”THE FORGOTTEN PASSION-AN EXTRAORDINARY ESSAY WRITTEN BY THE DANISH JOURNALIST AND WRITER VIVECA TALLGREN”
While the feminists in the Western World are trying to make life impossible for the male sex, the Argentine tango continues to exist as a paradoxical contrast to female hegemony. As we know, the tango requires two persons, and to become a successful dance it also requires a collaboration between the partners, who usually are a man and a woman.
The principle of the masculine lead and the receptive feminine side is essential to the dance. The woman follows the man, but not in a passive way. Both partners are equally active, and in order to function, fundamental agreement between the partners has to be present. Two persons who don’t even know each other can dance in a close embrace to the rhythm of the music and create a beautiful dance together. Nothing is planned in advance, everything is spontaneous, and this is perhaps the secret behind the attraction of the dance. But for the rational Northerners to learn to tango has turned out to cause some difficulties.
In my home country Finland, where the tango also is a national dance accompanied by melancholy tango songs, the country’s former and most popular tango teacher, Åke Blomkvist, claimed that modern women had become too independent and the men too weak-kneed to learn the dance.
An Argentine woman teacher of the tango said in an interview for a Danish ladies’ magazine that the reason for the big invasion of European and American women of Buenos Aires, the hometown of the tango, is due to the fact that they have gone too far in their claim to be independent. In her opinion these women secretly long for the tension between the two sexes that makes them attracted to each other like Yin and Yang. In her opinion European women should help men to become men by daring to be women.
With the highly debated hashtag MeToo, the feminists are about to kill the erotic spark between the sexes, the spark which gives some zest to our lives and a touch of mystery. Today men don’t dare to express their enthusiasm for an attractive woman for fear of being offensive, and in Northern Europe men have some difficulties in complimenting women. Complements have the best effect when they are expressed in a subtle and sophisticated manner – an ability which probably is more widespread among Southern European men.
A friend of mine from Argentina who came to Denmark as a refugee during the last dictatorship had several adventures with Danish women, but he never found the same passion in them as in Argentine women. Argentina is a Catholic country, and the erotic experiences of many young women happened in secret behind their parents’ back. And he emphasized that the secrecy around the erotic experience often creates an even greater passion.
In Denmark we tend to kill passion with talk. When there are problems in a relationship or in the sex life, it is usually thrashed out in long discussions among women in cafes or at the therapist’s or sexologist’s who often propose new sex positions and experiments in the relationship. The frustrated couples probably become technically better at sex, but can all the techniques cure the lack of passion in their relationship?
Is the intention of the feminists really to eliminate all the masculine virtues in men? If that is so, who do all these women in their high heels, miniskirts, low necked dresses and blouses, sexy underwear, makeup etc. actually want to impress? And why do many men train heavy weightlifting in the gyms and have their muscular chests tattooed with all kinds of masculine symbols?
«A real man should have power and muscles; he should be tough on the surface, but soft and loving inside» was the opinion of several women in a Danish TV program called «Men according to women». A search on the internet confirms that women dream of the real «macho», whereas they criticize the soft man, who takes care of the house and the kids, for lacking sex appeal. Men who are in prison with horrible crimes on their conscience seem to be attractive to quite a few women. What is it that attracts these women? An extreme and brutal vigor?
Northern Europeans flock to Buenos Aires to learn the tango and to get to know the birthplace of this sensual dance. But they might actually be more drawn to the playful interaction of the eyes between the sexes both in the streets and in the dance halls of Buenos Aires. This sensual communication also gives occasion for jealousy, which can be quite dramatic, but unlike our «therapeutic» attitude to love life, Latin Americans tend to react more emotionally. They cry or get furious and do not restrain themselves in the painful situations. The loss of control can seem primitive to us, but in the emotional outbursts also lies the essence of passion. Not because passion necessarily has to have a violent expression, but the pain still lies latent even in the hottest embrace between two persons who desire each other.
Tito Palumbo, a well-known Argentine tango dancer, has expressed some ideas about the dance. In an article about the tango, he writes that both the man and the woman should try to make the most of their clothes. In the dance the man wants the woman to respond to his lead and wants to make her an object of his desire for power, while the woman wishes to be embraced and be led with firmness or gentleness dependent on the nature of the dancer. «The passion arises when the dancers feel the pleasure and the zest during the dance», Palumbo emphasizes.
The Finnish tango singer M. A. Numminen writes in his novel “Tango is my passion” about his encountering with different women on the dance floor: «To my great disappointment I have often noticed that women think that eroticism implies a literal call for sexual intercourse! But Anja apparently understood that eroticism is part of the tango, that you reach a spiritual sublimation when dancing tango. »
On a trip to Buenos Aires I met Chan Park, a Korean engineer who had come to the Argentine capital to get to know the tango. In his film «Tango my life» he has interviews with men at the age of 80 or even 90 who dance the tango with a vitality that is difficult to find among Scandinavians of the same age. What was their secret? They enjoyed life.
Chan Park lived for five years in Buenos Aires and sees the tango as meditation. He began to teach tango using Zen Buddhist principles in his lessons. The idea was to free the mind from the dependence on reason and logical thinking. «The idea of Zen is to express one’s true nature through meditation. »
For Argentines it is primarily a social dance which does not have anything to do with the exaggerated and dramatic tango shows that tourists are taken to in Buenos Aires. The full pleasure is achieved when the dance partners are able to surrender to the dance. When they have given up the thought of obtaining the perfect choreography. Passion only arises at the moment when you surrender to the dance, in the moment when the man and the woman forget themselves and the demands of their surroundings and just move concurrently with the music as one body with four legs.
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