Tango Quotes

[Photo by me...Alex Long Photography..."Heather & Lee"...at Aspen's Holiday Milonga in 2006]

Someone who hit my blog recently did a Google search, entering the words "tango quotes". There should be a repository of good tango quotes, and perhaps I will attempt to do it here.

I was just reading Ms. Heartbreak Tango's blog...and she said this in one of her posts...

"Tango can save your life, and it will break your heart." [Credit - Ms. Heartbreak Tango]

Here is one she found on Ms. Nuit's blog...La Nuit Blanche (who we all sorely miss by the way...she hasn't blogged in a long, long time....hopefully she is dancing (and working) up a storm...)

"I have tasted a lover's tears on my lips. But I have never felt his eyeballs moving inside their sockets." [Ms. Nuit of La Nuit Blanche - found by Ms. Heartbreak Tango]

Here are a few that I have collected...

“The tango can be debated, and we have debates over it,
but it still encloses, as does all that which is truthful, a secret.” [Jorge Luis Borges]

There is the now cliche'd one from the film "The Tango Lesson", Sally Potter asks Pablo Veron “How did you choose the tango?”, and he replies “I didn’t. The tango chose me.” So we now often hear the saying…”You don’t choose tango, tango chooses you…” [I suppose credit goes to Sally Potter, who I assume wrote the screenplay.]

Tango Trance: “The state of being so completely immersed in the music, and so profoundly connected to your partner, that movement flows from within the partnership, uninhibited by conscious thought.” [Dan Boccia of www.TangoTrance.com, Anchorage, Alaska]

>The tango trance.
>
>Seek it, and it will elude you.
>Talk about it in too much detail.
>and it will haunt you evily.
>Live for it, and you will die many deaths
>
>Treasure it, but don't hold onto it.
>Dance with love and freedom.
>and it will embrace you.
>Be vulnerable, and feel it's power.
>
>Dan Boccia


“The follower feels the first half of the sentence [from my lead], and then she completes the second half of the sentence...” [Murat Erdemsel]

“Surrender Tango [a documentary], delves into the mystery of the tango connection--why sometimes you lose yourself in your partner's arms and other times three minutes seems like three hours. This thirty-minute film goes beyond tango as a dance to tango as a metaphor for relationships. The rules and roles of tango partnering reveal how giving space actually creates more intimacy. The film breaks down various aspects of the dance to see how a good embrace is about sharing; the lead is about clarity and commitment; the follow is about sensitivity and surrender. But surrender requires that the dancers be centered and independent of each other before they can truly give themselves to each other. Sensuality is the fusion that adds tension and excitement to the dance and music is the glue that holds the couple together.” [Film Commentary about the documentary film “Surrender Tango” – produced and directed by Tango dancer Marcia Rock]

A famous quote attributed to Enrique Santos Discepolo, a poet, journalist and philosopher, "Tango is a sad thought that is danced."

I will do my best to keep compiling a list...send me your favorites...or point me to them...

More...

Movement never lies.
~ Martha Graham

Dancers are the athletes of God.
~Albert Einstein

A day I don't dance is a day I don't live.
~ Anonymous Tunisian dancer

Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!
~ Constanze

Only the wise can dance the rhythm of life.
~ Unknown

Nothing is more revealing than movement.
~ Martha Graham

Dance first. Think later. It's the natural order.
~ Samuel Beckett

Dancing is a relatively safe form of intoxication.
~ from Copeland & Cohen

Don't dance for the audience; dance for yourself.
~ Bob Fosse

Dance is not something to talk about. Dance is to dance.
~ Peter Saint James

Everyday I count wasted in which there has been no dancing.
~ Nitzsche

We're fools whether we dance or not, so might as well dance.
~Japanese Proverb

There are short-cuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them.
~ Vicki Baum

Will you, won'te you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
~ Lewis Caroll

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
~ Epictetus

"She may be horizontally desireable in life, but she's vertically challenging in tango..."

"I believe that Tango has the potential to bring out the best in each of us, at least while in the embrace. We surrender our egos; leave prickly personality traits at the table; and cease to be CEOs, taxi drivers, engineers, unemployed. We replace all our externals with a purity of spirit, a generosity of kindness, splendid caring. And when these elements flow freely between partners, it is...the joy." (Johanna)

"I come to tango to relax - the music carries me and makes a dance for me. With other music, I have to make a dance myself" [a professional dancer]

There is no open or close embrace, there is only tango...

"Life is like Tango... sad, sensual, sexy, violent and quiet."

"Other music exists to heal wounds; but the tango when sung and played is for the purpose of opening them, for the purpose of sticking you finger in the wound and to tear them until they bleed."

"Tango is not a dance, it's a feeling. And how do you teach a feeling?"

"We dance tango because we have secrets." :: Marilyn Cole Lownes

"Great dancers are not great because of their technique; they are great because of their passion." :: Martha Graham 1894-1919, Dancer, Teacher and Choreographer

"The music goes in my ears, is filtered through my heart, and comes out through my feet." [El Flaco Dany Garcia]

"Students must obligate their teachers to continue learning - the teachers must continue to learn." [Dana Frigoli and Pablo Villarraza

"Please, just for me, forget the steps...hold me, feel the music, and give me your soul. Then I can give you mine." [Sallycat]

"Salon tango is like having sex with someone you love, nuevo tango is like having sex with a pornographic athlete."
Suzy Vegas [www.lasttangoinbuenosaires.com]

You don't *do* boleos. Boleos happen." [Limerick Tango]




"It's not so much that he led me, but more like he willed my movements..." [a woman talking about dancing with Pablo Veron]