On pleasure and pain (Istanbul)
"Punishment causes organisms to close themselves in, freezing and withdrawing themselves from the environment. Reward causes organisms to open themselves up and out towards their surroundings, approaching it, searching it, and by doing so increasing both their opportunity of survival and their vulnerability."
This quotation, from an inspiring and challenging book I brought along on this trip to Istanbul (The Feeling of What Happens; Body, emotion and consciousness. by Antonio Damasio), seems to me a perfect metaphor for what tango is and means to me. I am here for yet another festival, The Istanbul Tango Ritual, and have spent the past four days shamelessly indulging myself in the pleasures of tango travel. As this time there are no daytime milongas while the evening ones carry on until 5 am, I have let myself be seduced into an inversed daily cycle of going to bed at 5.30 am and sleeping well into the afternoon, even early evening. Besides dancing my feet off, I have done very little else, just a few (short) walks in the immediate surroundings as well as savouring the delights of Turkish cuisine.
The Istanbul tango scene has a very good reputation, and I have found it to be mostly accurate. True, there are also beginners like everywhere else, but also loads of advanced, musically inclined and considerate leaders of considerably younger age than elsewhere where I have visited for tango. In addition, not everybody is as short as I had feared, and obviously, there are also many international participants (mostly from Russia, Italia and Germany). The festival itself is quite a big event, last year the main milonga on Saturday is said to have had 1200 participants (!), and although this year seems not quite as popular, there are a lot of people on the dance floor.
I have had a lovely time here, and am once again so happy to be able to lead such a priviledged life. Since returning home from the bicycle trip, I had promised myself one international festival per month, and this seems to do wonders to my propensity to get depressed as the autumn approaches. However, the downside is that I am now letting my life revolve more and more around these trips, and indeed, around those precious moments on the dance floor. As a result, anything outside the dance floor has by definition inferior importance as my senses are now all geared towards the gratification of a sensuous, magical tandas.
Moreover, I have come to realise that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people who share this affliction. We all travel the world for tango, and spend the time in between festivals just waiting for the next one. Wherever you go, you will always see some people you had seen at your previous festival, and even if you never make any plans you know that sooner or later you will see them again. But still, you don't really get to know them at all. And at the same time, the people you really know (your non-tango friends) will always remain in a different category for you, slightly more distant, as you cannot share tango with them.
This is the paradox of tango; sharing such intense, intimate moments with people you know nothing about, while longing for that same connection and intimacy with the people that you otherwise share your life with. I think most of us are suffering from this a little, as there seems little chance of extending the spell of tango to the world outside the dance floor. Very few relationships formed on the basis of an amazing tango connection seem to succeed, and many tangueros seem to recoil from even attempting it. This is especially true with regard to advanced tangueros who seem to have a natural reserve, or maybe they have simply burned their wings too many times while attempting the impossible?
Still, tango is not a poor substitute for love. Its rewards are immense: you don't have any of the hassles of trying to match two persons' likes and dislikes, personal histories and future plans, and still you can have the beauty of mutual enjoyment, a shared passion for the dance as well as the mystical sense of connection to some larger, all-encompassing unity that one can sometimes achieve through tango. Curiosly, the need to fulfill one's personal dreams seems to have little place on the dance floor, although admittedly sometimes the desire can be awakened.
What I find fascinating is how really good tango can only be achieved through total openness and trust, but how this can also leave you feeling so weak, vulnerable and even sad. It is not rare for me to cry after a particularly moving tanda (I am referring to both the music and the connection with the partner), and I think it is essentially the sense of vulnerability that causes it. On the other hand, even if I could (and I don't want to) dance tango while maintaining a certain reserve to protect myself from the sense of vulnerability, I am sure the result would be appalling. To trust, you must open yourself, and if you are not willing to do that, there will always be a barrier between you and your dancing partner.
I am just about to go to the final milonga of this festival, and am already starting to feel the tingles of excitement. For me, the last day of a festival is often the best, as all the hyperactivity and showing off of the previous nights is gone, people are quite tired and at ease with each other, and the atmosphere is almost religiosly devoted to making the most of the remaining time together. From there on, it will be just another wait until the next time one can open up and out towards tango harmony.
This quotation, from an inspiring and challenging book I brought along on this trip to Istanbul (The Feeling of What Happens; Body, emotion and consciousness. by Antonio Damasio), seems to me a perfect metaphor for what tango is and means to me. I am here for yet another festival, The Istanbul Tango Ritual, and have spent the past four days shamelessly indulging myself in the pleasures of tango travel. As this time there are no daytime milongas while the evening ones carry on until 5 am, I have let myself be seduced into an inversed daily cycle of going to bed at 5.30 am and sleeping well into the afternoon, even early evening. Besides dancing my feet off, I have done very little else, just a few (short) walks in the immediate surroundings as well as savouring the delights of Turkish cuisine.
The Istanbul tango scene has a very good reputation, and I have found it to be mostly accurate. True, there are also beginners like everywhere else, but also loads of advanced, musically inclined and considerate leaders of considerably younger age than elsewhere where I have visited for tango. In addition, not everybody is as short as I had feared, and obviously, there are also many international participants (mostly from Russia, Italia and Germany). The festival itself is quite a big event, last year the main milonga on Saturday is said to have had 1200 participants (!), and although this year seems not quite as popular, there are a lot of people on the dance floor.
I have had a lovely time here, and am once again so happy to be able to lead such a priviledged life. Since returning home from the bicycle trip, I had promised myself one international festival per month, and this seems to do wonders to my propensity to get depressed as the autumn approaches. However, the downside is that I am now letting my life revolve more and more around these trips, and indeed, around those precious moments on the dance floor. As a result, anything outside the dance floor has by definition inferior importance as my senses are now all geared towards the gratification of a sensuous, magical tandas.
Moreover, I have come to realise that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people who share this affliction. We all travel the world for tango, and spend the time in between festivals just waiting for the next one. Wherever you go, you will always see some people you had seen at your previous festival, and even if you never make any plans you know that sooner or later you will see them again. But still, you don't really get to know them at all. And at the same time, the people you really know (your non-tango friends) will always remain in a different category for you, slightly more distant, as you cannot share tango with them.
This is the paradox of tango; sharing such intense, intimate moments with people you know nothing about, while longing for that same connection and intimacy with the people that you otherwise share your life with. I think most of us are suffering from this a little, as there seems little chance of extending the spell of tango to the world outside the dance floor. Very few relationships formed on the basis of an amazing tango connection seem to succeed, and many tangueros seem to recoil from even attempting it. This is especially true with regard to advanced tangueros who seem to have a natural reserve, or maybe they have simply burned their wings too many times while attempting the impossible?
Still, tango is not a poor substitute for love. Its rewards are immense: you don't have any of the hassles of trying to match two persons' likes and dislikes, personal histories and future plans, and still you can have the beauty of mutual enjoyment, a shared passion for the dance as well as the mystical sense of connection to some larger, all-encompassing unity that one can sometimes achieve through tango. Curiosly, the need to fulfill one's personal dreams seems to have little place on the dance floor, although admittedly sometimes the desire can be awakened.
What I find fascinating is how really good tango can only be achieved through total openness and trust, but how this can also leave you feeling so weak, vulnerable and even sad. It is not rare for me to cry after a particularly moving tanda (I am referring to both the music and the connection with the partner), and I think it is essentially the sense of vulnerability that causes it. On the other hand, even if I could (and I don't want to) dance tango while maintaining a certain reserve to protect myself from the sense of vulnerability, I am sure the result would be appalling. To trust, you must open yourself, and if you are not willing to do that, there will always be a barrier between you and your dancing partner.
I am just about to go to the final milonga of this festival, and am already starting to feel the tingles of excitement. For me, the last day of a festival is often the best, as all the hyperactivity and showing off of the previous nights is gone, people are quite tired and at ease with each other, and the atmosphere is almost religiosly devoted to making the most of the remaining time together. From there on, it will be just another wait until the next time one can open up and out towards tango harmony.
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