by ShuanDan Lin
The Tango night, which happened on 28th November, was much more fun than what I thought it would be. Before actually starting learning anything about tango, we had about 10 minutes to meet all other members entering this event. Arriving at the room, you feel the difference almost in the first few seconds as everyone in the room is looking forward for the start. It is so lively and delightful, that sends you the message that we are here to have fun and dance rather than study.
As it begins, we sat in a circle and had a lecture about tango, which lasted for 30 minutes. Ms. Benő, who was a tango addicted gave us some basic understandings of what tango is and the history of tango and its music. By watching 2 videos of tango dance, we were able to define that tango can be very diverse. The stage choreography is much more about the techniques and is the first that catches our eyes; social tango, on the other hand, is the dance that we see in clubs and is more about the feel of the music. We also found out that tango music was created at the very beginning of the 20th century, and developed for about 40 years before entering into its ‘Golden age’, that is when the instruments used started to have a conversation with each other (starting with one and followed up by other instruments). Most of the music used nowadays is from the ‘Golden age’ (1935-1950) and tango dancers are now paying more attention to tango music creation.
The invited guestsare Ungvári Judit, János Bicsár, Zékány Tímea, Simon Kozma, Pándi Zita and Miklós Hoffer who offered us a show. First of all, it was Ungvári Judit and János Bicsár, who were professionals in tango dance; to show us how is individual tango like and how professionals dance. Afterwards, all three pairs danced to the music, the social tango. It was just amazing. By watching, you feel that tango is much more than just a dance.
Before dancing, we had to learn how to move around in a small place and have eye contact with different partners as well as learn the rules of tango dancing. In practice, when dancing in tango clubs people are dancing with strangers, so it is important to learn how to communicate with other dancers. As the guests told us, they do not speed but use the body language to interact with each other. After that, we learned to understand the body language of our partners, to understand their movement, communicate with them and react to it. A pair is always made of a leader (male) and a follower (female). During the dance, followers do not really see the environment (people around), they are totally led by the leaders, what they have to know is to understand the wants and follow the leaders movements. The leaders are the ones who are responsible for their partners, to lead them and protect them during the dance.
Time went by fast as we were completely immersed in the dancing, from the eye contact, to the body movements and at last we were able to dance to the music. Even though, we were not able to learn too much about tango, it was still a great event as it brought up our desire of learning it. Now we have become the “beginners” of tango dance!
