In Strangers' Arms

Buenos Aires.

Beatriz presented a paper at the International University Congress of Argentine Tango

UNA, Universidad Nacional de las Artes

443 Sanchez de Loria, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Date: 15 June 2016.

Title: El legado invisible del tango Argentino al mundo de hoy

Abstract:

Characteristics of tango (dance) in diaspora. Planned interviews with open ended questions, and the anthropological method of participant observation were used to asses their overall feelings about the effect of the dance on their lives. It was concluded that tango dancers feel defined by the dance and its culture, and how important it is to belong to local, national or international tango community. Nos muestran ampliamente como el tango Argentino cambia de estilos de vida y ofrece un referente de identidad importantísimo.

“There is a point, at the beginning of life and (I imagine) as it is at the end of life. Between these two points, we do the dance of life that pushes them apart… We grow away from our common stock, from our one same story, believing that our different affiliations to country, religion or ethnicity separate us. We kill for those beliefs. And in many cultures we deny our bodies as inferior to our minds and spirits. Tango bypasses all these camouflages of the self and goes right into the ineffable zone of the cosmic where we were in the first place, to that ineffable story of sameness, those points where our bodily nature screams its existence. Its initial spread and its current resurgence around the world show that, despite the disparities of time and place, language, skin color, religion or social status, we find ourselves, we find each other, we find the tango’s strength in strangers’ arms.”