探戈与浪漫主义

当人们说某人跳探戈象做体操或耍杂技时，他们是指舞蹈中缺乏浪漫主义。体操是一种需要高度技巧的强身健体运动。杂技是涉及高难动作，如腾空翻滚，倒立劈叉，反弓曲体之类的表演。这些演习是用以显示人体的能力，为健身和娱乐观众的目的服务的。它们是对身体的一种挑战，并不是为了浪漫和舒适。

探戈则不然。它是一种艺术形式，用以显示身体随音乐节奏而运动时的优美与典雅。它强调身体运动的艺术方面，如情感，乐感和美感，而不是身体运动的物理方面，如力量，速度和特技等。对探戈来说，重要的是多么深情，多么舒服，多么有音乐感，多么优美雅致，赏心悦目，而不是在物理上多么具有挑战性，动作多么困难惊险，等。探戈创造出来乃是为了浪漫和抚慰。它与感觉，情绪，渴望，温情，肉欲和浪漫主义息息相关。它满足异性之间亲昵的需要，并暗示一种充满激情，令人兴奋，令人满足和理想主义的罗曼史。探戈在本质上是浪漫主义的，这是它与体操和杂技的区别。

如果我们把浪漫主义从探戈中剔除，剩下的就是体操运动或杂技表演。不幸的是，在电子游戏而不是经典艺术，体育竞赛而不是文学作品，科学技术而不是人文主义为主要影响的文化中，这却是探戈越来越变成的东西。今天的人们，尤其是在这种文化中长大的年轻人，表现出一种缺乏深度和持久品质的倾向。他们过于注重浮华的形式，而不是内在的本质，不断寻求新奇和刺激。为了保持探戈古典，简约，浪漫和优雅的风格，我们有许多工作要做。其中之一就是在我们的舞蹈和教学中反映出更多的浪漫主义，例如放慢速度，简化动作，流露感情，挖掘深度，并在优美典雅上多下功夫。科技和时尚会过时，但浪漫主义永远不会，它驻留在人类的本性中，我们只需要唤醒它。

Tango and Romanticism

When people comment on someone’s tango dancing as doing gymnastics or acrobatics, they are referring to a lack of romanticism in the dance. Gymnastics is an athletic exercise involving skilled physical movements to develop muscles and bodily strength. Acrobatics is a circus show of physical feats, such as flipping in the air, balancing on one hand while doing the splits, and bending the body 180 degrees backwards. These exercises are designed to show what human bodies are capable of for sportive and entertaining purposes. They are physically challenging and difficult to do, and are not intended to be romantic and comfortable.

Tango, on the other hand, is an art form that displays the gracefulness and beauty of the body as it moves in rhythm to music. It emphasizes the artistic aspects of the movement such as sentiment, musicality and aesthetics, rather than the physical aspects of the movement such as strength, speed and tricks. What matters in tango is how soulful, musical, graceful, elegant, beautiful and not how physically challenging, difficult and thrilling the movement is. Tango is created to be romantic and comfortable. It involves feelings, emotions, longings, tenderness, sensuality and romanticism. It serves the need for intimacy between the opposite sexes, and is suggestive of a passionate, exciting, fulfilling, and idealized romance. In the soul of tango is romanticism, which distinguishes tango from gymnastics and acrobatics.

If we take romanticism away from tango, what's left is a sport or show. Unfortunately, in a culture where games instead of classics, sports instead of arts, and technologies instead of humanity are the main influence, that is what tango increasingly becomes. People, especially young people brought up in this culture exhibit a lack of depth and lasting quality. They focus too much on flashy forms rather than substances, and constantly seek changes and novelty. To retain tango’s classic, simple, romantic and elegant style, we have work to do. One of which is to reflect more romanticism in our dancing and teaching, for example, slowing down, being simple, going deeper, showing more feelings, and focusing more on gracefulness and elegance. Technologies and fashions may be out-of-date, but never will romanticism. It resides in the humanity. We only need to awake it.