The most famous psychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires treats its patients with tango-therapy. After six years of studying the dance, author Patrizia Chen can see why. Here, five ways tango has changed her life.
Joy. I can’t even imagine life without tango and its music. I’m a willing addict to this drug that releases endorphins in abundance, and thus happiness—and I don’t even need to inhale! On the New York subway, I just plug in my iPod and the dose that comes out of its music is a panacea for all ills. I immerse myself in the magic of songs old and new, oblivious to the trillions of other users, breathing, pushing and shoving around me. Up and down the Lexington Line, the magical notes of Pugliese and Piazzolla, Fresedo and Canaro, DiSarli and Troilo, take me into another world. I float inside my own happiness. If dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire, as someone wrote, tango is the sublimation of the embrace, the ultimate togetherness.Looks. In the past years I’ve had so-called friends search along my ears and cheeks for tell-tale lines of plastic surgery, unable to believe that tango can have such a dramatic effect on a sixty-something woman. But just see how it feels to slip into the arms of a partner, close the eyes and let go, following a hypnotic rhythm, gliding along the notes of the most beautiful music. Two bodies together, surrendering to the pleasure of dancing. Wrinkles disappear as the face relaxes into a beatific smile; legs grow longer while stretching behind the torso to translate the music into imaginary drawings; a waistline visibly shrinks as hips and legs dissociate from the torso, twisting into sensual figures of eight, ochos.
Patience. I discovered that in order to achieve results I had to change the way I listened. Tango is difficult, and in order to really master it one has to log in years and years of studies, in search of that special something that separates the artist from a fancy-steps-hoarder. Zen-like concentration skills are required in order to approach it. Never one for contemplation, I found myself concentrating, for hours, on the tiniest muscles of my body, on the many different ways to use my toes and feet to arch, bend, slide, point, tap. It turned out to be the best entryway to meditation, of blocking out life around me, the everyday problems and, even more seriously, the pain of seeing a dear one go through the difficult ordeal of an unforgiving cancer. Psychologists and psychiatrists seem to be a well-represented group in the world of tango aficionados; we all need some relief.
