Friday, February 11, 2011

" Please, just for me, forget the steps... Hold me, feel the music, and give me your soul. Then I can give you mine."




" WARNING: TANGO CONTAINS HIGHLY ADDICTIVE INGREDIENTS, SUCH AS PAIN, PLEASURE, PASSION, EXCITEMENT, CONNECTION, FREEDOM, TORMENT, AND BLISS. IN SEVEN OUT OF TEN CASES IT TAKES OVER A PERSON'S LIFE."

Naomi Hotta

The wealth of a tango couple resides in that they both contribute to the choreographic creation. The improvision, the emotion that each feels which is materialized in steps. It is ideal when both partners contribute what they feel to the music.
Guillermina Quiroga





"I believe that Tango has the potential to bring out the best in each of us, at least while in the embrace. We surrender our egos; leave prickly personality traits at the table; and cease to be CEOs, taxi drivers, engineers, unemployed. We replace all our externals with a purity of spirit, a generosity of kindness, splendid caring. And when these elements flow freely between partners, it is... the joy."




 "There are no wrong moves in tango, only new ones."
   VaroTango


Other music exists to heal wounds; but the tango when sung and played is for the purpose of opening them, for the purpose of sticking you finger in the wound and to tear them until they bleed.



“A good dancer is one who listens to the music…We dance the music not the steps. Anyone who aspires to dance never thinks about what he is going to do. What he cares about is that he follows the music. You see, we are painters. We paint the music with our feet..” 
Carlos Gavito



People talk about styles of tango, but there is only one tango. It accommodates itself to every place and every era.
Eduardo Arquimbau



I come to tango to relax – the music carries me and makes a dance for me. With other music, I have to make a dance myself.




Tango is not a dance, it’s a feeling. And how do you teach a feeling?



You must certainly follow the rules of tango. Follow the technique you learn and follow the man's lead, but try to move like yourself. The form of movement should be absolutely personal with its own dynamics and its own expression. It is also important for a woman learning tango to learn to perceive the man - to be able to follow him in every way: in each pause, in each breath. Let yourself be led, and let yourself be filled with the music to be able to interpret it.
Guillermina Quiroga


When you dance tango with someone, you don’t need to know their entire history in order to get a glimpse of their more ‘raw’ self, their human warmth or lack thereof, their ability to listen and participate in a dialogue, their ability to enjoy the music, open themselves emotionally and show their vulnerable side. It’s harder to hide our ‘raw self’ if we are not able to use words to conceal.




The Tango is the ultimate communication between two people. It begins with an embrace, an initial sharing of affection, yet stresses individual balance... The mastering of one's individual balance is what allows two bodies to dance as one, along with a technique that is clean and uncluttered, a form that is pure, a line that is classical and an elegance that is sublime.
Miguel Angel Pla



The tango is a feeling that is danced. That's why it is not choreographed, though it can have sequences, like all feelings. You can dance love, rage, happiness, pleasure, every mood. The tango is not a dance to demonstrate ability but rather an interpretation of feeling. It is not just moving your feet and posturing. The tango is Argentine, but it belongs to all those who understand its feelings and its codes.
Cacho Dante



What we need are more people with sensitivity and fewer exhibitionists.
Osvaldo Natucci


Sssh. Don't tell anyone this. This is a secret. Imagine telling a beginner man he has to learn to find the rhythm of the music, watch out for navigational hazards on the dance floor, develop a strategy on the spot for dealing with them choosing from a repertoire of movements he has learned, then lead the woman to move in the intended direction with the intended speed while maintaining the connection, and then... He has to follow the woman's response to his lead to determine the next move (within a millisecond, after all, this is not chess), and take responsibility for whatever goes wrong. And we wonder why there aren't enough men in tango? Yet the surviving men keep trying. It must be that the rewards of tango are greater than its obstacles.
Jay Rabe



Now, people - because they've been taught that way - before they move they do too many things. Instead of relaxing and just let the movement take you; and then correcting a few things here and there; they think too much... And if you start thinking like that, the last thing you can do is walk... which is what you want.
Fabian Salas



When someone begins he can be dazzled by things that are external; the things of tango are internal... A dancer arrives at the roots of tango when he falls in love...
Eduardo Arquimba


The secret of tango is in this moment of improvisation that happens between step and step. It is to make the impossible thing possible: to dance silence. This is essential to learn in tango dance, the real dance, that of the silence, of following the melody
Carlos Gavito





The tango trance. Seek it, and it will elude you. Talk about it in too much detail and it will haunt you evily. Live for it, and you will die many deaths. Treasure it, but don't hold onto it. Dance with love and freedom and it will embrace you. Be vulnerable, and feel it's power.
Dan Boccia


Tango is about feeling and sensitivity, otherwise you are just doing gymnastics. You can do all the steps but it has to have the feeling and sensitivity of authentic tango.
Miguel Zotto


Listen to the different orchestras. You have to begin by loving tango, to let it go into your veins, until it arrives to your heart. And then seek a good teacher. Go to the milongas and dance with different people. Even if you are dating somebody, you have to dance with different women and he has to dance with different men. This way you learn to dance.
Maria Nieves


The music goes in my ears, is filtered through my heart, and comes out through my feet.
El Flaco Dany Garcia



How did you choose the tango?” ... I didn’t. The tango chose me.
"The Tango lesson"



The tango is an embrace in movement. A man and a woman enter a dialogue through their bodies, guided by music which has an almost somber quality of yearning. Of a passion that can that can never be fulfilled. Of a sweet sadness. Two strangers become one for the duration of the dance. Two opposites come together briefly to create the fantasy of a harmonious whole.
Gisela Kirberg Mamone


Great dancers are not great because of their technique; they are great because of their passion.
Martha Graham


Love is TANGO and TANGO is love! Yes, it is a dance, yet so much more then just any dance. It is an ongoing conversation between two souls, two hearts and two bodies. It is a sacred dance we enter in with one another, where both 'masculine' and 'feminine' feel fully expressed and honored.
Ilona Glinarsky


For me, when I think of the best leaders I've danced with, I've noticed a commonality between all of them which is an apparent lack of ego or bravado. Instead of thinking about themselves, they just surrender to the music and to the pleasure of having a woman in their arms, no matter if she's experienced or not. They are the kind who would never let a woman feel incompetent or humiliated but instead as though it's been a sublime privilege to share this wonderful thing called tango with them. The worst leaders are the ones who don't pay attention to a woman's skill level and instead try to guide her into doing moves that are obviously beyond her knowledge of the choreography, thus shaming and humiliating her. They are the worst because they are only focusing on themselves instead of making it a wonderful experience for them both. In other words, they didn't surrender to the experience but to their own egos with complete disregard for the women's.
Caroline Polack