My Way to Tango

When I was growing up, we were listening to the radio a lot. Therefore as a child, I must have heard plenty of tango music. At that time, broadcasts included a lot of dance music from the pre-War era. As it happens, Tango was very popular in Europe before the Second World War. Then, it was played everywhere, and all the clubs had their orchestras playing tango music. The style was so popular that some parts of Europe developed their own, very specific tango. The most recognized songs were composed by musicians living in Eastern Europe. Many of these tangos were composed by Polish musicians. If you are interested, look up “The Last Sunday”, a beautiful tango by the Polish composer Jerzy Petersburski. Then sometime in the early sixties, the tango started to extinguish itself.

“My Father loved to dance. One day, he told me that I needed to learn at least one dance.”

During my childhood, I was listening to tangos, without recognizing them amongst other tunes.

I was from quite a music-loving family. My Mom, her brother and later my sister played piano. Well… with me it ended up with just piano lessons. Mom’s brother, my uncle, was especially talented and could play everything; from classics to his favourite pieces of the lighter type. This is somewhere on the floor space between our baby grand piano and our dining room entrance where I saw my parents dance. My Father loved to dance. One day, some years later, he told me that I needed to learn at least one dance, and the best would be to start with the Tango. I loved this idea, as I enjoyed this style of music that was so elegant and which made dancers appear to be floating over the floor. My father started by teaching me just a few basic steps. Later, he also taught some of my friends. He claimed that after tango, one could easily manage any other dances.

“while watching a tango show and …
ended up with tango contagion”

I would not have any reason to reminisce about so remote past if some decades later, I wouldn’t come up with the idea to visit Argentina. In short, I and my husband went there, decided to have a great Argentine asado, while watching a tango show and …. ended up with tango contagion. As a result, we decided to learn the dance during the next trip to Buenos Aires and continued learning it back home in our basement. We relied on DVD recordings of classes. Out into the corridor went all the intruding pieces of furniture, sofas for three and for two, armchair and our coffee table in order to make room for our practice. It helped little and we still couldn’t execute the basic step sequence of eight, with or without the cross. So finally, how did it go? Well, we are still married, but we have really learned to dance after joining the Kingston Tango Group.