Tango2Vacation

The motto for the day ❤️
"Tango is not romance. It is life."
People often say that tango is romance, passion, seduction.
I understand why they say it. The embrace is close. Two people share a moment. There is intimacy and emotion.
But I don't think tango means romance.
I think we choose to see it that way.
I've fallen in love many times through tango. Not only with a person. I've fallen in love with a dance, with an interpretation, with an artist. I've watched a couple dance and felt something powerful. I've embraced someone at a milonga and felt something beautiful.
But love is much bigger than a romantic story.
You can fall in love with anything that moves you.
The danger is that people confuse what they feel in that moment with something else. There is a very thin line between real life and what happens while dancing. It is easy to get carried away. Easy to project things onto another person, onto a couple, onto an image.
But tango is not only about that.
Tango is family. Tango is friendship. Tango is meeting to listen to the music, to dance, to spend time together and to go home a little happier than when you arrived.
Everything depends on intention. Why does someone get up from a chair, turn off the TV and go to dance? That intention matters.
People sometimes think that when we dance, we enter an unreal world. For me, dancing is real life. That is the beauty of tango. It is made of situations, moments and relationships.
A man accompanying a woman. A woman accompanying a man. Two friends are accompanying each other.
Two members of a family. I danced with my grandmother when she was nearly eighty years old. I danced with my mother. I started dancing when I was nine.
How do you explain romance or passion to a child? Do you think a child cannot enjoy dancing? Do you think that isn't real tango? Of course it is.
That is why I don't believe tango is a romantic Hollywood story.
Tango is life. It is simply who we are.
- Adapted from an interview with Julián Sanchez by Tango Café .space-official https://tinyurl.com/mr2z9zys
📷 Unknown
Dancer on the right: Julian Sanchez

When your search for a marathon partner enters its final stage... 🔦🔍🔮😁

The motto for the day ❤️
In tango, there is an activity known as „chateceo”, often viewed with a certain degree of disapproval.
For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to chatting with a desired dance partner to improve the chances of the next invitation. Usually, it is seen as a social tactic.
But what if it can also open the door to the connection we later build during the dance?
According to neuroscience, what we often call chemistry—or connection—is largely shaped during the first few minutes of an interaction. The brain is doing much of the work before we are even aware of it.
Here are three neuroscience-backed ways to intentionally build that connection.
1. Stop asking "How are you?"
Nothing kills the flow of a conversation faster than the most predictable question in existence. It produces a scripted answer, and after that, many people mentally check out. Questions that evoke positive memories are more effective. „Which orchestra never fails to move you?” Recalling a positive experience reactivates the emotions associated with it. The person answering feels better and unconsciously associates some of those positive feelings with the interaction.
2. Use their name and keep asking questions
What makes a conversation worthwhile is the feeling that the other person is genuinely paying attention. Most of us answer a story with our own story. Resist! Instead, ask a follow-up question. "What made it special?" "What happened next?"
The brain experiences attention as rewarding. Combining follow-up questions with the person's name signals genuine interest and keeps them engaged. (As a bonus, you might actually remember their name ten minutes later. 😊)
3. The chameleon effect
Psychologists have found that subtly mirroring another person's posture, gestures, facial expressions, and speaking pace creates a sense of familiarity and comfort. The key is that it has to be gradual and natural. If they lean in, you lean in. If they slow down, you slow down. Which sounds remarkably similar to what we do when we dance.. so maybe dancing starts a little earlier than we think.

Source: https://tinyurl.com/3mpuvj9d
📷 .ufnal

The motto for the day❤️
"There are people who don't receive a single hug for an entire month. We are very fortunate."
Tango is a profoundly human dance due to its emphasis on the embrace. Most partner dances keep a greater distance. Tango doesn't. And that changes things. Some people don't receive a single hug for an entire month. We are very fortunate that we can embrace another person and be embraced almost every day.
I think many people underestimate what that means.
When someone decides to dance, they are not only learning steps. They are sharing space. Trust. Presence. Attention. That is why I believe tango changes people.
I have seen students change the way they stand. The way they walk. The way they look at themselves. Some arrived carrying sadness in their bodies. Their shoulders were closed. Their posture seemed heavy.
Then, little by little, something changed. As they danced, they became more open.
More comfortable. More confident.
Their bodies changed, but so did something inside them.
There have been studies about the effects of tango on people with heart conditions. Because tango is not only a movement, it is a connection. And connection matters.
People often think that what makes tango special is the music, or the technique, or the tradition. Of course, those things matter. But for me, one of the most important things is much simpler. A hug. A real hug. Not a formal gesture. Not something automatic. A genuine embrace. That is becoming increasingly rare.
And yet in tango it remains at the centre of everything. Maybe that is one of the reasons why people keep coming back. Not because they are searching for perfection or for romance. But, for a few minutes, they feel connected to another human being.
And sometimes that is exactly what we need. - Adapted from an interview with Julián Sanchez by Tango Café .space-official

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf7-buQFtok

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Dancers: .tango Julián Sanchez & Bruna Estellita

I BELIEVE THAT PREPARATION IS KEY BEFORE ATTENDING A MILONGA 😎😉🙃

The motto for the day ❤️
"I didn't choose a dancer. I chose the orchestra he danced."
In those years*, we often chose our partners according to the orchestra.
Every dancer had strengths. One danced beautifully to Di Sarli. Another understood Troilo. Another came alive with Pugliese.
We knew it. We watched carefully.
If Di Sarli was playing, perhaps I would choose one partner. If Troilo was playing, another. If it was Pugliese, perhaps somebody else.
The men did the same thing. They also chose according to the music.
People think that partner selection is mainly about appearance. For me, it wasn't. It was about how a person interpreted the orchestra. You could immediately see it.
At that time, all the girls danced well, and all the boys danced well. The difference was not whether they could dance. The difference was how they danced.
And that was closely connected to the music. The orchestra mattered. The feeling mattered. The style mattered.
When a new girl arrived at a dance, many men would not immediately ask her to dance. They waited until somebody who knew her invited her first. Only then would the others begin asking her.
People observed. People paid attention. Everything happened through dancing.
The dance floor was where people revealed who they were. - adapted from an interview with Nélida Fernando
* late 1940s to early 1950s
Interview by MONICA PAZ (2013) ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT7eqxhmVLc
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Dancers: .luis.ferraro and .fernando.5

The motto for the day❤️
"If there is something that really bothers me, it is when the music goes one way and the dancers step another."
I always tell my students the same thing: Listen to the music. Really listen.
Many people spend years learning steps but never learn to hear what the orchestra is saying.
And then you see something strange. The music is moving one way, and the dancers are going another. They are physically together with each other, but not together with the music.
Tango is not a collection of movements. The music has to guide what happens.
It has to influence the timing, intention, energy and the way you move.
If you are not listening, then what are you dancing to?
Today, many dancers look alike. They repeat the same patterns, sequences and figures.
But when you truly listen to the music, things change. The dance becomes different every time. One orchestra asks for one thing. Another orchestra asks for something completely different. You cannot respond to all music in the same way.
That is why listening matters. The music is not decoration. It is not something happening in the background while we perform our movements. It is the reason we move.
When dancers stop listening, everything begins to look the same. When they listen, the dance becomes alive again.
Listen first. Then dance. - Adapted from an interview with Osvaldo y Coca Cartery

Interview by Monica Paz (2010)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz6F9U5V7W0
Artists: Osvaldo y Coca Cartery
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