I am currently enjoying my third visit to Buenos Aires. Each visit has been focused on improving my tango technique and vocabulary, and this trip is no different. This time I am here for a full month which gives me more time to observe the culture on and off the dance floor.
The streets of this city have a fast paced energy with lots of bobbing and weaving on the sidewalks and streets. The cab drivers and pedestrians alike will go out of their way to avoid any sort of bumping or collision. Every possible inch (or here, centimeter) is taken full advantage of – which can be quite a scary experience in the passenger seat of a taxi.
Yet, at the same time, these same pedestrians will shove themselves into an already grossly overcrowded subway (Subte, as it’s called here.) It’s culturally acceptable to enter the Subte backwards and use your rump to create enough space for yourself to get on the train.
It’s amazing to see the amount of tolerance people have here for filling in these crowded spaces, respecting the flow of people around them, and accommodating one another without blinking an eye.
This culture of flow and flexibility adapts itself to tango wonderfully. Take a 40 square foot dance floor and you can fit over a hundred milongueros (tango dancers) without any one dancer colliding with another.
There’s a beauty in the simplicity of this way of coexisting on and off the dance floor:
- respect one another’s space
- know that everyone is just trying to get by, literally and figuratively
- don’t take up more space than you need
