Tango as dance and music

1.1. Concept: a man and a woman in an embrace

"Technique is never just a technique, a formal condition." Analogous to psychoanalytic
technique, Šuvaković, following Lakan, concludes that
"the technique cannot be understood, nor can it be correctly applied, if one does not know
the concepts on which it is based. […] the relationship of each technique is inseparable from
the concepts on which it is based, and that means from the ideology by which it is
implemented into the world of visible effects on human life. A photographer becomes an
author only through the process of subjectivization, becoming a subject in relation to the
shooting technique within a specific culture, and in relation to an open and changing set of
interactions of photographic technique, sensory events, intimate sensibility, conceptual
predispositions, real or accidental intentions and surrounding cultural texts. A photographer
becomes an author by reflexively confronting the contextual conditions of shooting, making
and presenting a photo, in fact he becomes an author by transindividual connecting himself
with others from this or another time within social contradictions and antagonisms..."
In this larger quote we find the key terms for understanding the tango technique, on which
this book is based:
• "technique";
• "concepts on which it is based";
• "ideology with which it is carried out into the world";
• "process of subjectivization" of the artist
• the artist's relationship to "conceptual predispositions"
• "contextual conditions" of creation and artistic development
First of all, it is important to clarify the term "ideology" used here. The colloquial use of this
term refers mainly to the political sphere, which is not insignificant in artistic life, but here
we rely on a deeper, more profound concept of ideology. Altiser extended this Marxian
concept of ideology to a number of social actors, which include educational institutions, the
media, churches, social and sports clubs and the family. Relying on Lacan's concept of the
"mirror phase", and the view that it does not represent only a phase in the development of
personality, but a permanent structure of subjectivity, Altiser indicates that we adopt our
identities by seeing ourselves as mirror images of ideology, whereby ideology represents not
not just politics and position against social classes, but our total set of ideas about the
world, the way we see - or are expected to see - the world in one community in one period.
Ideology is a narrative by which a community presents itself to itself and to others. Politics
and the concept of beauty and creativity and the broadest narrative about the world, about
the so-called. "to the outside world"; ideology is essentially a phantasmatic construction
that serves as a support for our reality", it is "a system of signs and signifiers by which one
society is placed in relation to any other system of signs and signifiers and thereby placed in
relation to any another society, and even in relation to oneself as a society, culture, world,
etc."
What are the "conceptual predispositions" (Šuvaković) of tango? Tango arises from the need
(of a man alone in a crowd of similar, lonely men, far from his native land, mother, eventual
wife, girlfriend, lover) for a hug, for closeness, but also the need for play, the joy of
expression and relaxation, leaving the world of work and coercion. The fundamental
concept of tango, originally, is this need for a close, warm embrace, to connect with a
person who has the same, or seems to have the same need. This embrace is in the context
of music and movement, and the technique of this movement is developed with regard to
the context of the music, but also of other couples, both those who are dancing and those
who are just watching us. I can use techniques from other dances, but I want to preserve
that basic idea of closeness and embrace. How to move while preserving a hug, or the idea
of a hug? There are two of us, trying to stay connected and move. Our bodies are joined as
one, and our four legs make various combinations, with which we move.
The process of developing the technique from those first hugs in tango in the 19th century
to the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century took a long time. Various
movement patterns, "basic", "mandatory" and "forbidden" steps have been proposed. The
ultimate conceptual result of the hundred-year development of movement techniques and
construction of figures, sequences, i.e. improvisational movement while preserving all the
qualities of connection can be presented as follows:
• we have three axes (mine, yours and common)
• we can move: me around my axis, you around yours, me around yours, you around mine,
both around the common one
• we can move in a circle in one direction or the other
• we can move in a straight line forward, backward or sideways
• we can both move together in a straight line forward, backward or sideways, i.e. we are
both facing the same side of the body in the direction of movement
• we can move so that I go forward, backward or sideways, and you go forward, backward
or sideways, i.e. that we are not both facing the same side of the body in the direction of
movement
• we can combine all these movements step by step
• we can move in any rhythm, either together or individually, by me dancing one slow step
to your two fast ones, or vice versa, and so on in various variations and combinations
• we can both move, or I can stand and you can move, or vice versa, or both stay still for a
longer or shorter time
• we can also move vertically, by both changing the height or turning the movement into a
jump, or only I will move vertically, or only you
• we can, either you or I, or together, in all the listed variations and combinations, walk with
full weight transfer, or only with projections
Within this broadest concept (the description of which is not exhausted here, but only
indicated) based on the anatomy and biomechanics of each of us as an individual, but also
the biomechanics of our communication that results in our movement as a couple while
preserving all the qualities of our connection, we develop dance ideas about how we can all
interpret music and develop dance language.
Dancers matured for a long time until they came to a more or less conscious formulation of
this broadest concept, from which many figures and improvisational movements emerged.
Within this concept, tango elements emerged and their variations and combinations were
developed, and are still being developed.
The first element that underwent significant modifications was the fundamental element of
tango: the embrace. Different groups of dancers opted for different versions of the hug.
1.1.1. Types of hugs (abrazo, hug, embrace)
Types of hugs are determined on the basis of technique and on the basis of ideology.
Technically, with regard to the physical distance of the partners in a couple and
ideologically, with regard to the meaning of hugs and dancing in general.
Technically, the distance can be zero, when the bodies of the partners are physically joined,
with the fact that the vertical line of connection can be of different lengths, from just a few
centimeters, roughly plexus to plexus, to 20 or more centimeters, from plexus to navel, or
more (in both cases, if the partners are of equal height).
The shoulder and hip lines of the partners in a couple can be parallel, or almost parallel, and
more open up to a very pronounced V.
In the case of zero distance, it is customary to speak of a close embrace, or "closed" (abrazo
cerrado).
Any distance greater than zero, usually 10-15 cm from the closest points of the partner,
which is usually the part around the plexus, turns the hug into a so-called "open" hug
(abrazo abierto), although the connection of the two bodies is uninterrupted.
Literally, an open hug occurs when the partners completely stop physical contact on one or
the other side or on both sides, and the connection is maintained only visually and on the
so-called energetic plan, which in essence, in good dancers, does not diminish any of the
quality of the connection.
Terminologically, the challenge is represented by the term abrazo cerrado, which is
translated into English sometimes as close embrace, and sometimes as closed embrace
without any interpretation, either linguistic or technical. It is clear that the translation of
close embrace would be a close embrace, and closed embrace would be a closed embrace,
however the term "close" is used very rarely, almost never.
Wikipedia notes an attempt to define and distinguish between close and closed embrace, so
abrazo cerrado is defined as a V-shape close embrace, and specifies that "the point of
contact varies, depending on […] the closeness of the embrace". In other words, abrazo
cerrado can be a close hug with more or less closeness. Since we can understand closeness -
both in English and in Serbian - physically, as a distance measured in millimeters or
centimeters, but also non-physically, as emotional, feeling, intimate, we can conclude that a
"closed hug" can also be "not so close", that is with a few millimeters of body distance from
each other. On the other hand, an "open hug" can have "as much space between the
partners as they want", so it could be just a few millimeters, so the difference between an
"open", "close" and "closed" hug would be completely relativized as far as physical distance
is concerned.