My Tango Diaries

"Love and dignity cannot share the same abode." -- Ovid Lately a different version of this rings in my mind. "Tango and dignity cannot share the same abode." I am only speculating, but I think the "dignity" meant above, is more like "pride". To be open to the connection, we must be open to the truth. And the truth may be that we're clumsy tonight, or we were insensitive to our partner, that we were wrong, that we were judgmental, that we hurt someone. In my last post, I emphasized the importance of letting our partner know what we need. To be honest, but never mean or ugly. To make it about the action, and not about the person. I can't keep up if we dance so quickly to this orchestra. (Rather than, 'you're motorboating me through the line of dance.' ) I'm not comfortable holding a conversation when dancing. (Rather than, 'I can't hear the music over your constant chatter.' ) May we open the embrace a little ...

There is much discussion lately, on forums and blogs, about three organizers of a Hong Kong milonga establishing their venue according to traditional Buenos Aires codas. At Las Chinitas, men, women and couples will be seated separately. The cabeceo is to be used. Dancers will never start inviting people to dance before the first song of the tanda is played. You can read the full set of rules here: http://laschinitashk.blogspot.com/ I can certainly see the usefulness of many of the codes, but I think there would always be a portion of the community who would feel stifled at having such rules put into place. For me there is only one major code that I think I would have trouble with in the beginning at least - separating everyone by gender (and couples). I'm used to being able to socialize with dancers of both genders, so even though I admit to spending my time mostly with other followers, I would have hard time getting used to not having the option of having a conversation with a lea...

This is another one of the ranty sort of posts that I've been debating about releasing from it's "Drafts" status. I may regret this, but I think it needs to be addressed. Milonga Manners My first milonga at Esquina Tango included the mini-beginner tango class (as it quite frequently does) and part of that class included instruction on using the cabeceo and other points of tango etiquette. This information was reinforced frequently by other tango dancers and teachers in the community. Even though I've been guilty of some missteps in navigating milonga protocol (see previous post on the folower's responsibilities regarding the cabeceo), I do try very hard to respect the codigos. Most of the "rules" of the milonga are there to keep everyone feeling comfortable and, in the case of the cabeceo, to save face. Because most of the dancers I encounter honor the codigos, I'd started taking for granted that everyone knew about them - that is was part of our...

(Picture: “The Cabeceo” A great picture by Tom Gettelfinger of Memphis) I had a conversation with a fellow tango dancer a couple of days ago, outside of the milonga, and said to him it seems like ages since we danced and I was looking forward to seeing some of the new moves he'd been learning. He smiled and shrugged and said he'd tried to cabeceo a couple of time, but I was never looking - always chatting or dancing. Oh dear. It's true. In an effort to seem nonchalant about my desire to dance, sometimes I appear downright uninterested. When everyone else at my table is dancing or otherwise occupied, I do watch the milonga floor and make a little eye contact. Well, very little. Old habits die hard. I want to look interested, but not over-eager. And by over-eager, of course I mean desperate . I almost always dance as much as I want to dance, occasionally more than I *should* dance if my feet had a vote in this, but I still have that fear of looking needy. Also, part of the ...