[Tango-L] Lead an invitation that can be ignored or fought‏‏

[Sergio Vandekier]

"And I'd love to here some comments from the ladies - especially those who live in Buenos Aires, or at least visit a lot. Does this happen there?"


When you dance Argentine Tango in Buenos Aires, you go a milonga, you choose a particular lady you feel a desire to dance with, and stare in the proper way, to see if she has a desire to dance with you.   If she shows interest, she stares back, and nodes.

You meet en la pista de baile, (the dancing floor) and start dancing.  

Tango is a manifestation of Argentine popular culture, a society where traditionally men and women do their best to cooperate with each other rather than to compete or antagonize.

So when you enter a relationship or start a tango in Buenos Aires you can expect cooperation, not indifference, resistance or quarreling. 

You are certain that she accepted to dance with you, because she likes to dance with you and therefore she will do her best to be attentive and follow every lead with every little nuance.

If something does not work perfectly well, while dancing tango, one has to look for the reason. 
Assuming that you are a good dancer who leads with clarity, perhaps she is not as good as you thought she was, then you attempt to hide this fact by making sure you lead moves, you are certain she can follow.

It does not even cross your mind that she could be undermining "that tango" on purpose.    The base of our culture is cooperation and respect between the sexes, each one in his own world, different but equal. ( I do not care if some foreign woman,  have a different perspective, she has the right to her own opinion).

I in my masculine role, offer protection, feel the music, lead with clarity, (when I say lead, I mean everything including the embellishments she executes and the type of ornaments she does), allow enough time for her artistic expression, weight the type of response I receive, and adjust my future leads in relation to that response, trying to make sure she dances with ease and pleasure.  

So we say that tango is a conversation because whatever she does, affects what I will do next. I am conscious that this is "our" tango not "my" or "her" tango.

In her feminine role, she comes to my arms like a bird that has entered the nest, she is hyper-attentive to make an accurate interpretation of my lead, she adds her feminine touch to every move she executes, I realize how much easily she does everything with beautiful simplicity, elasticity and harmony, than I do. 

At certain moment there is a surrendering of both to the embrace, a real fusion of the spirit and the body. It is like a dream that ends when the music stops.

 
Best wishes, Sergio

PS.  If you dance with a woman that ignores your lead, antagonizes you and fights the lead, you are not dancing Argentine Tango. 

      If you want to dance tango, stop right now, take her back to her seat and never ask her to dance again. Hopefully you can introduce her to some guy you strongly dislike.


 
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