The Orchestra of Dancers

The music starts. 

It moves me and others to stand and join the orchestra.  

I feel the music pulsing in my body.  Urging me.

A mere touch of my hand, and the power of the music transfers to her.

We move in tandem as if we have known each other since the start of time.

We join the orchestra at its every turn and phrase.

How does the music play me, make me, make us, move like this?

I feel as if I know the music as much as the orchestra does. 

Or is it that music knows us to the depths of our humanity, the dancing animal?

It cannot get any better than this . . . until it does.  

Now those around us are just as much a part of us as the orchestra is. 

We are now an organism coming to life on this small clod of dirt, spinning around an insignificant star in an insignificant galaxy.

This is my greatest moment when I dance in tandem with the orchestra and those with whom the music has possessed so completely . . .

When suddenly the Milky Way becomes a significant galaxy . . .

Our star, especially brilliant . . .

And this clod of dirt, the most welcoming place for a dance floor in the universe.

Note:  Musicality is not a skill.  It is yielding to the power of music.  Being possessed to the bone by who you are at your purest humanity.  Music knows you, and will guide you to know yourself. 

Appropriate Touch in Tango

Let me tell you about a few very memorable, surprising moments when I first started dancing. You tell me if you think they were appropriate:

I was in Boston.  A dance partner snuggled up to me, putting her vulva firmly against my right leg.  She bent her torso backwards, and off we went on a foxtrot promenade.  I'll be honest: That shook me up.  This, she told me later, was the International Ballroom definition of connection.  I thought that I knew the foxtrot, but not like that!  Many years later, I learned Argentine tango.  At that time I was an experienced salsa, merengue, and bachata dancer. I was at a Latin bar in El Paso, Texas. The young lady made the same kind of connection as described above while dancing the Bachata.  This second dancer and dance, the bachata, were from the Dominican Republic.  Neither of the women above asked me for permission.

I cannot suggest what appropriate touch is for you because each person is different, and each culture is different. Some behavior is truly inappropriate as judged from a multicultural perspective.*  This post, however, focuses on norms for certain dances and their country of origins. In other words, some dances define “appropriate touch” differently.

There is also one's own personal experiences which define what is appropriate. My family were huggers, which would be awkward and even inappropriate in some families. Where I live now in France, friends and family--both male and female--greet me with an “air kiss” on each cheek, but also in France I am not to hug them--unless, of course, they dance tango. What does this all mean?  “Appropriate touch,” cannot be defined by one group of people.  The countries I have lived in (Mexico, Egypt, Germany, and France)--all have influenced me differently to practice what body and verbal language I use.  Yet, monocultural and monolingual people around me--especially in America--want to legislate what they define as being “appropriate discourse” and “appropriate touch." This is nothing more than an extension of believing that American culture is the center of the universe.

Morality Police in Action
I bring up this subject because of all the drama I saw about “appropriate touch” in Austin, Texas.  More specifically, we are talking about a close embrace here.  I haven't seen the same issue in Europe. Before the first of two times I lived in Austin, the tango community had already started with people learning tango and going to Argentina.  They eventually brought back Argentine teachers to Texas.  However, in 2019 the community was reeling from some fairly young “influencers” who wished to use their kink community norms and apply these ideas to Argentine tango. In the kink community, asking for permission is the norm.  Asking if a milonguero embrace is acceptable would be like asking if I can make some turns in salsa. Austin, a once very open and loving tango community, was poisoned--for a few years--by this notion of what others felt was appropriate or not appropriate touch. But the problem still continues all across the US.

One thing I would recommend to monocultural/monolingual people or those damaged by their trauma history is you not attempt to change a dance or tell what other cultures should do to meet your needs.  Take up some other thing, like playing cards, or just stay at home.  You are the monarch of your own castle that way. However, if you stay with tango and dance with safe and caring people, trauma histories can be addressed organically by facing your fears.  It's called exposure therapy.  The trick is to find the right people and the right community.  I suggest working with a trained therapist, especially if they are dancers.

In Austin, they had a meeting to decide who was naughty or nice.  One member of the kink community told others that I might be a “perpetrator” because unlike most, I was dancing in a close embrace.  An older Argentine couple came to my defense.  They told her that the way I dance is a normal milonguero style.  One of my favorite partners, who had spent a lot of time in Argentina, was accosted verbally by the same upholder against close embraces.  The “upholder” told this marvelous tango dancer that she was a bad example for the community because of her close embrace!  My friend replied simply, “Go fuck off!”  I have been trying to think of a more appropriate way of responding, but so far, the words just don't come to me. She and I did just fine fending of these influencers, but another person was totally ostracized and shammed.  Was he truly so inappropriate or was it that he was brown, poor, a sensitive musician, and struggling? My wife and I, newly returning to Austin from years in Europe, did not attend the Austin Festival that year, and instead found warm embraces in Salt Lake City's tango encuentro.  Imagine that, leaving Austin to go to Salt Lake City to escape the prudes!

Cultural Appropriation 
In tango, asking for consent for a normal embrace for social tango is like asking swimmers at a public pool if you can get in the water with them. What is happening in tango in certain communities is simply “cultural appropriation”--taking a tradition and way of being from one country, calling it the same name in one's own country but insisting on transforming it into something quite different.  Arthur Murry Studios did exactly this with Argentine tango.  The cultural appropriate of tango in this case has created a dance that is strange and even horrifying for most Argentine tango dancers to watch.  Here's the test if your community has culturally appropriated tango: Does tango in your community look like how it is danced in Argentina?  No?  C.A. 

If you are going to dance “Argentine” tango, it's best that you know what touch means at the source of this wonderful dance.  But if you wish to dance American tango or European Ballroom Tango, please go to a dance studio to learn an adapted style of tango.  Warning: Once you are at the gold or platinum level, you will join your partner at the hips and bend away from each other at the torso.  Have fun with that. That's all “inappropriate” stuff for authentic Argentine tango.  

For me, appropriate touch is a warm embrace as if you love and respect that person and accept them the way they are.  That says it well for Argentine tango's touch in just a few words.   I recommend this sort of touch as the appropriate touch for a milonga.

This blog has addressed real issues with inappropriate behavior at the milonga. Austin never really confronted "outstanding, white members" of their community that could have fit into some of the descriptions in the following blog posts I have written about truly inappropriate behavior.

_________________________________________

* Regarding truly inappropriate behavior (extra reading):

• Heartbreak Milonga and the Tango Tomcat is my translation from the German about inappropriate behavior at milongas.
• Tango Psychopaths refers to a book, given to me by a forensic psychiatrist, who appears in courts around the US to describe the level of dangerousness of a person being charged (often for murder). The book is The Gift of Fear. Since that book was written and my post, more is known about the differences between male and female psychopaths. So let me add:  Female (tango) psychopaths tend not to physically harass, harm or kill their victims, but enjoy ruining a person's reputation, getting the person ostracized from a community, and even ruining their ability to make a living.
• Kitty Litter was about the women new to tango who left tango because of vulture teachers or excellent dancers who lorded over them.  
• If not for me, then for them is a short film completed by Marco Calvise, a producer/director totally outside of the tango world.  Yet he picks up on so many aspects of the tango scene, including the "tango tomcat."  

Photo credit:  https://www.tangotouch.it

Men Dancing with Men

 

This post is for male tango dancers.  It's a letter to men.  There are many classes and forums for dual-role women. Please tell me if you know of any classes or forums that address just the dual-role men.

Gentlemen, 

I am a strong believer in Ladies Only tango classes.  Doesn't it make sense that for many of the same reasons, Gentlemen Only classes would be helpful for us?  Before reading more, ask yourself. “What is so good and helpful about ladies-only classes that likewise would be good for same-sex classes for men”?  Are same sex classes especially good for learning the role one doesn't know as well?  I say an emphatic yes.

Ladies Only and Gentlemen Only classes
These are some of my tentative conclusions about same-sex classes and dancing from experiences I will share below: 

• Same-sex classes and dancing with the same sex help one to learn the role one does not know well. 
• Beginner following men learn from experienced leaders in Men Only classes (rare) or in practicas.  Milongas rarely have men dancing with men because of the problem with a gender imbalance. When I see a lot of women sitting, I rarely dance with another man. 
• In Ladies Only classes and dancing, the beginner leading ladies experience well-trained followers. In both cases of same-sex role-changes, this is a great help. Leading Ladies have ample chances to get experience at milongas, whereas this is far less true for men.

Let me give some background and experiences (the good, bad, and ugly).

Why I started
My wife is learning the rol masculino (as it is called in Argentina).  She practices with me.  She gets tired of going to events and not dancing as much as she would like, or having many men who are not well-versed in musicality. We dance weekly at a small milonga in France, and she is happy to have warm embraces with women rather than dancing with men (and women) who try to impress their partners with their open-embrace moves. The nice thing is that she is no longer sitting during great music.  

Early experiences:
2010. Austin, Texas. I practice both roles with a close-embrace male teacher.  I stop because I feel that I am becoming judgmental of experienced women who do not know how to lean into a close milonguero embrace in their own role, who are passive followers. Fortunately, today I no longer feel judgmental.  Learning both roles is good for me and a blast. I take my partners as they are.  In other words, I am growing up a bit.

2019.  Austin, Texas (returning 10 years later). My French wife takes up learning the "leader's" role in Texas.  A great European teacher from Bulgaria now in Texas, helps her.  I am my wife's practice partner for a basic tango walk on both sides of the embrace.  I suggest that she do what I did as a beginner--start with a great walk in the parallel system and dance on both sides of the embrace.

2024. In Strasbourg, France, a male friend, Frédéric, leads me for a tanda at an encuentro.  It is one of my best moments at that 3-day event. We are both musicians, and exchanging roles was great.  We laugh the whole time.

2024. In Slovenia, I continue at a tango camp to learn a bit of the rol feminino, and I also have truly magical moments.  It is always magical with good male dancers there. So again I am enthusiastic, and later start taking basic classes besides just practicing with my wife at a practica in Saarbrücken, Germany, which is not too far from my place in France.

2025.
January.  At a dual-role encuentro, I had several great moments--mostly with men when I was following, especially with Marco from Italy.  At this double-role encuentro (3 days and 5 milongas), some things that happened I fully expected. Other things were really demotivating because of some really unkind remarks from a woman and difficult female leaders whom I know struggle with both roles.  I regained my enthusiasm at a nearby practica, mostly being led by my wife and a great lady lead, Crista, who showed up a few times, coming all the way from Luxembourg.  I warned her I was a beginner, and she really took that to heart.  She ramped up the skill level only after figuring out slowly what I could do.

February. I danced with a dual-role male dancer at a practica.  Just like with Frédéric in Strasbourg, Wolfgang is very musical and very clear. He also challenged me to drop the tension I had in my right arm every time I was confused or nervous. We exchanged roles and laughed a lot.  Again, with Wolfgang, I was totally motivated to improve.  Also, I really spoke up with the practica teachers to get their help with my new role, and sprang forward in my progress with their help.

March (now), as I write this: I finally can dance with women who lead.  They are usually very light, for the most part, in their guiding movements.  I especially value this now, just coming back from an encuentro in Bourgogne, France, in late February. I danced with a woman, Marie, who had been in an accident. I danced barely touching her injured back, and it was amazing how well it went. I had tears in my eyes at the end of the tanda. Light and gentle guiding, gentlemen, is actually an amazing thing.  Marie changed my dance forever for both roles. It was that powerful. You will especially learn it from women as you progress in being "guided," as the French say, or learn how to "accompany," as they say in Argentina.  My hope of being guided by both men and women is getting closer and faster than expected.  My wife told me that at the last encuentro we went to last weekend, that I was her favorite follower.  What an honor!

Gentlemen, I see more and more women learning both roles or even exclusively leading other women. Women who lead are often leading women who will not dance with you. It's not necessarily the case that the Leading Lady is better than you, that she has great followers accepting her cabeceo.  Perhaps, they like a softer lead, or they are weary of men leading with the arms, or you stink, or you are too tall, or too old, or perhaps they simply prefer to give women leads a chance.  You might fix everything except "too tall" or "too old," and they still will not dance with you.  There will come a time (or you have already experienced it) that the role imbalance has now left you sitting as all the women are on the dance floor. In this scenario, can you dance with a man and have a blast?  I can. It wasn't easy, but it was worth it.  There is a Biagi tanda playing, and I don't want to sit.  Lead me! 

Men have an unfair advantage at engineering universities. Women have an unfair advantage in many countries as dancers.  Perhaps not so much today, but throughout time, little girls and boys have been harmed by being told to avoid certain roles. If your milongas have too many women, it is probably because of cultural taboos against male dancers. This is not true in Cuba, for example. The alpha male is a good dancer in Cuba, but not in New York, Berlin, or Paris.  Tango can easily become a defacto ladies only event if you live in a country that has told boys from the start that dancing is for girls.  It's time to level up and learn both roles.  Dancing with men is, in my opinion, the fastest way to learning quickly as a dual-role dancer.

Photo Credit:  Thorsten James, Saarbrücken, Germany