Transcript
[music]
Teacher 1: Teaching the Argentine tango is like teaching anything. Just like you would teach somebody how to cook, or how you would teach someone physics. It takes time. It takes dedication, and it takes experience.
A famous quote from Martha Graham says, “It takes ten years to be a dancer.” If it takes ten years to be a dancer, it might take ten years to teach.
A couple things about teaching that I love is that anybody can do it. We’ve had the pleasure of teaching adolescents to adults, way over their 80s. With all of the ladies, we’ve been able to teach children that are visually impaired, people that are blind, and the elderly with Alzheimer’s.
This is truly a dance for everybody to enjoy. You don’t have to do all the crazy boleos, but just walking with somebody, and having that intimate connection.
We tend to forget in this day and age that connection is very important, and just the simple little touch can bring a huge smile to somebody.
That’s something that’s very rewarding with the teaching.
Teacher 2: Also, what I really enjoy about teaching is that we get to teach creativity. Because tango is sort of like jazz, when people improvise they get to mix their own step.
Although, it’s been created before, at that moment, you’re the one that discovers the step through the story of tango. You really learn a lot about your posture, where are your weight. People walk differently after learning.
I have had many musicians come in and say, “Oh, I feel so much better playing now that I have this great posture,” or people that have been typing away in their offices. It really allows you to explore your body and mind.
