Stanisław Jerzy Dołżyk

Argentine Tango

Argentine tango — a style of music and dance that originated in Argentina and Uruguay, typically performed by a tango orchestra. The bandoneon is tango music's signature instrument.

Classic Argentine tango is a dance characterised by improvisation and closeness between partners. Tango lyrics, often written in lunfardo slang, typically express sorrow or heartbreak. One of tango's greatest poets, Enrique Santos Discépolo, called tango "a sad thought that is danced."

Tango — both the dance and the music — is part of humanity's intangible cultural heritage, and was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2009.

Tango is an encounter that begins with a glance, leads inexorably to an embrace, and truly unfolds in the dance. It is a blend of experience and creativity, balance and chaos, subtlety and coarseness. Already in the embrace an unwritten agreement takes shape — a wordless understanding between two protagonists for whom this one particular dance is a personal adventure.

They dance together, sharing the space around them. Each, in their own way, listens to the other's body; guesses their steps, registers emotions — sometimes fear, sometimes surprise. They tell their lives in a secret dialogue of questions and answers — stories that matter here and now, and are forgotten as soon as they leave the floor.

How is tango danced?

Experienced dancers don't need to look at each other or talk, because body language tells them more about their partner than anything else. She shouldn't take the initiative. She may sometimes slip in a "whim" of her own, but only when she is sure it won't upset their shared balance. She subtly signals her intention by drawing back slightly and showing hesitation, to remind her partner that she is here too and that he isn't dancing alone. In tango, as in life, the only dominance a woman has over a man is to hold him back, never to hurry him on. That is her task. The man strides forward and she yields — without conviction, that much is certain.

For some, talking is a profanation of the dance, and people only start a conversation to cover up mistakes or simply a lack of skill.

A true milonguero must lead and assert his position in the dance. He takes his partner firmly in his arms and holds her close to his chest, and she lets herself be led as if in a dream, listening to the rhythm of his heart and the pace of his breathing.

It takes two to tango. But that's not all, because a dancing couple at a milonga is never alone. With them are the orchestra and the music, the singer whispering motifs of dreams or nightmares into their ears. Each dances with their whole self — body, feelings and senses — which turn music into movement and multiply the energy created by the other couples. No one is more important than the rest. All that individuality, so important before the tanda when choosing a partner, disappears during the dance, because all that counts is pleasure, joy and — why not say it — the ecstasy of the moment.

Waltz, tango, milonga, tango... three rhythms, but really three entirely separate adventures.

The waltz is heavenly, because it speaks to the soul. Its words are romantic, idealising woman, typical of the European salons where it was born. It tells of adoration, of pure and platonic love, far from bodily desire and physical acts. A delight of the gods that draws you in like a whirlpool and leaves innocent memories.

The milonga is earthly, with African roots, provocative and playful. Dancing a milonga together is like being accomplices in one and the same mischief.

And between heaven and earth... tango, carnal and noble at once. The steps of tango are like the letters of an alphabet, with which every dancer writes their own poem.

— Lukrecja