argentine tango and peter gysegem and astor piazzolla and nadia boulanger and sensuous dance

About three months ago, after a workout at the local gym, I saw an advertisement on the bulletin board for Argentine Tango lessons beginning January 30. I still recall the words on the announcement: "If you can walk, you can tango." After thinking about that statement for a moment, I decided I would take tango lessons. My approach to life since I turned 50 (2002) is that there really is nothing I can't learn, so why not try something new?* In addition, since it costs only $7 per lesson and takes place

[*This has led to my entry in "senior" spelling bees, setting up this web page, learning how to cook with my son and to my first-ever chocolate cake, which won an award. Here is the story on that one. Oh, and I started Italian lessons yesterday, too.]

near my office, the lessons couldn't be more convenient. And so I went the first time, learned the basic "8 step" and became introduced into an entire world with its own vibrant history, characters, dance steps and music. Peter Gysegem, along with Ingeborg Mussche and Roy Robinson, is patiently and expertly introducing us to this new world.

What began to dawn on me after about five lessons, however, is that Argentine tango not only is a more improvisational dance form than other forms of tango and that it has its sensual and even erotic dimensions, but that it also carries within itself lessons about living which, had I been attuned to these lessons 30 or so years ago, I might have lived a different life. The purpose of this and the next essay is to say a word about Argentine tango and then describe the lessons of life which tango has taught me so far.

A Word of History

When you take dance lessons, you are there for the steps and the challenge rather than the history of the dance. But you pick things up little by little. I am now aware that Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), a native of Buenos Aires, was the signal influence in the modern development of this dance form. You can read about his life here. One interesting thing about Piazzolla's life is that he was torn between his devotion to the music in his soul (the tango) and his commitment to classical composers. Indeed, in 1953 he entered his "Buenos Aires" symphony in a composition contest and won a grant from the French government to study under the tutelage of the renowned French composer, Nadia Boulanger, in Paris. I was arrested by the story Piazzolla tells of his conversation with Boulanger, in which he says his life was changed in a day. I take this quotation from the Wikipedia article on Piazzolla. He says, in reference to Boulanger:

"When I met her, I showed her my kilos of symphonies and sonatas. She started to read them and suddenly came out with a horrible sentence: ‘It's very well written.’ And stopped, with a big period, round like a soccer ball. After a long while, she said: “Here you are like Stravinsky, like Bartók, like Ravel, but you know what happens? I can't find Piazzolla in this.” And she began to investigate my private life: what I did, what I did and did not play, if I was single, married, or living with someone, she was like an FBI agent! And I was very ashamed to tell her that I was a tango musician. Finally I said, “I play in a ‘night club.’” I didn't want to say “cabaret.” And she answered, “Night club, mais oui, but that is a cabaret, isn't it?” “Yes,” I answered, and thought, “I'll hit this woman in the head with a radio....” It wasn't easy to lie to her.

She kept asking: “You say that you are not pianist. What instrument do you play, then?” And I didn't want to tell her that I was a bandoneon player, because I thought, “Then she will throw me from the fourth floor.” Finally, I confessed and she asked me to play some bars of a tango of my own. She suddenly opened her eyes, took my hand and told me: “You idiot, that's Piazzolla!” And I took all the music I composed, ten years of my life, and sent it to hell in two seconds.

Understanding Piazzolla and Ourselves

Isn't that an utterly fascinating quotation? I like the line in which she tells him that all of his works are great imitations (of other famous composers) but that in those works there is nothing of him. It was as if he wanted to be accepted in the classical world of the "great figures" of Western music, and so he denied, or tried to deny, the stirrings of his own heart. Haven't we all done that? In order to try to prove our "expertise" or competence in a world, we seek to gain the approval of the recognized masters in that world. After all, they have come before us; they have prodigious talent; they have put out their creative works. But our mastery and imitation of the masters often comes at the cost of suppressing our own heart, of not listening to the rhythms of our own mind.

And this leads to a sense of shame, a feeling that what we truly love to do doesn't "measure up" to the accepted standards, that it really isn't "worthy" of being recognized. Yet, at some point in our lives we have to decide, regardless of the consequences, to whom or to what ultimately we listen in life. The question that Piazzolla's life poses for me, and for all of us, is whether we have the ears to hear what our heart is telling us and, if we do, whether we have the courage to listen to its voice. The world is enriched because Piazzolla listened to himself. Will it likewise be enriched as you and I do the same?

With this background, let's move to the "lessons" of tango for life.

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