探戈是一种语言(二)

跳探戈舞就象与人交谈。你告诉她你打算如何移动。她告诉你她同意怎样跟随。你调整你的带领去适应她的跟随。她调整她的跟随来与你的带领吻合。无声的信息，包括感受，诠释，建议，反馈，适应等的交流，使两个舞伴有可能跳得象一个人一样。跳舞跳得好是良好沟通的结果。

为了沟通，人们需要讲同一种语言。如果不讲同一种语言，或使用生造的词语，或带有浓重的口音，别人将很难理解你。不使用同一种语言是我们探戈中的一个大问题。不同的领舞者往往以不同的方式带领相同的步子。不同的跟舞者往往对相同的带领作出不同的反应。领舞者抱怨跟舞者跟得不对。跟舞者抱怨领舞者带得不清楚。这往往是因为人们所奉行的标准不尽相同。

很多学生不理解标准化的重要性。他们不遵守常规的跳法，不听从老师的指示，忽视基础的东西。特别是年轻人，他们感兴趣的往往是非正常的和非传统的东西，喜欢用与标准探戈不同的方式跳舞。教师也一样，经常教新发明出来的，非标准的，不适合交谊舞的步子。专业舞蹈演员在表演时采用这样的步子是一回事，他们只同固定的舞伴合作并能在演出前编改排练。同陌生人在舞会上跳社交探戈舞则是另一回事，除非所有舞者都遵守普遍接受的规则和标准，他们是有没有办法互相沟通和动作和谐地即兴舞蹈的。

YouTube也为已经混乱的探戈语言添乱。学生可能会认为他们在网上看到的是标准的探戈，但实际上那是表演探戈或作秀，并不是在世界各地的舞会上大多数人所跳的社交探戈。大多数人所跳的探戈是布宜诺斯艾利斯的那种探戈。该城市是探戈的发源地，在那里探戈自上世纪初就产生了并得到推广，成为老百姓所喜爱的草根舞蹈。每天有来自世界各地的探戈爱好者在遍布全市的二百多个舞会上与当地人跳探戈舞。不管你在家里说什么探戈语言，当你访问布宜诺斯艾利斯时，你会发现他们的语言才是你必须学会的探戈语言。如果社交探戈需要一种世界通用的标准语言，这必须是布宜诺斯艾利斯的语言。

其他语言的历史也可以为我们提供一点借鉴。例如，汉语在历史上曾演变成许多不同的方言，以至不同地区的中国人无法彼此沟通理解。在过去一百年中，中国人试图用一种标准的方言来统一他们的语言。只有在近数十年，由于以北京方言为标准语言（普通话）的电视的普及，这个目标才部分地实现。许多生活在农村地区的中国人仍然使用外地人听不懂的当地方言。如果你学习汉语，你要学习普通话而不是当地方言。同样，如果你学习探戈，你要学习阿根廷探戈，而不是芬兰探戈。如果你的目的是与大多数人在舞会上跳探戈，你得学习社交探戈而不是表演探戈，而且你得学习在布宜诺斯艾利斯的舞会上所跳的老舞棍式探戈，而不是一些自我创造的，只在某些北美大学校园里跳的当地探戈。北美的一些大学校园是相当隔绝的。他们很少与其他探戈社区交流，也很少邀请外地老师来教。因此，他们发展了自己为外地舞者所不熟悉的探戈方言。同样，访问布宜诺斯艾利斯的外国人也经常发现自己无法与当地人跳舞，因为他们的跳法完全不相同。随着探戈的日益国际化，探戈语言演变成不同方言的可能性也增加了。如果不小心，我们可能会重蹈汉语的覆辙。

Tango Is a Language (II)

Dancing tango is like having a conversation with someone. You tell her how you intend to move. She tells you how she agrees to follow. You adapt your lead to her follow. She accommodates her follow to your lead. The silent exchanges of information—feelings, interpretations, suggestions, feedback and adjustments, etc., make it possible for the two of you to dance together as one unit. Good dancing is a result of good communication.

In order to communicate, you need to speak the same language. If you speak a different language, or use invented words, or talk with an accent, it would be hard for others to understand you. Not speaking the same language is a big problem in our tango. Different leaders often lead the same step differently. Different followers often follow the same lead differently. Leaders complain that followers do not follow properly. Followers complain that the lead is unclear. This happens because people do not abide by the same standard.

Many students fail to understand the importance of standardization. They disregard the conventions, overlook the instructions and neglect the fundamentals. Young people, in particular, tend to be interested in things that are abnormal and unconventional. They seek to dance in a way departing from the standard tango. Teachers, too, often teach invented and nonstandard steps unsuitable for social dancing. Using such steps in a show by professionals is one thing—they dance only with a fixed partner and can choreograph and rehearse the steps before the show. Dancing tango socially with casual partners in the milongas is another thing, where unless dancers conform to the generally accepted rules and standards, there is no way for them to communicate and improvise in unison with each other.

YouTube also adds confusions to the already divided tango language. Students may think what they see online is the standard tango, but in fact that is performance tango, or show tango, which is not the way most people dance tango in the milongas all over the world. The tango that most people dance is the style danced in the milongas of Buenos Aires, which is the birthplace of tango where tango is created and danced since the beginning of the last century, where tango is a grassroots dance of the ordinary people, and where people from all over the world come to dance tango with the locals everyday in over two hundred milongas all over the city. No matter what tango language you speak at home, when you visit Buenos Aires you will realize that their language is the tango language you have to conform to. If social tango needs a standard language to remain social tango worldwidely, that must be the language of Buenos Aires.

The history of some other languages may shed light on this. The Chinese language, for example, has historically developed into many dialects so different that people from various parts of China could not understand each other. For the past one hundred years, the Chinese tried to unify their language by conforming to a standard dialect. This is only partially accomplished in the recent decades thanks to the spread of the television, which uses Beijing dialect as the standard language (Mandrine). Many Chinese living in rural areas still use local dialects unintelligible to outsiders. If you study Chinese, you want to study Mandrine and not a local dialect. Likewise, if you learn tango, you want to learn Argentine tango and not Finnish tango. If your purpose is to dance tango in the milongas with most people, you want to study social tango and not performance tango, and you want to learn the milonguero style danced in the milongas of Buenos Aires, not some self-invented and localized style danced only in a university campus in North America. Some university campuses in North America are pretty isolated. They rarely associate with other tango communities and seldom invite outside teachers in to teach. As a result, they developed their own tango dialect unfamiliar to tango dancers elsewhere. Similarly, foreigners visiting Buenos Aires often find themselves unable to dance with the locals because they dance differently. As tango gains worldwide popularity, the possibility of tango language being transformed into different dialects increases. If we are not careful, we may end up repeating the history of the Chinese language.