真正的美来自内心

我们跳探戈舞部分因为它是个优美的舞蹈。这本没有什么不妥。人们追求美跟植物开花，鸟儿歌唱有着同样的原因。美是自然的产物。它赏心悦目，吸引异性。它为生命的繁衍提供更多的机会。美对拥有它的人是一种宝贵财富。因此，在我们的文化中美成为人们羡慕，追求，追捧，崇拜和模仿的对象。时装，化妆品，植入硅，瘦脸手术和各种新方法不断推出，让人们显得更加漂亮。每年有数以百亿计的美元消费在这上面。在我们这个时代，美已经不再是自然遗传和真实的产物了。它变成了人造的，变态的和虚幻的假象。

当人们痴迷于虚假的表象时，实质往往被忽略，而问题就产生了。一个美丽的女人可能有优势，但同时她也有不利之处。她可能娇生惯养，自我中心，高傲自大，对现实生活的艰辛准备不足。她往往要求过高而难以满足。她是男人互相争夺的猎物和女人争风吃醋的对象。她让许多追随者心碎。这样，她有众多的敌人，因此她比较冷漠多疑，不友好，自卫性强，不容易与人相处。她的人生缺少安宁。在追求美丽的时候人们应意识到它的代价。美貌只有一层皮的深度。无论对人生还是探戈，它都既不是唯一的，也不是最重要的东西。

为表面印象而跳舞的人需要认识到，没有内容的形式不过是一具空壳。真正的美来自内心。你可以模仿别人的舞步，但你不能模仿美。只有停止作表面文章，专注于音乐，拥抱，连接，情感，和你的舞伴，那来自内心的真正的美才会自然流露出来。探戈不是作秀，而是一种人际关系。探戈之美存在于两人共享的亲密，舒适的拥抱，一体的感觉，彼此的沟通，共同的理解，那由音乐引起而为两人所共享的梦幻般的感觉，以及与音乐相吻的和谐运动。如果你去布宜诺斯艾利斯的探戈舞会，你会看到阿根廷人就是这样跳舞的。他们不在乎自己的外表，也不做花哨的步子，而专注于两人的关系。然而，他们的舞蹈是如此美丽，以至于浅薄的外国人到处东施效颦，却不理解它的实质。

探戈在这个国家还太年轻。克服浅薄和理解美的实质需要成熟。我越与各种年龄的女人跳舞，越欣赏成熟的女人。甚至在阿根廷，我也发现成熟的女人通常是更好的舞者。她们的青春美貌开始消退，所以她们开始更注重实质的，而不是表面的美。我希望在这个国家，随着我们的探戈群体变得更加成熟，探戈也将克服浅薄而更注重于实质。

True Beauty Comes from Within

We dance tango in part because tango is beautiful. There is nothing wrong with that. People pursue beauty for the same reason that plants bloom and birds sing. It is natural. It pleases eyes and attracts mates. It provides a better chance for living things to reproduce. Beauty is a valuable resource to those who own it. As a result, beauty is admired, pursued, worshiped, idolized and imitated in our culture. Fashion, cosmetics, silicon implant, face-lift surgery and many other methods are developed to make people look beautiful. Billions are spent each year for it. Beauty now is no longer natural, genetic and real. It becomes artificial, perverted and illusory.

When people are obsessed on superficial things, substances are ignored and problems occur. A beautiful woman may have advantages. But at the same time she may also have drawbacks. She is likely spoiled, self-centered and arrogant. She is less prepared for the tough realities in real life. She demands more and is hard to please. She is a prey of men, an object of envy and jealousy of women, and a heart breaker to many. She has many enemies. Consequently, she is more suspicious, cold, unfriendly and self-protective. Her relationships with others are more problematic. She lives a less tranquil life. One has to bear in mind its cost while pursuing beauty. Beauty is only a skin deep. It is neither the only thing nor the most important thing in life as well as in tango.

Those who dance tango for impression need to realize that form without content is but an empty shell. True beauty comes from within. You can imitate other’s steps, but you can’t imitate beauty until you quit to impress people and focus on the music, embrace, connection, feeling and your partner, and then real beauty from within comes naturally. Tango is not a show. It is a relationship. The beauty of tango lies in the shared intimacy, the comfort of the embrace, the oneness of the two, the communication between them, the mutual understanding, the dreaming feeling stirred by the music that they share, and the harmony of movement in unison with the music. If you go to the milongas in Buenos Aires, you will see this is how tango is danced by the Argentines. They don’t care much about how they look. They don't do fancy steps. They concentrate on the relationship, and their dance is so beautiful that it is imitated everywhere by shallow minded foreigners without understanding its essence.

Tango is still too young in this country. It takes maturity to overcome shallowness and to understand true beauty. The more I dance with women of all ages, the more I appreciate mature women. Even in Argentina, I find that mature women are better dancers in general. Their youthful freshness starts to fade away, and they start to focus more on the substance rather than the surface of beauty. It is my hope that tango in this country, too, will overcome its shallowness and focus more on the substance, as our tango community becomes maturer.