Tango Corazon: How to Dance the Argentine Tango

Afterword

Graduation and After

In Tango Corazon you've been introduced to all the basic elements of the Argentine tango and to some intermediate material. If you've studied all the material, practiced most of it, and done some actual dancing (as opposed to practicing), congratulate yourself. You've graduated.

What comes next? More study, practice, and dancing, of course. You've received something like an artist's palette of paint and some paint brushes. The number of colors and brushes in a paintbox are small but with them you can make masterpieces of tremendous subtlety and complexity. But you have to master the tools first, a process that never ends. So it is with the tools you've learned, your dancer's "paintbox."

It would be a good idea to start at Lesson One and go through all the material again. You will understand things that you didn't before, and understand better things you thought you fully understood. And you need to practice each of the elements of tango so that you don't think about them when you dance. So that you just do them, stimulated by the music and your partner and your surroundings. And you'll find that you'll sometimes surprise yourself doing things you never knew you could do.

I also encourage you to get videotapes to study and to take lessons with other teachers after you've mastered the basics of the Argentine tango. What I've presented in this book is just one view of tango, my own. There are many other teachers, each with their own view of tango. Be wary of those who claim to have the One and Only Truth; they are fools or frauds. Indeed, the fact that there is no official organization that polices tango is one of it's strengths. After more than a century, tango is still healthy, growing and evolving.

Your Future in Tango

What's in your future, beside more studying? Perhaps you'll read books about tango and Argentina, and buy lots of music and listen to it. You'll go to see the increasing number of movies that have tango dancing. Some of it will make you laugh (or cry) because the dancing is so Hollywoodish and inauthentic, not the real tango that you know. You'll quickly get to know other tango dancers; the tango world is small and most dancers eager to welcome new tanguistas into their ranks.

It's also a fast-growing world, and you will be one of the pioneers. You'll go to tango shows, perhaps take lessons from the world-class professional dancers in them, be depressed you can't do the show tango moves as well as they can and elated that you can do some of them not badly at all. You'll support or even help organize tango events, maybe perform or teach, take part in discussions on the Internet. You'll dance tango in other cities, maybe even travel to Argentina. And chances are you'll enjoy yourself tremendously and in ways you can't with any other dance.

Help!

I hope I've helped you. And you can help me, by telling me how I can improve these Web pages, in as much detail as possible. I can't pay you for such advice in money or authorial credit or any other way except one. I can listen well to you and do my best to improve Tango Corazon.

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