Tango journeys

I was fascinated by Miriam Pincen's account of her life in tango for several reasons. First, if anyone hasn't watched it yet, it contains a hitherto unseen few minutes of video of Ricardo Vidort dancing with Miriam. It's from the collection of Oscar Casas, and I hope someone will twist his arm to make him release more! (Only joking.) But it's likely he has more, perhaps even a lot more.

Her comment on 'entrega' was interesting. I've seen the word defined only in relation to the female partner: 'She has good entrega', meaning she gives herself up to the dance. But I've always wondered if it also applies to the way the leader becomes part of the music (in fact how both dancers together become part of the music) and she confirms this: she says she prefers dancing with partners who surrender (entregan) their bodies to the music.

& her 'journey' through tango must be somewhat familiar to all of us. She grew up at a time when tango was no longer the passion of BsAs, encountered it when she was older, and was completely intrigued by it. So how to learn it? To learn something you go to classes, of course. So she took classes, with Todaro and Copes among others, and learned to dance a complex, display tango. But the world of the milongas really captivated her to the extent that, although fluent in display tango, she spent a couple of years watching before she dared to dance socially. Her respect for the world of the milongas is very clear.

I guess we all start off intrigued by walking to the music, move on warily to the world of high kicks and exaggerated movements (I groan at the memory of 'Intermediate Classes'!), until realising that all we really want to do is to dance close and let ourselves be absorbed into that music...