When someone finds out that I love to dance, they nearly always ask, "Do you compete?" My answer is: "Yes, I compete with myself to be a better me." Isn't it a shame that dance--one of the few biological markers of our essential humanity--is something to sit down and watch? Something to be judged by experts?
If have the uniqueness of being the musical and dancing animal is on one side, then the thing we have in common with animals nature to compete. We are all a mix of human and animal. So why not embrace that part of us? It's really okay, but being competitive is not my highest sense of what dance is. Partly, I would say that in order to win, dancers do things that are gymnastics or ballet moves, and that's when the crowd cheers. Maybe competition corrupts the beauty of the inner experience of tango?
Why do people start dancing as adults?
As children we just dance naturally and without education when music plays. As adults, we return to dance because a thirst for social connection, and maybe to re-find our humanity? At least it is very rare that adults return to dance in order to get into a dance competition. Unlike what ballroom dance has become, Argentine tango for the most part remains a vibrant expression of a social community. If you dance social tango for many years, you just might arrive at being someone who could compete. But why? Is it good for you? Mostly not. Is good for your dance community? Mostly not.
Dance should be good for you
Social dancing creates a cascade of happy hormones (such as dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin), but dance competition in research literature has been shown to create a high level of cortisol, a stress hormone. Cortisol in our blood is not all bad for survival situations, but in the majority of urban areas, cortisol baseline levels are way too high and create many problems with our health. The cortisol levels in my PTSD patients are so high that it slowly killing them. Cortisol through competition often helps activities (such as dance) that lead to self-actualization, but self-actualization does not need competition for motivation! Competition is not all bad, but I am very suspicious of the "side effects" of competition in relation to dance.
In the future I will try not to say, "I compete with myself." I want to say instead, "Yes, I win every time I dance. . . . [pause]. I win a lot of smiles and wonderful hugs. It's called social tango. You should try it."
Competive interactions in the animal world range from unfriendly to savage. Is humanity any different? Stage or performance or competitive tango is a kind of tango--a tango that is external, which seeks status and applause. Social tango is internal and seeks a connection to the music and one's partner. Social tango, therefore, is more than a kind of tango; it is a kind tango.
Photo credit: Argentina's Cristian Sosa, right, and Maria Noel Sciuto celebrate after winning the 2012 Tango Dance World Cup stage finals in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012. Bravo for them.
