Quotes on Argentine Tango
“[Argentine tango] is elegant and formal, passionate and intimate. It is about power and vulnerability. It is both a dance and a metaphor, and to its captives can become a magnificent obsession.”
- Janny Scott
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“The unique pressures of this extraordinary city [Buenos Aires], in this extraordinary moment of its history, formed the evolving Tango, and made it into something more than just a dance. The Tango became an expression of a fundamental human need:
The Hunger of the Soul for Contact with Another Soul.”
- Christine Denniston, The Meaning of Tango: The Story of the Argentinian Dance, p. 15
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“But it all becomes simple if the dancer remembers that the essence of good technique is to keep the two hearts perfectly together at all times throughout the dance, and that the purpose of this is to give the most satisfying dance to both partners, both emotionally and creatively. Good technique is designed to create an emotional connection, and also to create a framework that gives the maximum possible choreographic freedom.”
- Christine Denniston, The Meaning of Tango: The Story of the Argentinian Dance, p. 105
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“Beyond the erotic mystique, tango’s fusion of physics, artistry, and passion provocatively illustrates the dialogue of our daily lives. Tango is spontaneous and unchoreographed. Two people can move as a fluid unit . . . New meaning and strength are breathed into the ideas of cooperation, receptiveness, surrendering and yielding.”
- Jeanette Potts, M.D., Tango: Lessons for Life, p. 159
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“Tango is different from any other social dance I have ever experienced. Choreographically it offers wider and richer possibilities. And on the emotional level it offers an investigation of the nature of human relationships, of the meaning of intimacy, and of what it is to be human and a social creature in a world that is often lonely and isolating. The great choreographic possibilities of Tango spring from the intimate connection between the two people dancing it.”
- Christine Denniston, The Meaning of Tango: The Story of the Argentinian Dance, pp. 187-188
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“Tango . . . is often misunderstood. How can something so sensuous and provocative (at one time, it was even forbidden) be a source of spiritual inspiration and innocent pleasure? But tango is many things to many people. Those who know it intimately explore and define their interpretations differently. Although tango has form and technique, it is also free and interpretive. Paradoxically, it requires discipline in order for dancers to achieve liberation. A French urologist and jazz aficionado I once met told me, ‘It is the profound knowledge of the rules and the structure that allow you to break free.’”
- Jeanette Potts, M.D., Tango: Lessons for Life, p. 162
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“ ‘It’s pure tango, that’s all. I just have enormous respect for the dance. I take it as a kind of catharsis. This is a very passionate thing. I go to the milonga,’ he said, sticking his arm out, feigning dancing, ‘and I listen to my wife’s heartbeat while I dance.’ “
- Brian Winter, Long After Midnight at the Niño Bien: A Yanqui’s Missteps in Argentina, p. 47
