Why Tango?

  Tango Dancers, ceramic sculpture, height 20cm

Tango is a dance that embodies a truth about life – that we only become complete in life by being united with another. This reflects the ancient Greek idea that the first human was cleaved in two, to make man and woman, and ever since the two halves have sought to become complete by uniting one with another. Tango is one of the best ways of making life whole through uniting with another in the tango embrace and in moving to music two bodies become one. This sculpture tries to capture two aspects of tango - the classic still pose of the embrace and the passionate step.

Life is a milonga

                                               Tango Bal, acrylic and pastel, 21x 30cm

A milonga is a tango dance or ball and my picture, inspired by a painting by Sonia Delaunay, tries to express the feeling of dancing within a swirl of moving dancers. At a milonga dancers can transcend their cares, forget time, death and disappointment and live fully in the moment.

The following is my translation of an old tango song called ‘Life is a milonga’ (La vida es un milonga )

Everyone in the world hopes
to improve their situation;
everyone lives with a sigh
whether or not they have cause.

 Everyone in the world laments

when things are not going well;
nobody stands in the storm
if it comes against them straight.

 Life is a milonga -

you have to dance to how it goes;
it will leave you behind on the floor
if you are the one to lose the beat.

 Life is a milonga -

you have to dance to how it goes,
because it's sad to sit out
while the others dance on their feet.

(Music: F. Montoni/Lyrics: R. Sciammarella, 1941)

Hear it played on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0cV2hr-4_8

 

The Tango Embrace

 

Tango Embrace, ceramic, height 30cm

There are many reasons for dancing tango but the reason most often cited is the joy of the embrace. Being enfolded in the arms of another can be hugely satisfying, or it can be the opposite. Tango is about walking in an embrace to music. It is through the embrace that tango partners communicate and the embrace in tango is unlike the embrace in any other dance.

The simple act of two people standing still in the closed loop of the embrace communicates something more profound than language. It can have a metaphysical quality comparable to healing practices like yoga, pilates, or shiatsu, which aim to achieve a letting go, through deep connection with another and with the universe.  

The embrace in tango is more important than dancing technique - it shows how you feel about your partner.  In Buenos Aires they say that the embrace tells you everything before you take the first step.