Tango: First step

I consider myself a dancer. One who interprets the music, moves, and doesn't care much about what I look like. i just know that the feeling when I dance is like a high I like to chase every time I'm on the dance floor. I've danced various latin dances for three years, none of which are very similar to Tango. Tango is much more structured than Salsa, arguably as romantic as bachata, but more meditative than any dance that I've ever danced. 

As one who has latin danced for about three years, I experience tango in a much different way. Although many Latin dances, such as Salsa and Merengue, are forms of expression and communication, I see these dances as dances of two people dancing together, but separately. However, as described in the intro video, and as I've experienced, Tango is a dance of two people dancing as a singular unit. In the middle of the video, a woman said, that in Tango, "As woman, we can close our eyes and travel to another planet". As a man who has danced Tango, I don't see this experience as exclusive to women. When I close my eyes, I feel like I enter meditation. I am focused on mine and my partner's movements, and the unsaid feeling between us.  

This blog is my journal of my class at DU: Tango: Border crossings in Art, Race, Gender, and Politics. 

Essentially, In my reading of the first chapter of our textbook, Negotiating Influence: Touch and Tango by Eric Manning, I have gained a new perspective on asking a person to dance, and the actual dancing of Tango, I have come to realize how purposeful little actions can be. in Tango, asking for a dance is  purposeful and sexual in the most respectful of ways. Asking a person to dance in a milanga is done by looking at a person across the room. A gesture that says, "I want to share, communicate, touch you, and interpret this song with you". With a nod of the head, the person can accept ones invitation or deny it without social embarrassment. 

I think that reading Politics of Touch is the first time that I enjoyed reading a textbook, and the most beautiful writing of describing something as simple as touch. 

According to Manning, touch "is an utterance geared toward an other to whom I have decided to expose myself, skin to skin", (Manning 9). Touch, therefore, is a purposeful act, and in the context of Tango, it means that touching somebody or dancing with somebody means that for the duration of a song, I want to expose myself, and communicate through not only words. I want to move to the music and interpret my feelings through movement. 

When two people begin to dance they become one. Each person has their own experience, and a shared experience all in the same time. There is so much meaning to the dance as shown through the video for the week, and this is probably the reason for peoples obsession with the dance. 

Furthermore dance has much more meaning than one may think. Dance is not only a form of expression, but a means of communication. Especially in Tango, the slightest signal invokes movement of the body. It is a dance not to display one's skill or physique, but rather a dance for one's self, and for a couple at the same time. Like I've stated, I have done dances such as salsa, bachata, merengue, chacha, and hip hop, but the feeling of tango is much different, and has proven a very difficult dance for me. 

I've always had an interest in Tango, but previously it had been for a different reason.The first time that I went to the University of Denver's Tango club, I had visions of the dos equis most interesting man in the world. A gentleman who knows lots of foreign languages, has traversed the world, can conduct himself in any social situation, and of course know tango. It was after my first class that I saw tango has much more to it. Since my first class, I've been to the Tango club about 5-10 times, however, my busy daily life, and my time in Japan has kept me from coming regularly. 

I am hoping that through this class, I will be able to delve deeper into the feeling and meaning that tango provokes in such people as our professor, Erin Manning, and the other obsessed tango dancers across the world. And of course I am excited to develop my own technique and style in the art of tango.