that my dancing was
greatly affected not only by the way I was using my body, but also by the thoughts
which were going through my head, my attitudes towards my partner, myself and
the whole experience. I began to see that there were some general principles of
improvement which act in any art form or any human interaction for that
matter. Some of the principles I learned in Tai Chi classes turned out to be
directly applicable to tango dancing. I was further impressed that some of
those principles echoed what I had heard from the tango old-timers and what I
had seen in their dancing. Other principles became clear to me through my own
practice and contemplation of the question of good art in general and good
tango dancing in particular. I will share what I have understood so far in the General Principles section.
Beginnings of such general understanding existed during the golden age of
tango. Through conversations with some old-timers I realized that at the peak
of tango as a popular dance in the 1940's there had existed notions of what was
good and what was bad dancing (see Old-Timers
Speak section). There had also been a notion of tango as a culturally
significant art form, an expression of one's general way of being and of one's
relationship with the opposite sex in particular. However, such notions of the
art of tango had been half-conscious and disorganized. They never formed into a
sufficiently consistent and clear set of principles, like the ones that exist
in Tai Chi Chuan, for example. In addition, since then we have sunk into the
modern relativism, believing that all kinds of tango are equally good, that
it's all a matter of personal preference, as long as no one gets hurt.
"Not all archery is spiritual," - says Eugen
Herrigel's classic "Zen in the Art of
Archery". Similarly, not all kinds of tango are equally good. Some ways of
dancing are like a dead end - eventually, one gets bored and quits. Some other
ways, however, open up a road to unlimited improvement and unprecedented
experiences.
Eventually, partly through some reading about and
study of Eastern martial disciplines, partly through my own contemplation, I
came to the conclusion that art achieves its highest potential if it is used as
an instrument of conscious evolution of the artist. I found that tango,
like many of the Eastern martial arts, has such a transformative potential. I
also found that the ever heightening dance experiences result from precisely
such an approach. The bigger goal of self-development through the practice of
an art form has become the fundamental principle of my practice. It has brought
together my search for the heightening states of “flow” in dancing, my sense of
“good art” in general and my vision of the direction of improvement in tango
dancing in particular. It has also explained much of my original fascination
with tango and the fact that from the very beginning it has felt so meaningful
– I had intuitively perceived its evolutionary potential. Since I became
conscious of it, I have seen how good tango dancing requires and inspires a
more general self-improvement: the obstacles to good dancing reveal bigger
issues in one’s physical, mental, or emotional functioning. By improving the
general issue, one gains both better dancing and a freer overall state of being
(more on this in Tango And Conscious Evolution section). Such approach is what fosters “art without
artifice”, where higher levels of it are achieved not through an accumulation
of techniques, but through an “implanting” of the art in the unconscious, a growth of one’s capacity for spontaneously appropriate action.
It was through this approach that I finally felt
myself progress towards the quality that had so inspired me in the dancing of
the old-timers. I do not mean to say that the dancing of the old-timers is the
best one can do. I believe tango can surpass itself without limit. However, I
feel that the true evolution of this dance must include mastery of the old. If
one simply discards the old in favor of the new, one can never be quite sure
that the new ways represent progress and not degeneration of the art form.
All this newly found clarity brought new excitement
and a larger meaning to my dancing, but at the same time, it led to an
increasing frustration with my professional tango involvements of the time. I
understood why the purest tango was found on the dance floor and not on the
stage. I saw that good art is primarily about the experience of the artist,
which then may eventually transmit through the art work and
inspire the onlookers. In this way art becomes an example, a metaphor of how we
want all our interactions to be. I saw clearly that the vast majority of
professional dancers, including myself, were too busy trying to show, transmit
something to the audience, instead of having an authentic dance experience and
letting it transmit by itself. I became
aware of how corrupt I had become by focusing on the outward image or result
rather than on my experience while performing. It was one of the main reasons
that the old-timers had inspired me so much more than any stage dancer - they
had always been doing it primarily for the experience of it, not for the show.
Besides, after I became aware of the gross corruptions of proper coordination
in my body and how they were preventing good dancing from happening, I could
not feel as excited about performing any longer.
Teaching became difficult as well, for most of my
students were not prepared to put in the needed effort into their general
psycho-physical development and proper movement, while I did not feel ready to
teach it. As a result, I decided to stop my professional activity as a tango
dancer and teacher, at least for some time. I went back to teaching math and
physics part-time, training and dancing as much as possible the rest of the
time, which is the schedule that I keep at present. One drawback to this
situation is that the information that I have accumulated over the years is no
longer easily accessible to those who may be interested. One of the main
purposes of this web site is to create an easy outlet for this information.
I have been thinking about producing this web site for
a while now. Many times I was stopped by the thought that it would be more
appropriate to first develop my dancing to a good enough level, to be able to
clearly demonstrate what I am talking about, and only then talk or write. But I
finally decided not to wait for this possibly remote time. One reason is that I
perceive a bitter lack of clarity and shared vision among tango dancers, and
many potentially serious students seem to be getting frustrated the same way I
was in the past. If I cannot clarify things completely, at least I hope to
foster a discussion of the fundamental principles of this dance, out of which
some clarity may eventually result. Second, I hope to attract more serious
students to tango. There are not a lot of them at the moment - mostly, I
believe, for lack of an understanding that tango has a deeper potential than
what is often presented by the media, and also for lack of an idea of how to
pursue that potential. I decided not to wait also because, for those dancers
who would potentially want to work on their psycho-physical being, every
passing year makes it more difficult. I wish I had known what I now know
earlier, so that I could have started working in the right direction when I was
younger. One can begin progressing at any age, but the older one becomes, the
harder it is to reverse the anti-natural trends.
At this time, I am fortunate to have several serious
fellow dancers and partners around me with whom I can share the ways to improve
in this dance. But I would like to see the number of serious tango students
grow, so that some of us may eventually be able to manifest more fully the
splendor of this potentially fine art. In this website, I attempt to lay out my
vision of the essential nature of this dance, and give my understanding of the
principles and practices which most directly lead to the deepening of one's
tango experience.