Balinese dance has a rich culture underlaid. Every gaze with the eyes, every flick with the head, every position of the fingers, these all have a meaning. Argentine Tango etiquette contains a range of behavior patterns. Do we need to know and respect these cultural backgrounds when we teach Balinese dance or Argentine tango?
There are dances for fun furthermore there are sacral dances only for certain temple ceremonies. The love for Balinese music and dance, might inspire you to learn and dance or even want to open a Balinese dance community or school in your country.
It is undoubtedly a must to know the meaning behind.
Not only copy the movements without understanding what’s all about, right?
Learning about the dos and dont’s?
Working closely about to the “Dos and don’ts“, you will not miss out the support of Balinese dance artists from Bali to learn from the source to understand the interrelations.
Only then you may call it with respect “Balinese dance”. Everything else would be just a Balinese inspired dance interpretation.
It is an unspoken obligation to respect cultural backgrounds.
The same understanding applies for any other cultural related subject and therefore as well for Argentine tango.
The Tango etiquette is cultural interrelated.
It would be most appreciated for a dancer, a teacher or milonga organizer, who call their product “Argentine tango”, to know and understand the tango etiquette.
To handle this tango norms with respect and follow as much as possible, that we still can call it authentic Argentine.
Maybe not every single rule will match well with our own culture, but there are some important once, for example
- to invite by mirada/cabeceo or
- dancing in the line of dance and interacting with other couple around with respect
- using proper arranged tandas in the milongas
just to mention some of the important rules we should definitely adopt.
Just to move around with ochos and giros to traditional tango music does not make you an Argentine Tango dancer.
When we say we dance the Argentine tango, we ow some respect to Argentine culture, everything else would be just TANGO.
