It is a great pleasure to introduce Vio, a tango dancer and dance teacher extraordinaire. Her studio, Tango Forge, is located in Glebe.
Why did you start tango dancing?
I was attracted to tango because it looked really difficult. But I found so much more than I was looking for, most of which can be summed up in the idea of communing with people without having to talk to them. Tango has given me a way to experience a soulful connection with people I might not have much in common with – including language!
How fit do you have to be to be a tango dancer, and how long does a tango dance last?
Tango is danced by people in their 90s and by disabled people. Putting your toes up high in the air is totally optional. The main skill you need is to be able to stand on one foot, which means that most people who take up tango improve their balance a lot.
Are there any rules that a tango dancer has to know?
The dance itself is totally improvised, so there are no sequences to memorise. The main thing you learn is how to communicate physically with another person so that you can connect your cores together to communicate and move as if you are one being. The tango scene is governed by a set of codes designed to make sure no one gets their feelings hurt. It’s very civilised.
Do you consider dancing the tango to be a sport? If not, how do you think tango should be described?
Categories can be helpful, but nothing is ever as simple as our categories. Advanced tango dancing can involve a level of muscle control that is challenging even to athletes. Some of my students do it as an elegant approach to physical fitness. But the sport dimension loses sight of the fact that tango is creative, and because it’s not choreographed, the dancers aren’t just executing, they are interpreting and creating in real time. The world-class dancers see themselves as artists, not athletes. A third category that tango inhabits is popular culture. The United Nations has recognised Argentine Tango as World Cultural Heritage. It’s a social and cultural experience and an evolving fusion of African, European, and Indigenous Latin American cultures.
What made you want to be a teacher? How do you teach and can anyone learn?
I wanted to be a teacher because I felt that a lot of the teaching that goes on is imprecise. I didn’t accept the often-repeated idea that it takes ten years to learn. I want to teach people in one year. So I’m very motivated by figuring out how to do that. What’s different about the way I teach is that I give anatomically-precise instructions. A lot of teachers use metaphors, or they teach by making fun of mistakes. That’s why it takes people so long to learn. They’re being entertained instead of instructed.
Can anyone learn?
Yes, absolutely. But I’ll just be blunt and say what I’ve observed about the people who enjoy it and do well at it. Any kind of guy, regardless of fitness, who is an engineer or has an analytic mind will do well. Any woman who has done some yoga will like tango because it’s a place to really enjoy your body, and feel it working. The kind of people with the patience to get it quickly are the kind of people who are bored with small talk.
One of the most common misconceptions about dancing is that you need to have “rhythm”. That is irrelevant to dancing tango. You can dance to the melody if you want. There are no rules about how you interpret the music. So it’s a really free space for people to bring their own sense of music, whatever that is.
