Tango, cultural embrace

Enter the word "tango" in any Web search engine and choose the "images" tab. You will
discover the sacred aspect of dance. Here, everything is calculated, everything is studied:
fishnet stockings, stiletto heels, slit skirts for her; stylish hat, suit and tie, two-tone shoes
for him; flamboyant colors, lighting, retouching and of course, the fitting which is
cleverly chosen. The bodies are in admirable shape, oblique lines are crisp and looks are
sharp. Aesthetically perfect, these stereotypes perpetuate the idea that the tango is a
lascivious and racy dance reserved for couples... and professionals, which is far from
being the case, as evidenced by the countless communities of amateur dancers scattered
around the globe. Offstage, everything is really different.

On a global scale, hundreds of thousands of "tangomaniacs" dance for the pure pleasure.
Out of the spotlight, they find themselves in milongas1, or in the open air, in every
suitable place of gathering. This popular side is more representative of what the tango
was originally, namely, a unifying social activity. Whether one goes alone, as a couple or
among friends, a "tango evening" is a special outing, something like a ritual. Hiden
between partners, experience and presentness are flourishing.

Unlike the tango performed on stage, amateur tango is completely improvised and based
on a formal language that must be understood by both partners. It requires, on the part of
each, a good dose of listening and availability, which pulls the duet into the experience
rather than the appearance. In many cases, the "couple" consists of two complete
strangers. From their bodies, they build a space, the time of a tango. Through this
"structural coupling" (Varela and Maturana, 1980), they share a common creation process
which is not simply formal. The experience of tango is also sensitive and cognitive
(Joyal, 2009). Every tango is defined on the spot, in the "present moment of subjective
life" (Stern, 2004), as is also each dancer through it. That's why the tango has found a

1
The word milonga refers to both a type of tango and the place where one dances the tango. Some also use
it to describe the evening of dance itself.
place in the therapist’s toolbox. That's also why it takes place in my own pedagogical
toolbox.

This paper is an incursion into the 'invisible' of the tango. It proposes to lighten the path
that it takes from the street to the classroom, focusing on the experience of the present,
unless it is the present of the experience.

Echoing the notions of poiesis, certain elements of the theories of creativity, language
and education are here combined to identify what gives the tango its heuristic and
metacognitive potential, in the particular context of working in tandem. Behind these
contents, my desire to establish links between tango and cognition is part of a reflective
approach of research; it is unarguably based on my own experience as a professor-
researcher in art education, and tango dancer. "Faced with some phenomenon that he
finds unique, the inquirer nevertheless draws on some element of his familiar repertoire
which he treats as exemplar or as generative metaphor for the new phenomenon" (Schon,
1983). Due to observing it since 1992, I believe that tango is a tremendous metaphor of
human relationships. "Metaphorical concepts can be extended beyond the range of
ordinary literal ways of thinking and talking into a range of what is call figurative [...]
thought and language" (Lakoff et Johnson, 1980). According to this metaphorical power,
tango is useful in personal and social development but especially in interrelational
perspective.

After a historical and social contextualization of tango, I explore the structuring potential
of tango at relational level. Then, I'm going to identify some marks that bring to a
pedagogical application of tango in university education of the psychologists. My
intention throughout this is to focus on what occurs within the tandem in a "shared
feeling voyage" (Stern, 2004) at the present time. My aim is to bring a fourth dimension
to the geography of dance beside, bodies, space and movement: the experience.
1 Tango, History and Society

Many documents seek to locate the date and place of inception of the tango as they would
for the invention of the automobile or the telephone. But this approach tends to consider
the tango as a finished product, when it is, in reality, an ever-changing phenomenon,
belonging to several cultural and historical influences. It is not so much the tango itself
that can be located historically, but rather the establishment of its traditions dating back
to the late 19th century, on both sides of the Rio de la Plata, in Montevideo and Buenos
Aires.
It grew "among the lower urban classes in both cities as an expression originated in
the fusion of elements from Argentine and Uruguayan`s African culture, authentic
criollos [natives of this region] and European immigrants. As the artistic and
cultural result of hybridization`s processes" (UNESCO, 2009).

The tango’s steps, its shapes, figures and movements take their inspiration from dances
like waltz, mazurka and even polka, while its rhythm draws on the Cuban candombe and
habanera (Hess, 1996). Tango is unique in that it combines the movements of a couple,
as inspired by the waltz, and the formal patterns as seen in folk dances. In reaction to the
expansion of the tango into brothels, many dance halls - casas de baile - and academies
came to life around the 1870s (Paz & Hart, 2008). That is where fans would gather to
dance or to simply listen to tango orchestras. All this time, the tango is constantly
evolving itself, according to the comings and goings of European merchants. Enriched by
several accents, it reaches the stage in the early 1900s, both in France and in Argentina/
Uruguay, giving rise to the creation of increasingly sophisticated ballrooms.

Another unique feature of the tango is that, unlike the waltz, it is asymmetrical (Hess,
1996). Each dancer executes steps that are given in reply, so to speak, to those of the
partner rather than simply echoing them. Unlike other dances of the time, the tango is
distinguished by the freedom given to the men to initiate movement around the room.
From a formal language, they can combine all the components according to the
inspiration of the moment. This manner of composing the dance, on the fly, makes each
tango unique, raising the level of passion among dance enthusiasts who see it as an
invitation to creativity through freedom from all that is automated.

"In the contemporary resurgence, the danced tango revives a century of history made by
transcontinental round trips." 2 (Apprill & Dorier-Apprill, 1998). But the mutual
influences between Europe and Latin America changed the moment when France began
to codify the tango, an initiative that goes quite against the improvised nature of the tango
of the Rio de la Plata, the rioplatense tango (Hess, 1996). To write it is to predict it,
thereby stopping its dynamics. This marks a major break in the tradition of the tango.
Shortly before the war of 1914, the tango danced in Europe becomes more and more
‘international’ in comparison to the rioplatense tango, then considered ‘exotic’. In
France, between 1910s and the Second World War, the medical speech slows down, for a
while, the development of the tango that is seen as particularly dangerous for the virtue of
young women (Jacotot, 2010).

Devoid of the undulations and the suspensions that are characteristic of the 'Argentinean
tango' - as we call it today - the international tango loses depth to its three dimensional
relief to become a liso tango. It would take fifteen years, strangely enough, for this
writing and codification to reach the Rio de la Plata and for it to alter, there again, the
roundness and the flexibility of the rioplatense tango. In reality, even if these events seem
to have disfigured the tango, one can say, a posteriori, that they have become part of the
tango tradition which, let us not forget, is one of crossbreeding. However, at the time, a
significant division became entrenched between the advocates of new approaches and the
defenders of the traditional approach, each clan boasting of being custodian of the ‘real’
tango, not suspecting that this tendency would perpetuate through to the 21st century.

Between 1950 and 1980, under the sway of a repressive political climate, the Argentine
population is denied all gatherings. Nevertheless, the fans of tango meet in clandestine
halls to practice their art. They only emerge stronger in the late 1980s, during a second

2
From the French: "Dans sa résurgence contemporaine, le tango dansé réactive un siècle d'histoire faite
d'aller-retour transcontinentaux" (Apprill and Dorier-Apprill 1998).
major political upheaval that henceforth lifts the ban. Several authors agree in attributing
the spread of tango around the world to the tour, between 1983 and 1985, of the famous
show Tango Argentino, directed by Claudio Segovia and Hector Orezzoli. Twenty-five
years later, whether you talk to fans in Quebec, in Finland or in Argentina, it is clear that
the technical prowess of the troupe’s dancers, their agility and their grace on stage
dazzled audiences from the four corners of the world and marked the collective
imagination. Since then, the adjective ‘Argentine’ is grafted to the tango and now
distinguishes it from international tango. Today, in common language, it is difficult to
subtract this 'Argentine' from tango, even though the literature shows that the tango grew
up surrounded by two parents. Precisely because "it takes two to tango", Argentina and
Uruguay, together, have ensured its recognition as part of the intangible heritage of
humanity.
Tango was originated and developed in both Capitals of the Rio de la Plata’s basin:
Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Due to this fact, both countries are making a joint
presentation for its nomination. […] In this forced community, their customs,
beliefs, rituals, and objects merged and transformed not only their way of life, but
the culture (UNESCO, 2009).

Among its fans, the term ‘tango community’ is widely used to designate the entire group,
which is composed of amateur dancers and organizers which are sometimes also teachers
or even disk-jockeys. All over the world, tango communities may be found in most major
cities. The constant emergence of new sites and, by extension, of new tango schools
testifies to the durability of this global craze to tango. Tango leads the dancers along in
the wheels of communication, by the way of confidence, vulnerability, partnership,
leadership, sharing, caring and many other components of everyday life which is also "a
show" (Stern, 2010) when we consider that everyone needs the glance of the other one to
feel alive. Tango allows the tandem to create the present with body, heart, and soul.
That's why more and more researchers, trainers and therapists are recognizing the tango
as an effective development tool.
2 Tango, Poiesis and Cognition

Theatre of a shared aesthetic experience, the tango becomes an agent for self-discovery,
knowledge and construction (Joyal, 2010), as is the case with other art forms. Whether
music, painting or dance, the links between art and cognition have been clearly
demonstrated since the 1960s by Goodman (1968, 1992). In a classic point of view,
aesthetics is the science of beauty in nature and in art. But beauty does not limit itself to
the mere appearance of things or to their exterior. Digging a little further leads us to
discover the Greek root of the term aisthêtikos, coming from aisthanesthai meaning
‘feeling’. Thus the aesthetic experience as being lived inside, within the individual, while
he is creating something, what ever this thing is. Aesthetic experience does not limit
either to the official art domain. It appears in everyday life, every time we build "new
coherences" (Lakoff &Johnson, 1980). Valéry goes in that way, telling that
"any work may induce us to meditate upon this generation and give birth to a
questioning attitude. It may be that we take such a lively interest in this curiosity,
and that we attach such an importance to following it, that one is driven to consider
even more passionately, the action that creates rather than the thing made" 3
(Valéry, 1937a).

In the case of the tango, the generation of the work is all the more fascinating in that it is
elaborated by two people. It is not a matter of the dance being a product of a show where
the aesthetics are planned. Rather, it is more a matter of genesis, of what is happening
during the improvisation. The spontaneous nature of the popular tango allows one to live
an aesthetic experience, that is like an opening device (Lesage, 2006), which brings
together all the senses, draws even from living waters and, at time, culminates in a sense
of well-being, pleasure, and enjoyment. Amateur dancers interpret an intrinsic vision
representing their own relationship with their partner and, first and foremost, with
themselves.

3
From the French: "Toute œuvre peut ou non nous induire à méditer sur cette génération, et donner ou non
naissance à une attitude interrogative […] Il peut arriver […] que l’on prenne à cette curiosité un intérêt si
vif et qu’on attache une importance si éminente à la suivre, que l’on soit entraîné à considérer avec […]
plus de passion, l’action qui fait3, que la chose faite" (Valéry, 1937a).
Unlike professional dancers who can repeat the same tango day after day, virtually the
same way, the amateur dancers create a new tango every time. In each tango, the pair
enters into a unique aesthetic experience through the construction they make, together, of
a space-time in the immediate. Tango brings body and soul into coalition through the
play of matter and technique. In that case, the improvisation establishes a dialogue
between the dancers and their dance, which takes shape through body language. The
creative dynamics act as a floodgate between before and after or, in other words, between
what is already known (individual predispositions) and what is to come (the form the
dance will take); it has the power to project, to give birth, to give life. It is a 'making of' in
its purest form. “The ‘making’, the poïen I want to address is one that ends in a work,” 4
says Valéry (1937a) to explain the creative dynamics and to propel the notion of poietic
as a perspective for the examination of art. The poietic, says he, is “a kind of ‘transversal’
discipline, which is initially aimed at the operative lineaments by which the work comes
to existence" (Valéry, 1936)5. It is today useful to focus the attention on the generativity
of the tango, on the meanderings of improvisation, on the sinuous paths used by the
dancers when they invite each other and through which they invent themselves.

“Apollinaire says that there are lines in a poem which seem not to have been created6,
which appear to have formed themselves,” 7 declares Merleau-Ponty (1964). It is as if
these lines had their own autonomy and existence; as if they grew unbeknownst to the
poet and would surprise him while he played with them. Similarly, tango evolves with
sequences that seem to form by themselves, that like to astonish the partners and to lead
them to little epiphanies. It brings the dancers to loose the sense of time, to live the
present, to be in dialogue with themselves and with their dance. Gurvitch (1937)
describes this phenomenon as being an "integral experience of the immediate [which
carries] the pure flow of the lived8" (op. cit.). The evanescent and intangible character of

4
From the French: "Le faire, le poïen, dont je veux m’occuper, est celui qui s’achève en quelque œuvre"
(Valéry, 1937a).
5
From the French: "La poïétique est une «sorte de discipline 'ransversale', qui a d’abord pour objet […] les
linéaments opératoires par lesquels l’œuvre vient […] à l’existence" (Valéry, 1936).
6
The italics are by Merleau-Ponty
7
From the French: "Apollinaire disait qu'il y a dans un poème des phrases qui ne semblent pas avoir été
créées, qui semblent s'être formées" (Merleau-Ponty,1964).
8
From the French: "l'expérience intégrale de l'immédiat [transporte] le flux pur du vécu" (Gurvitch, 1937).
the flow has always fascinated researchers and artists. Among them Laban (1956), in the
early 1950s, who defines the flow as the "ongoingness" of motions or "the viscosity of
movement" (McCaw, 2011). According to Csikszentmihalyi (1988), flow corresponds to
"how it feels when [we] are doing something that is worth doing for its own sake". It
gathers goals, decisions, actions, awareness and a sense of "being part of some greater
entity" (op. cit.). Valéry (1936, 1937a, 1937b) spent a large part of his life to define the
phenomenon, talking about the dynamics of the creation rather than creative dynamics to
target what is 'ambushed' within the creation itself, as if the experience had within itself
the purpose of its existence. Valery's studies allows to understand that this dynamics
evolves through states of inspiration, elaboration and discanciation which do not follow
each other in time but which rather become entangled, play together, in constant
interaction or, in one word, in poiesis.

But what happens with this dynamics when there are two beings, as in the case of
improvised tango? Would it be possible to share a poietic experience? The following
lines attempt to clarify this matter.

2.1 Dancing Tango: a shared poiesis

The improvised character of the tango does not, for all that, mean that the various
gestures are meaningless or arbitrary. On the contrary, while shaping the dance, the
tandem answers to certain technical requirements without which the tango would not be
one. Each sequence leads to another and so the dance is built. Be a step executed with
ease or with clumsiness, it in turn creates an impulse that the leader will need to consider.
The dialogue between the dancers is established trough the help of the formal and
technical vocabulary of tango, itself being a part of the much larger edifice that dance is.
The steps, the turns and the pivots embed themselves in a framework built around form
(lines and masses), space (the volume, amplitude and directions) and time (speed,
duration and rhythm). From a kinesiological perspective, as soon as the body moves, all
of its parts also move together with their own mass. Dancers first and foremost move
within their own space, within their own kinesphere, before acting on the whole, on their
balance and in the space between them. Each impulse given by the leader produces an
effect on the follower who, by moves and gestures, contributes to the whole. "The body
that moves in space and time, deforms and reforms [the whole] in the rhythm of its own
timing, of its own space and rapprochement with matter. It thus helps in shaping the
results of its own nomadism"9 (Paquin, 1999). This evokes the participation of motor
functions in the construction of the work - the world - and, by extension, in the
construction of its meaning. Each step calls for another, so the dancers speak and the
dance speaks.

While interacting with the other, the dancer often experiences moments of grace.
Appearing suddenly to his senses are incitements, triggers, and a kind of enlightenment.
"The affectively charged sharing expands the intersubjective field so that their
relationship as mutually sensed is suddenly different from what it was before the moment
of meeting" (Stern, 2004). The other’s presence, that of the other dancers, and even the
arrangement of the hall, feature among the forces acting on the dancers. Each element of
the leader/follower diad, by the roles they play, holds a power of influence over the
others. The dancers have their own cultural and emotional preconceptions while they
have their own way to "process the information" (Bruner, 1991). They pull together in
body contact, in a conversation of the senses. Each impulse, each surge, each indication
of the leader, however subtle it may be, acts on the follower as a brush stroke on a
canvas. Bodies turn to become matter. The signals no longer come exclusively from the
leader; modeling is no longer one-sided. For example, the simple fact that the follower
proposes an embellishment is influencing the future of the dance. Poor listening from the
leader can lead to an imbalance, then precipitating the couple into chaos. On the other
hand, a proposition well articulated by the play of each body, a clear signal, a well felt
pose in the flow become a call to which the partner is able to respond in order to melt in
the dance-in-its-making. More than in any other so-called social dance, the tango forces
the bodies to listen to one another, to seek and to discover themselves, to increase their
awareness and consciousness. It is a 'co-poiesis' that is developed by bi-cephalous entity
seeking for synchronization and harmony. The degree of each dancer’s responsiveness is

9
From the French: "Le corps qui se meut dans l'espace et dans le temps déforme et reforme [l'ensemble] au
rythme de son propre temps, de ses propres distances et rapprochements par rapport à la matière. Il assiste
ainsi à la mise en forme des résultats de son propre nomadisme" (Paquin, 1999).
determinant of, and determined by, their awareness of the present moment. Either he
ignores the call and acts alone, breaking the communication, or he answers on the spot to
this movement and extends it. All the sudden starts within the dance appear as "feedback
loops fed by sensory information"10 (Thon and Cadopi, 2005). These are intimately
related to physical awareness and motor skills and, by its extension, the movement.The
body language calls on the emotions and this becomes more information to be processed
trough the "biographical flesh"11 (Kaufmann, 1996). From the moment the couple starts
to move, their bodies are on alert. They enter into a state where "all the sensations of the
body, driving and driven, are linked together in a certain order, as if they were bouncing
and reflecting off the invisible walls of the sphere of a living being’s life-forces"12
(Valéry, 1936). Each tango differs from the next since it is the result of a shared
improvisation whose aim is to translate two living systems and all the sediment each one
carries. Dance is, first and foremost, a dialogue. A dialogue with the other and a dialogue
with oneself. The tango is a mutual emergence, a "real experience", as says Stern (2004):
This experience happens between two (or more) 13 people. It is about their
relationship. It occurs in a very short period of time that is experienced as now14
[…] in which a micro-drama, an emotional story, about their relationship unfolds.
This jointly lived experience is mentally shared, in the sense that each person
intuitively partakes in the experience of the other. This intersubjective sharing of a
mental experience is grasped without having to be verbalized, and becomes part of
implicit knowledge of their relationship. The sharing creates a new intersubjective
field between [them] that alters their relationship and permits them to take different
directions together. The moment enters a special form of consciousness and is
encoded in memory. And importantly, it rewrites the past. Changes in [relationship]
occur by way of these nonlinear leaps in the way-of-being-with-another (op.cit.).

The notions of creative dynamics, poiesis, aesthetic experience and presentness are all
keys to understanding the phenomenon of the tango as the cognitive process. As a matter
of fact, dancing and knowing are two dynamics, two means of self-construction; both

10
From the French: "boucles de rétroaction alimentées par de très nombreuses informations sensorielles"
(Thon et Cadopi, 2005).
11
From the French: "chair biographique" (Kaufmann, 1996).
12
From the French: "toutes les sensations du corps à la fois moteur et mû sont enchaînées et dans un certain
ordre, […] se réfléchissaient sur la paroi invisible de la sphère des forces d’un être vivant" (Valéry, 1936).
13
Parentheses are from the author
14
Italic is from the author.
unfold in the present, through experience. This leads to cross the tango territory in order
to isolate its intermediate qualities.

3 Tango as interterritorial landmark

In the preceding, I presented a few elements of the tango that can help us understand the
dynamics that inspires the dancers and wrest a few eurekas from them along the way. The
heuristic and improvised nature of the tango allows the partners to focus on the "here and
now" and to define themselves through their dance. To conjugate themselves at the
present time. This self-construction dynamics is stimulating the development of research
on tango around the world, in different fields and circumstances that are presented here to
lighten the co-poietic potential of the tango.

3.1 In world-wide therapeutical lanscape

A first example of therapeutical integration of tango, is the Hospital Interdisciplinario
Psicoasistencial José Tiburcio Borda in Buenos Aires which receives about 2,000
patients annually and offers tango sessions where patients, nurses and doctors rub
shoulders. This initiative offers patients an alternative to medication while enabling
everyone to momentarily break away from their labels, resulting in significantly
improved self-esteem for the patients and, by extension, for the caregivers. Let us
underline that this hospital hosts La Califota (The Crazy Woman), a radio station which
broadcasts the Borda Tango Club, a specialized tango issue. Another example would be
the establishment in 2008 of the International Association of Tango Therapy, which
offers therapeutic programs enabling participants, children or adults, to develop a better
connection, first with themselves, then with others. These two examples illustrate a
global trend to promote the therapeutic virtues of the tango and the recognition of Tango
Therapy alongside Music Therapy or Zootherapy. This global expansion of Tango
Therapy is a continuation of the first Congreso Internacional de Tangoterapia held in
Rosario, Argentina in 2008.
The therapeutical value of the tango is also increasingly documented at the scientific
level. For example, a 1999 study by the Favaloro Foundation15 using ten couples in their
fifties showed that regular tango practice helps prevent heart disease. Its demands on the
muscles and the cardiovascular system make the tango an ally in the fight against
coronary heart disease. These findings stimulated the conduct of research on the potential
impact of the tango in other aspects of health. McGill University began a study on the
physical and psychological impact of the tango on the elderly who were at a high risk of
falling (McKinley et al. 2008). One group took part in a walking program while the other
followed tango lessons. The results show that tango offers several advantages over
walking because of the companionship that develops within the tandem. In addition to
stimulating the participants’ learning and memory skills that are naturally declining at
that age, tango improved posture and balance. But what is more interesting is that, even
the participants were intimidated by the physical contact, the tango soon became a source
of motivation for them; many changed some social habits so as to give themselves more
diligently to tango, emerging from their isolation. Another study worthy of mention was
conducted at the Washington University School of Medicine to clarify the links between
the tango and Parkinson's Disease (Hackney et al, 2007). In this case, a group of
participants was invited to follow a series of ten tango classes while the other group was
offered a program of physical exercises to be done sitting or standing. Findings similar to
those presented above were recorded as to the benefits of tango on balance and
confidence in movement. Once again, the study brought out the socio-affective benefit
for participants who live in great isolation because of their illness. "The exercise group
appeared to enjoy their classes immensely, which was evident and provable if one could
measure their laughter and smiles" (op. cit.). In conclusion, researchers noticed that
"some participants were more severely disabled than others, but everyone adjusted to his
or her partner’s capabilities." (op. cit.). This highlights the notion of "emotional bonding"
(Stern, 2004) which serves as a common thread between therapeutical and pedagogical
issues that I will talk about later (in section 4).

15
The Fundacion Faveloro was established in Buenos Aires in 1975 by Rene G. Faveloro, an eminent
Argentine cardiologist and inventor of the "bypass" technique in cardiac surgery. The Foundation is a
highly specialized healthcare organization supported by teaching and research.
3.2 In nordic leasure landscape
The tango is very popular in Finland where, every year since 1985, a massive tango
festival is held. Several competitions are organized in order to crown the best musicians,
singers and dancers. Although its musical instrumentation is slightly different from the
Argentinean, Finnish tango bears a poetry tinged with a romanticism and melancholy
related to its cultural identity and, of course, to loving relationships. Since the music and
the dance are intimately linked, the Seinäjoki Tango Festival attracts not only music
lovers, but a large number of amateur and professional dancers. The information that I
collected on this field in 2011, from festival-goers aged about 55 years, indicates that the
tango is a fertile meeting ground. In Finland, the only exclusion criterion was the
language, since I do not speak Finnish and therefore we had to communicate in English,
which naturally limited the number of participants. However, I valued to talk to finnish-
speaking festival-goers and appealed to an interpreter who speaks German as well as
English and Finnish. Those informal discussions 'on the spot' added to the formal
interviews helped us to understand that the popularity of the tango was consolidated after
the Second World War, an era marked by the need to be entertained and to socialize. It
reached a peak around 1960, just before the Rock wave. Unlike the customs observed on
the banks of the Rio de la Plata, the Finnish tango was often danced in many rural areas
and small towns.

The Finnish ground is marked by a multitude of lakes beside which kiosks were built and
"where a lot of people in the 50s and 60s found their… well their… their husbands and
their wives in dances", confesses Tuomo16. On a very attractive and bucolic background,
Finnish tango poetry of the 1950s makes one dream nevertheless of a better elsewhere, it
evokes a “wonderland ... somewhere far away and a very nice place… even nicer place
than Finland" (Tuomo). Today, the rural kiosks have become scarce in favor of more
spacious dance halls where dancers come together from all over, no longer in search of a
soul mate (although this is always possible), but for the sheer pleasure of dancing, for a
"now experience" (Stern, 2004). The dance encounter is a tradition that continues among
the Finn who say themselves very shy. Shyness is cited by many participants who assert

16
Fictitious names are given to all participants
to have been freed from it by the tango. "You can come closer, quite close to the lady"
(Saku), which suggests that the ‘wonderland’ could hide in the embrace. Finnish tango is
technically distinguished from Argentinean tango by the simplicity of its figures and its
steps. "So, every man or every woman can learn it quite... easily" (Paavo). This
accessibility seems to favour a rapprochement, what allows to see that tango plays a
catalytic role. Responding to this need for meeting together, the Seinäjoki Tango Festival
offers the crowd the opportunity to dance under the open sky. These outdoor dance halls
attract couples that are rediscovering each other through the dance. It is not customary to
invite a stranger to dance, but tacit understandings between friends sometimes give rise to
exchanges.

Shyness is also observed by a tango teacher who watches people be transformed before
her eyes over the course of the lessons. As teacher, she takes the place of the leader or of
the follower in the tandem so as to demonstrate steps. The shyness in the students
becomes evident by the distance, curiously 'palpable', which comes between them.
"Please! take me so I can feel your fingers and your hand," says the teacher to her
students to convince them of the importance of contact. "I can't dance with you if you
want to make contact… with my clothes". Indeed, without actual contact between
dancers, without body-to-body contact, it is not possible to feel the ‘between-us-ness’.
The tango requires a connection that one must feel, especially in the upper body, and
which allows the tandem to move smoothly. From a technical perspective, this
connection is established by a mutual 'taking'. Shoulders and arms should form a
framework that must remain firm and that enables each to physically feel and even
anticipate the intentions of the other. By working on this embrace, one gently tames the
rapprochement.

3.3 In interdisciplinary research landscape

Being an amateur of tango for more than twenty years, I spent a long time in a
metropolitan area before settling in a town where there was no tango community, a
situation that was quite uncomfortable for me. My involvement, beginning in 2006, as the
founder of such a group in my city of adoption, gave me a unique perspective of the
factors that contribute to the formation of dance communities and most importantly, on
their heterogeneity, richness and tightness. This experience pointed out that the tango
brings together people from all walks of life and that social classes are unimportant on
the dance floor. Tango attracts dancers from all backgrounds, many of whom let
themselves be literally stung or bitten by it for the grasp it gives on the present
experience, on this constructive and emancipating interity. Among them are researchers,
workers, professionals, retirees, students, practitioners whose path would have probably
never crossed were it not for this object of assembly. This observation inspired me with
the idea of a scientific symposium on the tango, an idea that actually materialized for the
first time in 2008. Because "the passion for knowledge is lived as are all passions, with
the body, not without emotion" (Kaufmann, 1996)17 the call for propositions was relayed
to Europe and the Americas solely through the tango networks with the avowed goal of
reaching researchers who had a double expertise of tango: one scientific and the other
experiential. In addition to achieving its primary objective, this 'targeted' call had two
more effects: first, that of shrinking the gap between researchers and practitioners, using
experience as an interface, and that of promoting interdisciplinarity, a very contemporary
necessity. Around tango, this fascinating object, experts in health, social sciences and
education gathered from eight countries. In pursuit of the same objectives of developing a
‘tangology’ like Fabrice Hatem says (in Joyal, 2010 18 ), we, along with collegues,
organized three other symposiums that were held at the University of Québec at Trois-
Rivières (UQTR) in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Several of the papers presented at the
symposiums were reworked for publication and appear in three collective works offering
a wide range of views on the invisible of tango. Space forbids, within these few pages, to
review the forty or so papers presented at these meetings, but I think it is worth giving
few examples to illustrate the disciplinary convergence around the tango experience. (The
areas of study are noted in parentheses). Among other things, the researchers teach us the
following.
The code of the milonga, in their discretion and their sharing function, are also like
the rules of the tango itself: minimal but strict, they create the conditions of

17
From the French: "la passion de savoir se vit comme toutes les passions, avec le corps, non sans
émotion" (Kaufmann, 1996).
18
Hatem wrote the foreword of Tango sans frontières (Joyal, F. Ed. 2010).
 communication and respect, but also of transgression and reinvention 19 (law)
(Megret, 2009);

The tango cannot be summarized simply by dance steps any more than sexuality
can be reduced to sexual relations, or sexual intercourse to erotic techniques. [...]
Sex education and the tango thus have many points in common. They enable us to
know ourselves, to affirm ourselves as sexual individuals, to learn to reach out to
others, to fulfill ourselves as dancers and as people 20 (sexual education)
(Desaulniers, 2011);

A tango program could be implemented in a community in a sustainable manner to

engage groups of ‘at risk’ senior citizens21 (ergotherapy) (McKinley, 2009);

If some dance to please others, others dance for themselves, to create and express
themselves, to know themselves better. The latter have a predisposition to explore
the depths of the soul, because our body expresses itself through its movements.
[...] This rich body language teaches us, without dissimulation, about all the
questions that we resist recognizing as our own22 (psychoanalysis) (Trossero, 2010)

This allows to lift the veil on the elements of the tango that are found neither in the
technique nor on the dance floor, but in the invisible aspects of the dance. "Our bodies
touch each other and themselves, each time challenging and perhaps deforming the body
politic, questioning the boundaries of what it means to touch and be touched, to live
together, to live apart, to belong, to exclude" (Manning, 2007). The diverse interests of
the researchers are so many markers for clearing the still little explored territory of the
'tangoness'. Whether we study the social codes, the sexual ethics or the therapeutic uses
of tango, we finish by focusing on its power for self-actualization. Indeed, dancing is a
creation process updating our body and mind structures, as is learning process.
19
From the French: "les codes de la milonga, dans leur discrétion et leur fonction de partage, sont aussi à
l’image des règles chorégraphiques du tango lui-même : minimales mais strictes, elles créent les conditions
de la communication et du respect, mais aussi de la transgression et de la réinvention." (Mégret, 2009).
20
From the French: "le tango ne se résume pas plus à des pas de danse que la sexualité ne se réduit aux
relations sexuelles ou les relations sexuelles à des techniques érotiques. […] L’éducation sexuelle et le
tango ont donc plusieurs points communs. Ils permettent de se connaitre, de s’affirmer comme individus
sexués, d’apprendre à aller vers l’autre, de se réaliser comme danseurs et comme personnes." (éducation
sexuelle) (Desaulniers, 2011).
21
From the French: "qu'un programme de tango "peut être mis en œuvre dans une communauté pour
engager des cohortes de personnes âgées dites 'à risque' d’une façon durable" (ergothérapie ) (McKinley,
2009).
22
From the French: "si certains dansent pour plaire aux autres, d’autres dansent pour eux-mêmes, pour
créer et s’exprimer, pour se connaître davantage. Ces derniers ont une prédisposition favorable à
l’exploration des profondeurs de l’âme, car notre corps s’exprime par ses mouvements. […] Ce riche
langage du corps nous informe, sans tricherie, de toutes les questions qu’on résiste à reconnaître comme
nôtres" (psychoanalysis) (Trossero, 2010).
4 Towards a pedagogical use of tango

"Teachers pass on the most important knowledge of the past and prepare their students
for the future" (Gardner et al, 2001). Tango allows to build the present. It is an ideal
territory for the exploration of in-betweenness, that invisible space built step-by-step, in
the immediate. It is a powerful catalyst. Unlike the waltz or other dances that are based
on the repetition of similar rhythmic patterns for each other, the tango is an asymmetrical
dance that brings dancers into their own alphabet. It is a fertile ground for discovery,
thanks to the "cognitive partnership" (Barth, 1993) that develops in the constant, mutual,
and active listening.

In what follows, I will shortly tell about a pedagogical project that I initiated in 2009 with
the aim of applying the tango dynamic in higher education. The project seeks to raise the
awareness of future psychologists in the makeup of the therapeutic relationship.

4.1 It takes two to tango

The tango project was born from a conversation I had with a fellow professor in
psychology at a social gathering organized by our university. Knowing my interest in the
tango, she confided in me that she sometimes metaphorically used the example of tango
to explain the nature of the therapeutic relationship to her students. More than a language
event, the metaphor is an abstract structure that "provides ways of understand one kind of
experience in terms of another" (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980); in daily life, we naturally use
metaphor to conceptualize the non-physical in physical terms. I was pleased to think that
my collegue's intuition was based on the proverb, "It takes two to tango" which, in this
context, could convey the idea that therapy does not rely solely on the therapist but that it
takes two to build it. On reflection, my collegue and I came to realize that the tango
metaphor had good pedagogical potential, in terms of "emotional bonding" (Stern, 1985),
a notion dear to psychology and which harks back to the building of human interaction.
As a point of anchorage between tango and psychology, the emotional bonding becomes
very relevant since it does not reside in the imitation of a gesture or action (symmetry)
but rather, like tango, in the adjustment between two subjects (asymmetry). It presumes a
kind of reciprocal and continuous 'tuning' between the partners. To test the tango
metaphor, we started to explore in-betweenness in a concrete manner, using dance
exercises in the psychology class.

Within 75 minutes workshops, a series of three-minutes guidance exercises are

suggested, focussing on different variations of walking: in the movement (open/closed
eyes), in the rhythm (slow/fast), in the space (close/far). After a few sequences, I invite
the students to hold a caucus and share their impressions. On a pedagogical level, this
alternation between experience and verbalization fosters "the cerebral engrammation23 of
lived experiences, and thus their subsequent exploitation" (Ginger, 2008). In other words,
it promotes the mental recording of tracks that allow better retention. Through this
cognitive dialogue, all the perceptions of the students benefit from (or to) a process of co-
construction of knowledge. By thinking aloud, the students are able to discover the
potentialities of their experience, both in their professional development and, later, in the
caring relationship.

At the end of the workshop, I ask the students to go a little further with their introspection
by proceeding, in writing, to a reflective analysis (Schön, 1983), a pedagogical strategy
that makes visible what comes from experience. Reflective analysis helps students "to
become aware of their tacit frames" (op.cit.). This information is very useful to the
trainers in order to enrich our pedagogical reflection. Here is what students in psychology
learned from their dancing experience24.

4.2 Cheek to Cheek Learning

The term 'cheek to cheek' is here used metaphorically to express the idea that co-
construction is developed in contiguous space. In reality, students do not dance that
closely to each other. Being unaccustomed to working with their bodies, many admit to

23
The italics is Ginger’s.
24
For the sake of this paper, the reflective analysis had been translated. Quotation marks have been kept in
place.
being destabilized by the idea of dancing, an activity about which they do not, at first
glance, grasp the cognitive potential.

I was uncomfortable at first, because everybody could see me ‘dancing’. The

distance between us was too close. It was uncomfortable and I responded with a
laugh;

I felt some anxiety for having danced with a girl. It's the kind of activity that was
certainly not transmitted to me by my parents25;

At first, I was not very happy to have to ‘touch’ the person next to me. But finally,
I soon felt fine.

Although initially quite evident, the shyness fades away during exercises that facilitate
the lifting of certain taboos: showing oneself, working with people of the same sex,
touching.

Rather than teaching a method of intervention or of training dancers, the project aimed at
shedding light on "the process of co-construction of meaning" 26 (Barth, 1993). No
importance is given to the quality of the execution of the steps or movements. No
technical element is taught, with the exception of the notion of 'frame', without which the
pair cannot build anything. To evolve together and to inhabit well the space they share,
the partners must understand this concept. To teach it, I ask them to stand face to face at a
distance of about 24 inches, to hold each other by the shoulders, and to let themselves
gently fall towards each other until the weight of their bodies is above the soles of their
feet; visually, the pair forms an ‘A’. This framework helps them to locate the central axis
around which balance is created. The tandem will then be able to move like a ‘four-
legged animal’ and learn from this new experience:

For us to achieve a goal, we must be able to go at the same rhythm, to be attuned

to one another. As one backs away, the other advances. This means that the
follower must somehow have a blind trust in the leader. If the follower cannot be
led by the leader, the tuning isn’t done well;

25
A young woman is speaking.
26
From the French: "les facteurs qui influencent le processus de co-construction de sens" (Barth, 1993)
 I immediately understood how demanding the notion of tuning was: patience,
will, and mutual respect are needed. I also understood where the obligation of
reciprocity was coming from, when we had to get into the ‘A’ shape. The perfect
balance between the two persons made us hold on to each other in a strong and
united manner, exactly like a psychologist must be with his client.

To construct oneself implies that one is in a relationship "and that identifications are
being established in a game of sensory, motor and tonic interactions"27 (Lesage, 2006).
Gradually, students abandon their 'protection' mechanisms so as to develop 'projection'
mechanisms, that is, they agree to exchange and to reveal themselves. Through the course
of the exercises, they play with the concept of emotional bonding; they take the time to
experience it, to explore its expression, its feelings, and to associate with it emotions they
sometimes didn’t know existed:

It is not easy to let go of our points of reference to allow ourselves to be guided by

another, just as it is difficult to guide someone who really does not know what to
expect;

I therefore understood that I could trust and that all would be well. I also learned
that one must be attentive to one’s body and to all its senses;

It wasn’t natural for me to trust my partner when I had to step backwards.

The students give a sense to the exercises by combining their own experience with the
new reality. Learning results from the ability to understand and interpret that is rooted in
our bodies and in our culture. Gradually, trust and personal involvement of the students
take the place of skepticism and surprise:

I was rather reticent regarding the proposed activity. I was unable to see what
connection psychology and dance could have, but my perception changed very
quickly.

No one enters into a relationship with another without bringing along his own baggage in
terms of beliefs, knowledge and attitudes. Each of us is "the I of the storm", as beautifully
put by Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991). We evolve in a perpetually changing

27
From the French: "que se mettent en place des identifications, dans un jeu d'interactions sensorielles,
toniques et motrices" (Lesage, 2006)
environment and at the center of this movement, we find ourselves in "codependent
arising" (op. cit.). This co-construction is well established here, as evidenced by the use
of 'we':

Moreover, we noticed that I had the tendency to dominate, because I tried to lead
even when I was supposed to be following the leader.

Because they imply constant tuning, the guidance exercises generate new sensations and
"reshape the intersubjective field" (Stern, 2004). Due to the improvisation, no one knew
the issues and this led to several discoveries:

The dance session made me realize the importance of the ability to let oneself go.
I am the kind of person who takes initiatives and who forges ahead in life. Rarely
do I let others lead me. For me, the exercise regarding the person who leads and
the person who is led was difficult;

What impressed me is that verbal communication, while important in therapy, was

not much used during the exercises. We were able to understand each other
without a single word, only by paying attention to the gestures, actions, or even
the gaze of our partner.

The construction of meaning proceeds from the experience itself, it occurs in the
immediate "which is, paradoxically, the most difficult to access" (Gurvitch, 1937). By
writing about their experience, students become witnesses of their own understanding.
They realize who they are and what kind of bonding they use to establish:

I feel that we take many things for granted. Each of my interpersonal relationships
must be 'retuned', and this must be done constantly. For me, the conflicts that arise
in our relationships reflect the lack of tuning effort on one side or the other. This
gives me new insight into social relationships and into what my new intervention
techniques will be.

By living the experience in tandem, students discover the relational dynamics and their
possible transposition into the therapeutic relationship:

When one must lead, it is essential that we listen to the other, with all our senses,
to feel his/her presence and his/her way of being, so as to be complementary. It
seems evident that this prescriptive aspect reflects the guidance work of the
therapist. The latter must be able to give direction to the therapy while taking into
consideration the client’s uniqueness. He must be attentive, careful of his way of
 being, of his way of living, so as to be well attuned. In contrast, the one being
guided must be able to rely on the other, feel his rhythm, his way of being. He
must be able to trust and to let himself be guided by adapting to the leader’s way
of leading. He must feel not just his actions, but his intentions. He must feel the
attention shown to him in the same time he is attentive to the ways of the other.
Thus, this mutual adaptation may recall that of therapy. The client must be able to
feel the therapist in his way of being, and be able to lean on him, and allow
himself to be guided so as to discover his own capacities. In this mutual tuning,
enveloped by attention and listening, a relationship of trust develops. This trust
will allow the ‘guided’ person to feel directed, without fear of being hurt or
betrayed, by the sensation of being listened to and understood, and of resonating
with the other. He does not feel driven, pushed or influenced; he only feels
directed, guided to develop, by himself, his abilities and capacities in his own way
of being, while being in resonance with the other.

Reflective analysis encourages a certain distancing that contributes to the construction of

a new understanding, as shown above. Besides this, it can provide a second level of
knowledge, through the enunciation of more intimate comments. As if the metaphor were
a sixth sense, some students use it to describe their impressions. The metaphor of sight is
often used to conceptualize understanding:

The exercise enabled me to realize to what point sight brings us an imposing

amount of information. This exercise has enabled me to see to what extent other
senses within us have not been exploited in our perception of others;

I could see my fear of going toward the unknown where I have no points of
reference. I was so afraid of touching someone, as if I was going to explode!

The project appeals to the kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal and intrapersonal

intelligences (Gardner, 1993) that are less solicited by theoretical and magisterial
teaching strategies. The heuristic vocation of the project promotes the development of a
better understanding of oneself and, by way of engrammation, will help students to
transpose downstream what they have learned. But one can see that the dynamic of
engrammation is also observed upstream; some students find in the tango project the
tracks of prior experiences:

I've been horse-riding for a very long time and, in one of the clubs that I attended
(in France), they welcomed children or adults with difficulties (whether physical,
intellectual, or behavioral). It was like a complement to their therapy. This may
 seem strange, but I have been able to notice some similarities between the practice
of horse-riding and that of the tango;

I was able to make several connections with the sports I played in my childhood,
such as hockey. In fact, the teammates who are on the ice almost blindly know
where everyone is, even before looking to make a pass. There is a kind of perfect
tuning between them.

The dance allows students to re-actualize knowledge. The example of hockey allows us
to see that the players' experience transcends simply the game so as to become more felt,
more aesthetic. This aesthetic experience is not limited to the world of official art,
explain Lakoff & Johnson (1980); it arises in our lives each time that we perceive or
'create new coherences' (op. cit.), as in this example. This state of transcendence is also
expressed by several students who experienced climactic moments during the exercises:

I felt the tuning between our two bodies. I was responding spontaneously to her
steps and vice versa. I had the impression of being cut off from the outside world.
I was very concentrated;

It is when we stop thinking and allow ourselves to be led by the other person that
the tuning happens.

When students abandon themselves to the experience, when they let the 'flow' invade
them, understanding settles in and they are able to visualize the therapeutic relationship.
One student transposes the tango metaphor to the professional field in this way:

They must be able to dance as if the two bodies were part of the same mind. This
is what we should be reproducing in our therapeutic relationships with our
patients. We must be able to constantly listen to the other and be able to follow
him/her in the healing process. We must somehow become the dance partner, the
eyes for two, so he/she can smoothly evolve on the 'dance floor'.

The student uses the image of the dance floor to designate life and this conscious use of
this metaphor shows that the pedagogical application of the tango in the training of
psychologists is very coherent. First mentioned intuitively between two teachers, the
metaphor has incarnated itself into the field of pedagogy to then take its place in the
conceptual system of future psychologists. The circle is thus closed.
4.3 Benefits of the project

"Mind is embodied […] Our conceptual systems and our capacity for thought are shaped
by the nature of our brains, our bodies, and our bodily interactions" (Lakoff and Johnson,
1999). Applied to university teaching, the tango project plays a mediating role between
learners and the knowledge taught:

In the regular course, we often hear about the importance of tuning, but even
though this concept is defined by a text or by a mental image, it sometimes proves
to be harder to find and to work with than one might imagine. It is through simple
steps, performed in sync with our partner, that we have been able to experience
this tuning.

Tango enables students to embody the theoretical concepts seen in class. I agree with
Laban who says that we need to understand our own profile before we try to address that
of others (McCaw, 2011). In recognizing themselves through the experience of the
present, they become more skilled at recognizing the meanderings of human
relationships. The project also serves as a counterweight to the intellectual work done by
the students during their university training:

This course allowed me to relax for a moment, to forget the stress of courses,
homework, examinations and all the other things.

In the trainers side, the tango project is a point of convergence for professors-researchers
coming from different fields; it enables them to formalize some disciplinary concepts.
But the most important is that it allows each of us to embrace the culture of the other and
to realize interdisciplinarity instead of talking about it.

In conclusion

Cultural diversity, geographical diversity, disciplinary diversity: all this overlapping

colors today’s tango, and this well reflects its own history. Tango is a crossbred dance.
Neither white nor black, it sways between the two. The historical oscillation of the tango
between Europe and Latin America first causes the emergence of a national identity; the
dynamics between the dancers causes the emergence of a personal identity; its comings
and goings between leisure and therapy bring out, for me, a pedagogy of intersubjectivity
which forces one to reflect on the place of the body (or its absence) in the training of
caregivers, but above all, on the place of the experience of feeling in our society. "People
who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives,
which is as close as any of us can come to being happy" (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).

In itself, the writing of this article has been an opportunity to cross theories or to promote
virtual encounters between thinkers who would never dance tango together but who will,
without having premeditated it, participate in the construction of an interdisciplinary
geography of tango. For me, geography invokes the idea of itinerary. When I think about
it, I see an image of the earth’s globe around which a multitude of multicolored lines
stretch in every direction. They loop and intertwine in a kind of perpetual ballet. I take
pleasure in imagining all that lives under this virtual canvas and which constitutes human
experience. In this swarming of lives, the tango strikes me as a mediator. Through
experience, it helps to experience or improve the presentness and togetherness, two
essential components of life.

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