Notes from an acclaimed tango dancer in Buenos Aires…
It’s two years since I started working through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. At the end of chapter one there is a list of exercises from which the reader is asked to select two. I chose ‘If you had five other lives to lead what would you do in each of them?’
I’m looking right now at the list I made. My! How ambitious and successful I am in my imagination!
It was only after writing down my list that I turned the page and read the words ‘Look over your list and select one. Then do it this week.’
Ah.
I don’t remember which one I chose. But I do remember discounting, for obvious geographical and logistical reasons, ‘Acclaimed tango dancer from Buenos Aires’…!
A couple of days ago I was catching up on my favourite TV programmes, recorded while I was away last week. We are now well into Series 9 of Strictly Come Dancing (known elsewhere in the world as Dancing With The Stars). I watched, enthralled, as my favourite professional tango duo (indeed the muses for that imaginary life) performed this amazing routine. And I thought again of that life I am surely enjoying in some parallel universe.
This time I approached it a little differently. I will never be a tango dancer, much less an acclaimed one from Buenos Aires. But I can learn to hold myself with more grace and poise; and I can live with more purpose and passion.
While I go off to ponder a little longer on that, I thought you might enjoy… (cue BBC Announcer’s Voice): Dancing the tango – Vincent Simone and Flavia Cacace.
See you in Buenos Aires…?
Thank you 
Merci beaucoup 
Thank you 
There’s no reason you can’t travel to Buenos Aires to dance tango. Let me know when you’re coming.
Thanks for your comment Jan. You are perhaps my accomplished-tango-dancer alter-ego in BA!
There are many reasons why I can’t travel to Buenos Aires to dance tango right now, and many reasons why I do want to come – not just for the tango, but because it’s a city a really want to see and experience. Perhaps one of these days.
Hasta luego….
I dont know why but I got goosebumps while watching this. So much grace, such delicate moves- I know I can never get there but even imagining yourself doing something like that fills me with happiness.
And that also will be the source behind a potential disaster. I dance in my kitchen- and I dance like im a diva. I’ll let you do the imagining.
Yes, perhaps we are all graceful tango dancers in our heads! I am also an ice dancing champion.
“Amazing routine” did you say ? I am breathless and speechless after having watched this fabulous duo. Passion, grace, talent, this is superb. Thank you Janice. Hope to seeing you in Buenos Aires !
You’re right, Isa. ‘Amazing’ is an over-used word. I should have thought harder and used a better word. But the fact is that ‘amazing’ in the true sense of the word is exactly what Vincent and Flavia conjure up every time they dance the tango!
I think you’d make a lovely tango dancer!
In my head I already am! The mind and spirit are willing but the body cannot keep up!
That pair even take my breath away, and I’ve seen a lot of fantastic tangos in my time. The precision and control of every movement and every gesture…
Indeed! Some of the world class guest ‘show dancers’ I’ve seen on Strictly have left me quite cold – just one acrobatic lift after another. But there is such depth to Vincent and Flavia’s dances – everything there for a reason, every gesture filled with meaning, and every movement precise and perfectly placed.