[TANGO-L] Tango emotions - pick your favorite

[Brian Dunn <brian @DANCEOFTHEHEART.COM>]

Lois wrote:
>>>
One of the most important things that I learned about the Argentinean
culture is their ability to feel all of their emotions openly and without
guilt, and without working at it. They are so open to let one emotion go to
let the other one in...I believe that understanding this one basic element
of the Argentinean personality is what started me on the path to
understanding this dance.
<<<

Brava, Lois...All tango emotions are "correct". With each new announcement
of the One True "preferred" tango emotion, it may be worth considering that
we are learning more about the listero in question than we are learning
about tango.

Luciana Valle was discussing emotions and tango in one of her Boulder
workshops some years ago.  She said that although many people think the
tango is only about dark feelings of being sad or lustful or angry, it's
actually about "deep" feelings as opposed to "light" feelings. "The tango
can be about being happy, too.but it's not a happiness of 'hee,hee,hee'
(light little superimposed giggles), it's about a happiness of 'ALL RIGHT,
YEAH!' (bent knees, clenched fists in an upward arc with surging dynamism).
It's a DEEP happiness that you feel DEEPLY, with your internal organs!"

This was tremendously illuminating for me at the time. I'd recently been
mulling over a quote from Ernesto Sabato in Julie Taylor's "Paper Tangos":
"Only gringos dance tango for fun." I'd taken this on as a judgment against
the happiness I sometimes feel when dancing, that I was thus somehow missing
the true essence of the tango experience. Luciana seemed to be saying that
tango can be an "emotional amplifier" that can help us focus WHATEVER is
happening in our emotional lives with a deep intensity perhaps not otherwise
available to us.   We get a lot of training in our daily lives on how to
avoid emotional encounters.  Yet tango draws many of us because of the
chance to transcend these limitations.  I recalled that some of my early
dance partners, more experienced than I, had a disconcerting habit of
staring me in the eye for some moments before we began to dance.  I now have
a greater appreciation of their locked-gaze challenge to me to be REALLY
PRESENT with them in the dance, to take the emotional risk to move beyond
the steps and the music into a real connection.  Tango can provide, as my
acting teacher says of her acting workshop,  ".a safe place to be
 dangerous." because after all, it can also feel threatening/dangerous to
give in to feelings of deep happiness - what if they go away?

Sabato's comment then made more sense to me. The implied criticism was not
against happy tango, but SHALLOW tango.

All the best,
Brian Dunn
Dance of the Heart
Boulder, Colorado  USA
1(303)938-0716
http://www.danceoftheheart.com