Monday, March 2, 2009

Listen to these women...

...if you want to learn how to really tango:



Billie Holiday - "My Man"




Edith Piaf "Padam Padam"



周璇 - 天涯歌女 Zhou Xuan - The Wandering Songstress 1937



Bai Guang "Ten Sighs" 白光 - "嘆十聲"

When each of these women sing, they sing who they are, they copy no-one. If "who they are" happens to be a little squeaky sounding, a little gravelly, somewhat unconventional, weird, rough, even quite ugly - that's fine too. By not trying to be "Swans", they are much more lovely, beautiful, unique - and magnificent.

If we as followers can feel secure enough to dance the way that these women sing (and by this, I do not mean that one should "imitate" any style - what we should learn to to be secure enough to live in our own uniqueness, and dance from our hearts), we would all dance better.

Listening to Celine Dion may not have exactly the same effect.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes! I've been told that to dance tango properly I must dance like an Argentinian. Isn't the real secret to learn to dance tango like yourself?

Irene and Man Yung said...

Dear Tango Words,

Even Argentinians who try to imitate other argentinians end up failing to capture what tango is. Of course we have to know and practice our basics - but at the end of the day, we should not dance tango like pedigree dogs trying to conform to a standard to win the Westminster Kennel Club Best in Show. We should dance like ourselves, as ugly as that may be, and perhaps, if we persist and are honest and true to ourselves, we will find that we are truly dancing tango.

Thanks for your comment!

Irene and Man Yung