The Tango today

The Tango has made the history of dances and continues to do it.
Since 1908, tango competitions have been organized in Argentina, but when in Europe people began to think about organizing competitions that included this dance, no one took the trouble to go and investigate in the countries of origin what was the real tango; Thus was born a new form of Tango called international, standardization of European tango already very different from the plateau. Since 1996 Latin dances have entered the Olympic competitions, but the tango already had a worldwide resonance.

Tango for whom?

Learning to dance tango means to become part of an “alternative” universe, in which the characteristic “objects”, the behaviors that may seem demodé, are more important, but above all it is necessary to free oneself from the chains and constraints imposed by our society. let yourself be carried away by music. It is necessary to become one with the partner, to interact to merge into one body.
Rigid people, who hardly tend to let go, will find it difficult to approach this dance that can be complicated but at the same time simple, because the real Tango is danced with the heart. In this regard I would like to mention an open letter to the people of Tango written by Tete Rusconi, one of the great old milonghers well known in Buenos Aires and throughout the world for his work of teaching and disseminating tango. In his words there is a sense of justified alarm that concerns the way of dancing tango, disinterested in what is behind it, music first and tradition, because everyone must make Tango something personal but in harmony with music tradition:
“On December 11, 1998, the national day of tango is celebrated here in Buenos Aires: on this day the speaker speaks with the greatest affection and respect to all those who have learned in this way, in one way or in another, to love the Tango as much as we love it.
I, Tete, I wish you could dance Tango in the best way, to find satisfaction in music so full of passion. Tango is a feeling: it is not difficult to learn to dance, but at the same time it is not easy. But you do not dance figures or steps, you dance music. I do not know a dancer or a place in the world that has danced without music.
You can not remain in the equivocation for so long: in this way you will never learn to dance.
You choose the teachers and professors to invite. Try to see the tango from another point of view: I try to explain myself. Tango is and will always be music, learning to walk it, to listen to it, to hear it, until it becomes something of its own, from which we can no longer detach. From this moment every person, every dancer will take his style, men and women. It is enough then with the cheats; do not buy repeated ways, buy Tango.
Why do not you go more in the Buenos Aires milongas?
Because there the milonguera people really dance: they are the ones who have taught to dance the current generation. Now the road that has been taken seems to be another, which makes a different tango appear, a camouflaged Tango. For the sake of the tango for the good of all, with the heart in hand I tell you, gentlemen, dance the music. Because music is Tango!

Conclusions

In this comment, by Astor Piazzolla, there is the essence of a music that goes beyond the simple function of accompanying the steps in this very famous dance.
Tango exalts feelings, captures energy and has the ability to merge with the most intimate feelings of the human soul. Tango is poetry, in the words of the songs but also in the relationship between the dancers; a poem that is renewed at every glance, at every contact, and that evolves dance after dance. Tango is improvisation, continuous creation that is born grows in the soul and is transmitted from the outside to those who are open enough to receive it. The music of the tango is not only heard with the ears but also above all with the heart because it is the feeling that characterizes the tango; the feeling experienced by the people who gave birth to him; that of the musicians who made it grow; that of the lyricists and singers who expressed it with particular inspiration; that of the dancers who from time to time open their hearts to a different partner in those three minutes so short but so intense. Because the tango, more than any dance so far, manages to express in a short time what we really are, because you can not lie, the embrace is so tight that we would discover immediately. In a society where everything gets old quickly, where everything is consumed goes out of fashion, the tango with its 100 years and more has been able to regain a centrality with its poignant personality and its renewed topicality in Europe, America and Japan.
The tango enchants, involves directors, writers, musicians, crowds always wider.
The tango has always gone against the current: it has broken habits, customs, established customs and for this reason has become transgressive, not so much for the embrace of the couple, but for the strangeness is complication of the steps that come out of any rule.
The tango is the meeting between the sentimental melody and the strength of the habanera; the choreography that characterizes the milonga; the rhythm of the candombe.
The tango is the result of the meeting of musical traditions from many continents.
With the tango two couples at the same time, with the same music, they can dance completely different tangos in the figures in style.
It is easy to guess what would come out of the comparison between a tango danced today with the same tango danced in the past: the contour elements, tastes and much more have changed.
You can not compare the tango at the beginning danced between men on the cobblestones of the streets of Buenos Aires, with the one then danced with shoes “ad hoc” in rooms with marble floors.
Tango is also an encounter between two people, it brings out our characters, our weaknesses, our energies. It is the instrument of expression of feelings: pain, joy, sense of freedom.
In a world where individualism reigns, tango allows two people to embrace, approach, discover, experience a common experience. It is almost a confession that makes you discover the partner with whom you dance and your own faults, limits, weaknesses. The tango teaches us to respect and feel the other, to exchange deep emotions with him, educates us to an authentic communication that helps man to regain a partly lost centrality. Tango is therefore a moment of encounter, knowledge, evasion, today as yesterday because man has not changed in the deep.