My Tango Diaries

“Flow is a harmonious experience where mind and body are working together effortlessly, leaving the person feeling that something special has just occurred…This is because flow lifts experience from the ordinary to the optimal, and it is in those moments that we feel truly alive and in tune with what we are doing.” - Susan A. Jackson and Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi, from Joy in Motion Ever since I wrote about flow on the dance floor , I've gotten emails asking me to explain what I meant by it - to elaborate further on what one type of music has related to another. It's been a bit of a mess trying to explain this well, but here goes. I have what I think sounds like a simple idea - but for something so simple at first blush, it's gotten pretty complicated to try to articulate. So please be patient while I tug at the threads of this and see if I can unravel the thoughts in my head. I'm limited in my musical vocabulary, so there are some terms I might not be using correctly - o...

Flow Watching videos of some milongas in Buenos Aires is mesmerizing for me. The music and dancing are beautiful generally, but, especially with some of the more crowded traditional milongas, if the camera angle is just right, you can see the mass of people moving counter-clockwise as one flowing, beautiful, multi-legged organism. Each couple is doing something different, but they are within the music together, with the rest of the floor. Some dancers call this "flow". When you've felt it on the dance floor, there's nothing else like it. It requires a high level of floorcraft and a certain willingness to not stand out - if that makes sense. Within the flow, my partner and I can relax a little, be soothed by the music, each other, and the mass of bodies around us. It's deeply moving, almost meditative. Blissful. Soothing on an almost cellular level. That is the milonga experience I crave and it's so rare. I hear it's rare pretty much everywhere outside of...