TANGO DANCING: The Walk

Built on Stillness

It has been observed that painting starts with a blank canvas.

It has also been said that music starts on a canvas of silence. 

I believe that movement, particularly in the case of social Argentine tango, starts on a canvas of stillness.

This stillness is a state where all possibilities exist, but where none have yet taken form. It can be found in the initial embrace of a tango couple, or in the pause just after their first weight shift. A sort of embracing of the unknown, if you will.

And while a painting eventually becomes filled with detail, and a piece of abounds with a multitude of sounds, tango too can evolve to an endlessly complex, or rich, or subtle series of expressive movements…movements done in concert with ones partner, with the music, and with the others on the floor.

For me, all this interesting movement in tango works best when that still point can be accessed at any point along the way. That neutral balance point…where a forward step is just as likely as a back cross…where the amount of pivot in a turn is yet unknown.  It’s akin to a meditative still point in between one’s inhale and exhale, a point that allows reorganization of one’s senses, and where all possibilities again present themselves.

In tango, this still point informs how one walks. And how one walks establishes ones desirability as a tango partner.

It’s also been said that beginning dancers want intermediate material, intermediate dancers want advanced material, and advanced dancers just want to learn better how to walk.

“It takes 20 minutes to learn a step. It takes 20 years how to learn to walk” This according to Komala Vos (who was quoting some Argentine master, I believe.)  At that rate, I’ll be in my 60’s before I walk really well.

One of my missions in tango is to break down my partners’ and students’ pattern recognition devices … to lead them where they feel least likely to be lead … to take the somewhere different than where their tendencies dictate. And eventually to facilitate that still point where all options are equally available.