One evening in Buenos Aires I invited a friend of a friend to dance a tanda. She was not a tango dancer, but I was sure she could follow well. In between songs I told her that for me the experience of dancing had a lot to do with taking in everything that was happening and, let's say, incorporating it into the dance. She looked at me and replied:
- That's exactly what I am dealing with in my profession.
- And what do you do? (was my question).
- I am a clown.
Well, then I took some classes with her because I also was working on a tango clown choreography at the time.
Later, something that gave me another perspective of this idea has started happening. Many times, when I danced for the first time with some girl, she would end the song laughing. I proposed this phrase: "I am The Tango Clown - the best compliment from my partner is when she laughs at the end of the dance".
To take everything that happens in a positive way is what makes the dancing what it is, I realized.
This is the latest incarnation of The Tango Clown. It helps me to show the usual mistakes and misinterpretations about tango and dancing.
THE
TANGO
CLOWN
The best compliment from my partner is when she laughs at the end of the dance.
The portrayal of the worse, far from being disapproved, constitutes a distinct and legitimate kind of poetry, namely comedy, and comedy is, for Aristotle, artistically one of the highest kinds of poetry.