Photo credits: Poison Tango – Tango Photographer

“Pugliese is creating the perfect storm.”

Dimitris

40 icons of tango, judges of the world tango championship, world champions, and experienced maestros came together to create one remarkable book.

Click here to read the topics discussed in the book.

You could see the windows of the venue being blurry, due to the warmth of the dancers and the freezing wind outside.

During the silence between the songs, if you paid attention, you could hear the rain.

It was around 4am, and I was at the closing night of the Sueños de Invierno marathon, in Athens.

Three tango days were coming to an end, and I could feel the warmth of the hugs I received still on my chest, even when I was not dancing.

Being an introvert, I started closing down.

I wanted to experience the closure, the feeling of one beautiful event coming to an end.

I was simply sitting on the stairs, a few feet above the ground.

From that point I could see all the dancers on the dance floor as a whole, not as individual couples.

Something was different than all the previous nights.

My mind was trying to figure it out, but I still couldn’t put my finger on it.

I moved to the side as Tara Thurau, a dancer with a beautiful soul and a keen eye, approached me and sat next to me.

I met Tara online a few months earlier.

She was helping me proofread the book TangoTips by the Maestros.

“It’s different, isn’t it?”, she said.

“Yes, but why?”, I smiled.

“It’s the mix of energies.”, she continued.

She was right.

This final milonga was open to non-marathoners too.

I started noticing how different their energy was compared to the marathoners.

They were a lot more active, while the marathoners were calm, introspective, smooth.

The marathoners were experiencing the closure.

It was that time of the night were you expected a tanda of Pugliese.

Tara started telling me about this great guy, Michael Lavocah.

Michael has written a series of books about great tango orchestras, written from the perspective of the dancer (list below).

Tara learned from Michael that most dancers, even experienced ones, are not taking full advantage of Pugliese’s music.

“Most of them tend to start right from the beginning, trying to dance and express everything.

Michael, showed me how Pugliese’s music is slowly building tension until it reaches its “explosion” point.

Great dancers know how to increase the tension in their dance.

Unfortunately, most dancers release the tension too fast by moving too much, too early.

When you dance Pugliese, you are building towards a release of tension and that moment of the explosion.”

I took a moment to reflect on that, and repositioned myself as a couple of dancers were going up the stairs, smiling politely.

“The only way to have a release is to build tension first.

What makes Pugliese so great, is that his music gives you a thousand ways to build that tension.

When you dance Pugliese, you have the strong release of tension as your destination.

If you forget that, then you and your partner might be losing opportunities for a much deeper dance.”

Tara continued for a while, but, as is a habit of mine, I was already lost in my thoughts.

You see, I am afraid of something.

In fact, I am terrified by it;

So terrified that some nights I wake up thinking about it, feeling cold and warm at the same time, and I am reaching to my side to hug my wife or my son, simply to calm down:

The thought of reaching the final moments of my life, and feeling that I didn’t live according to my choices.

Since, for reasons that I don’t want to explain here, those moments might be closer than they should, I made the decision to remind myself daily of that very last moment of life, and say to myself:

“Everyday you are building towards something. 

If you are unaware of it, you are building towards something that is not you.

If you are aware of it, you have the choice to build toward the real you.

What are you going to build towards today?”

Hearing Tara’s voice in the background brought me back from my thoughts.

Was it a second, ten, or a minute I was away?

I have no idea.

But then, I felt like something clicked.

It was one of those moments where two independent and important pieces of life come together.

I realized that Pugliese is creating the perfect storm.

You know there is going to be an explosion, a release.

That’s where a Pugliese song or tanda leads to.

If you are aware of it, you can make a conscious choice;

You can follow the storm, the build up, the way the dark clouds appear and come together.

You can dance the silence of the wind.

And then, you can release the thunder.

But this is only possible if you know where you are going toward.

If you release tension too fast, then there is no tension left when the time comes.

The mix of those two thoughts, led me to a question:

“What if I could start each tanda with the end in mind?”

What if I could simply ask myself:

“In what state do I want my partner to be at the end of the tanda? And what about me?”

Having a clear idea of the end, will give the whole tanda an extra layer of meaning.

It can make a tanda a transformational experience.

Maybe the last moment of the tanda is quite similar to the last moment before our death.

We get there and we ask ourselves:

Did I love, did I live, did I matter?

If the answer is yes, then we are ready to go, death is no longer scary.

If the answer is no, it will simply be a terrifying moment, leaving this earth in regret.

None of the excuses we give ourselves today to not live fully will matter at that moment.

Dancing tango is marvelous.

We create substance and meaning out of thin air.

We give birth to art and connection.

And that creation lives for a few moments in time, till it dies, never to come back the same.

What if you keep in mind, since the beginning of the first dance, that last moment of the tanda, the equivalent of your last breath?

What if you say, in the words of the marvellous Alejandra Mantiñan, that “I want to make my partner feel like a true man”, or a true woman?

Or what if you sense that you partner is sad, and simply say:

“I want him/her to feel hugged, loved, understood, calm?”

This can change the way you embrace at the beginning, the way your face looks when approaching your partner, the choice of steps, the intensity of your hug, your breathing.

What if you set your intention at the beginning of each tanda -Pugliese or not-, and then dance four songs building toward the direction of your choice?

The rest of the night passed fast.

I found myself out of the venue, ready to return home.

I stopped to watch through the blurry windows the figures of people hugging and moving.

I felt the hair on my arms going up.

I am still not sure if it was the cold or the magic of the blur images of people hugging, moving in harmony, letting go.

What a gift…

The discussion with Tara came back to my mind.

I wanted to find a way to remember it.

Not just the words, but also the emotional state those words, the music and the dancers created.

How can I remember this?

I took a pen out of my pocket.

I had no paper.

I lifted my left hand, palm looking up.

My right hand moved alone.

I wrote something.

I closed my fist, and squeezed it.

I opened it again.

I read it as the rain continued falling on me:

“Pugliese and the death of tango.”

 Do you feel my words could help someone else enjoy tango more?

Then I humbly ask for your help:

1) Share it.

2) Leave your email in the form below so I can share more tangothoughts with you.

3) Share how YOU want to feel at the end of the tanda in the comments below.

4) Check the book Tango Tips by the Maestros here.

My goal is to make tango an empowering experience for tangueros and tangueras. I can’t do that alone. Your support matters.

Michael has written also books focused in Troilo, D’Arienzo, and Di Sarli. Buying a book from Michael using these links, supports us financially on our goal to create meaningful moments for one million tango dancers. This comes for no additional cost for you. If you want to help us in our mission, you can also become a Patron here.