Tango is “an exchange of movement and touch, about a transnational negotiation of desire, of gender roles and communication” (Manning, 2006, p. x). As Horacio Ferrer writes, “before being an artistic expression, before tango came to light as such . . . tango was a certain attitude, a way of life adopted by those of diverse cultures” (1995, p. 11). Linda Stein asks: “In dancing tango does a women give and a man get?” Watch the 9-minute video of Stein discussing her tapestry in the sexism series titled “Loreen Arbus Says Tango is Egalitarian 974.”
“The history of the tango is a story of encounters between those who should never have met or between those who, having met, will remain forever disencountered … This political moment of (dis)encounter is initiated through an embrace that rarely lasts beyond the duration of the tango itself. This encounter, relentless and short-lived, proposes a violation of critical distances, inviting at once intimacy, tension, and conflict.” (Savigliano, 1995, p. xv).
“Tango is everything from a dance of solitudes to a nomadic movement of cultural displacement to a fierce locator of national identity. It is a dance of encounter and disencounter, a voyeuristic embrace of repressed sensuality and a complex network of (mis)understood directions. …
Tango as I encounter it is a peripheral engagement with the world that introduces us to a different way of living with an other. It is a movement that offers the possibility of improvising our encounters. It is a dance that turns us toward an other to whom we might otherwise not speak. …
A product of cultural exchange, tango has never ceased to transform itself through contact with new cultures. …
Tango is the dance of the impromptu rethinking of the politics of communication.” (Manning, 2006, pp. x).
References
Ferrer, H. (1995).
Manning, E. (2007). Politics of touch: Sense, movement, sovereignty. St. Paul, MN: University of Minnesota.
Savigliano, (1995).