Selecting music for tango dancers to dance to is a labor of love.
To do it well takes many hours of building a close relationship to the music, dancing to it, becoming familiar with its nuances, and observing how it affects those dancing around you, so that when you take on the role and responsibility of the DJ, you do it with a confidence that your fellow dancers will be engaged and moved as you intuited. Over the years, tango music becomes your faithful and fickle friend (fellow DJs and dancers you know what I mean).
It is understanding that we are humans with diverse experiences, drawn to each other by universal feelings, surfaced through the muscle and skin of our bodies to express themselves to each other, in voiceless communication yet yearning to say to each other through our movement, “this is who I am, do you feel it? how do you feel?”
It is knowing that the highlights of the time on the floor with each other, often come at the moments when the music is just right, with the right partner hearing the music as you do, with the right movement you choose to dance with each other.
This happens randomly for some, but for many, it comes from being brought along a journey, a tanda or two, or several, of dancing to music that “makes sense”, that bolsters confidence in yourself and in the other. Music that asks questions of you for a moment – that perhaps is not quite known to you but nags at the edge of familiarity – even surprising you with unexpected turns. Then, in a crescendo, brings you back home together.
Though this certainly isn’t the only way we experience the music, I feel that this is what happens in some of the best moments. As the DJ, I get the privilege of helping not just one, but many of my fellow dancers find those moments. This is one of the many reasons why I love doing it.
