A short guide to Tango and Cookery

By Lucienne Delamarque

This booklet wants to be a friendly suggestion to a possible distracted companion or a small reminder for oneself, without any pretense as the title already shows. You can read it on a train while traveling or on a cot bathed in sunlight or even for a couple of minutes right before sleeping.

It's the result of the author's wonderful experience in approaching and discovering Tango, the simple and colloquial attempt to demonstrate that even people who are apparently less suitable for dancing can have their moments of joy and satisfaction.

Nil impossibile volenti.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Youcanprint
• Release date: Nov 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9791220302111

Book preview

parents.

Introduction to why and why not

This short guide talks about tango and cookery.

It doesn't do it exhaustively because there would be neither space nor authorial ability to do so: can an immense world be described with a simple ballpoint pen? The reader would expect at least the unveiling of a thousand luxuriant commonalities and promiscuities between these two apparently different worlds, like any good self-respecting trans-avant-garde intellectual. Well, you'll be disappointed once again! Or for it to talk of the history and psychology of tango and describe exotic uses and customs for a high-profile cuisine whose real appetite lies not in the throat but in the intellect. Not this either. Let's leave it to the thousand sensationalist cooking programmes: just turn on the TV to find one. So why a booklet like this? What's the purpose? For those like me who until recently abstained completely from dancing (and therefore certainly not masters of dance nor unfortunately the kitchen, let alone life!), it was a challenge. After trying and trying again, overcoming frustrations and fears, I developed a conviction: I believe that even the clumsiest person – a category I truly fall into – can dance. Memento: Nil impossibile volenti.

You probably won't become a Geraldine Rojas or a Miguel Angel Zotto, but you'll be able to dance and thereby discover that playful-social-sentimental dimension found in tango. For us klutzes who can't immediately catch the rapid flow of a step taken by the great artists and reproduce it on the fly, I think it may be useful to have even a modest theoretical smattering, low-level but sincere, to begin breathing an atmosphere which, I assure you, will captivate you more and more.

What you're leafing through is not a complete text, neither on tango nor least of all cookery, and obviously it can't be your only tool on the topic: to supplement it you'll need many lessons from teachers at different schools, advice from your dancer friends, practice (a lot), perseverance (a lot) and exercise (even more), and above all a pinch of healthy unconsciousness. This booklet seeks to be, without any pretence as is already clear from the title, a friendly suggestion to a possible distracted companion, a small reminder for them, to be read either on a train while travelling, or on a bed swaddled by the sun's rays, or two lines resting on the bedside table before the night's rest. It's the result of a simple and happy experience that I want to share with you, because it turned out very positive in the end. As in winter, from inside through a fogged window, one gazes enchanted at the falling snow: a numbed look does not reveal it but makes us feel pleasantly friendly...

Before you start

This short guide (calling it a book would have been frankly too much) is structured as follows.

After an initial description of some basic elements of tango (posture, embrace, walk), the first dance figures any teacher will make you do are illustrated in written form with the aid of a logical schema based on some abbreviations.

I've attempted to deconstruct the figure by breaking it down into elementary steps for a more didactic approach, at least within the author's limits. A bit like football coaches' diagrams, with the difference that you are the players. In short, it's up to you to score...

I've chosen to indicate only the man's steps. This rather painful choice was dictated by a healthy compromise: the desire to maintain maximum simplicity in the description on the one hand, and on the other the awareness that, in the spirit of tango, the man takes the lead and must provide the input for the action of the woman, who has to blindly entrust herself to him. Of course, so to speak... and in any case always with one eye half-open!

If the man learns what is described and the woman maintains the posture and sensitivity to the inputs she receives (very hard to do really well), the couple's movements should come as a natural consequence.

That's the dancing side of things.

At each stage of progress I've associated