5 Reasons To Drop Everything and Go Take Tango Lessons in Buenos Aires
There are only two reasons a reasonably sane person would book an international trip to a foreign city where they don’t speak the language and know no one in order to spend a eight days studying and practicing a dance they have never even tried. A woman in love, or a woman recently out of love. I’ll leave it to you to guess which one I was. Let me rewind…
Late July in Austin, Texas. It’s oppressively hot and I’ve spent the past 6 months, yet again, trying to work against timing, against my instincts, and being the damned butterfly fluttering around like a lunatic, instead of being the still flower. And because timing always (always) wins, I finally took a step back and exhaled until my lungs were blissfully empty and cried until my eyes were clear.
A couple of days later, I’m reading about a package trip to Buenos Aires (which translates to “Good Air”) that is billed as a mash up of a couple of ‘self-help’ seminars and a few private tango lessons. Although I have done enough self-help work for a couple of lifetimes, the details of the trip are intriguing. And the timing is perfect (irony of ironies) – I would return with 24 hours to rest before fall semester began. For a myriad of reasons, I knew I needed to get the hell out of dodge, and I gleefully accepted this little slice of divine manifestation with zeal. I knew without a doubt this was the perfect kind of trip at the perfect time.
Problem #1: I don’t speak Spanish. Oh well. When in doubt, point at the menu, right?
Problem #2: I don’t know the first thing about tango. But, that’s what the classes are for, right?
A mere sixteen days later I’m boarding a 10 hour flight from Atlanta with a newly purchased Lonely Planet guide in hand. My heart is still heavy, but my head is ready for the adventure, even if only for the distraction for the next 10 days.
And then, right on cue, I meet Alejandro, the tango teacher. *
*spoiler alert: nothing happens, but keep reading.
And so, in no particular order, I present five reasons why you should drop everything and take tango lessons in Buenos Aires, the birthplace of the dance an inspiration for a short-lived Broadway musical in the mid-nineties called Forever Tango.
- “Tango es sexual”
No translation needed.
I’m sitting in a very old apartment in Buenos Aires surrounded by portenos (the term for people who are from Buenos Aires), foreigners and a few other Americans. We’re here to talk about the connection between tango and sex, though I’m wondering why a whole seminar is needed. To me, the connection is perfectly obvious. Tango can be a way to have very real, safe physical contact with another person whose name you may not even know. The dance is a fleeting, but no less real, moment of satisfaction. The close embrace of the tango demands flesh on flesh contact brings you back to your body and the supreme simplicity of connection without words.
Make no mistake, tango is sexual, sensual, and brings every emotion to the surface. It is not danced with the feet, but with the heart. Twenty minutes into my first tango lesson, I realize I’ve developed a crush on Alejandro. Or, more precisely, I’ve developed a crush on the whole process, the dance, and life again.
- Tango is an exercise in patience
“Wait…” Alejandro must have said this to me a hundred times, mid-step, as I tried to figure out where he was going to lead me before he had finished the step. “Don’t be in a rush, Aimee. Just be in the step.” I bust out laughing. “Oh, Ale, you don’t know who you’re saying that to.”
But his point is dead accurate about tango and life. The dance is made up of two individuals, and cannot be rushed by either partner, or everyone will lose their balance. Having spent much of the past decade in a swirl of “rushing” to find the guy, literally rushing from job to job, or spontaneously moving cross country a few times, I have spent the past couple of years trying to slow the hell down. “There is a step between the step'” says Alejandro, “don’t forget.”
Right then it clicked. I had been thinking of tango in terms of step 1, step 2, an abrupt jump from point A to B kinda thing, but tango, like life, demands more graceful, fluid motions. Tango also depends on using this patience to suspend any notions of anticipations, or better yet, get rid of anticipation altogether. Any time I tried to anticipate where Alejandro was going to lead me next, he never failed to feel the subtle shift in my weight. “Do you know where I’m going,” he smiled. “…no. I was trying to guess.” He nodded. “Exactly. Don’t do that. Don’t try to anticipate. Just be with me in the moment, and let me show you.”
Anything you say, Ale. Anything. You. Say.
We start dancing again, and this time, I don’t concentrate on the steps, but instead, think about gliding, wave-like, through the dance, and resign myself to the unknown. I think about being, not only in the moment, but in each second. Somewhere mid-song, Alejandro starts humming, and then singing along (in Spanish) to the passionate, mesmerizingly soulful song in Spanish, and suddenly I’m dizzy and wondering what kind of favor I did in a past life to deserve to live through this completely surreal moment.
The song ends. Damnit. “Eso, Aimee! Muy Bien!” he beams.
Yes, I think. Everything is muy bien. Everything is going to be muy bien. For the first time in a long while, I feel okay with being patient and living in the emotional quicksand known as the “unknown”, as it pertains to love. I am, and I think my family would attest, fairly patient and flexible when it comes to life in general, but not when it comes to love (or food). I’ve longed for a relationship for a long time, and become increasingly riddled with anxiety as the calendar pages continue to fade away. But tango has reminded me to slow the hell down and enjoy the ride a bit more.
- “Tango is improvisation”
Says Alejandro. “You mean, there’s not a routine,” I blanch. He firmly shakes his head. “There are a few basic steps, yes, but the dance is improvised.” It’s my first lesson, and I’m suddenly very aware that in about 20 seconds I’m going to be on my feet in my newly purchased tango shoes and torso to torso with this very handsome Argentine whose accent is to die for trying to learn a dance I’ve never done in my life.
My comfort zone has long since been left behind, but the swirling culmination of the experience of a new country, new language (which I don’t speak) and learning a new dance has me a bit flustered and I’m feeling a bit queasy. But then I remember the first rule of improv comedy: say yes to anything that is thrown at you, and do something with it. So, vamos. Life is, is it not, one long improvisation?
Alejandro first plays a few different pieces of tango music, from the 20’s, the 50’s and the 60’s, and while all of the music is beautiful and haunting. Tango is not just a music. It’s a feeling and a way of approaching life.
I think back to my first few hours in Buenos Aires. Walking for the first time down Defensia, I was startled when I stepped upon a piece of sidewalk that was no longer rooted down, and had to regain my balance mid-stride. Not two minutes later, the same thing happened. This time. I was annoyed. The third time it happened, I laughed. I get it, I thought, I just have to go with it.
A similar thing happened later in the week when I approached a subway station, only to find that service on that line had been suspended. The pre-tango Aimee would have done some serious brooding, but the post-tango Aimee just laughed, sashayed herself to the next subway line a few blocks away, and found a new route home.
The first hour-long lesson passes in a blur. Before I know it, it’s time to go, and I’m already looking forward to tomorrow’s lesson. Alejandro and I exchange a goodbye kiss on the cheek (cultural thing), and I float out of the studio to the subway.
By the time I resurface out of the subway at Plaza de Mayo, I no longer feel like the same person who boarded the plane three days ago. I hum to myself as I bound up the stairs into the night; I smile at everyone I pass. I feel more myself than I have in months. The sun has set and the air is crisp and sweet. The first thing I see is the Casa Rosada bathed in a warm, pink and utterly romantic glow. I stop dead in my tracks at the absolute perfection of the moment. So I did the only natural thing possible when you’ve just taken tango lessons in Buenos Aires and find yourself standing at Eva Peron’s old abode at twilight. I slung my satin tango shoe bag over my shoulder, threw my arms open, and sang “Hello, Buenos Aires” (from the musical Evita) while improv dancing and skipping over and around the tons of huge, gaping holes in the sidewalk.
- Tango is about balance
One of the most interesting things about tango is the seemingly drastic difference between the music/lyrics and the dance. While the music is searingly passionate and often includes bitter, violent lyrics, the dance is smooth, sexy, and, I can attest, can instantly put a smile on your face.
As Alejandro is addressing posture during my second lesson, he says “Tango is about connecting with another person, while still maintaining your own balance. If you don’t connect with the other person, the dance won’t work. If you don’t maintain your own balance, the dance won’t work.”
I know, right? Talk about a metaphor. And there’s more:
“When two people are truly connected, dancing together, there is no ‘follower’ or ‘leader’, but two people sharing the responsibility of the dance,” says Ale.
I feel a familiar pre-cry pang welling up in that back of my throat. That’s all I’m looking for, Ale, I wanted to wail. Mercifully, a second later he turned on the music, and two seconds later, he was teaching me how to pivot, and, just like that, I was ricocheted from despair back to joy in, literally, a single step.
By the end of the third lesson, I was hooked. I felt re-connected to myself, and had fallen in love with life again. Ok, so having a seriously good-looking Argentinian teacher and going for a glass of Malbec and tiramisu after each lesson didn’t hurt. In the end, it wasn’t about learning a dance, it was bringing some joy and adventure to my life, and that was worth every peso.
Around the World with Aimee 