Buenos Aires (Argentina), the 5th May, 2010

Tango Versus Oriental Dance...WHY?!


There's one thing I've already understood (better said: FELT) about Tango:
Opposed to Oriental Dance, which is always associated with lack of cloth and intense sensuality (if not, sexuality), I see Tango as an openly sensual (even sexual) dance with PASSION and, potentially, ART. I don't mean it in a bad way at all. I happen to be mentally and sexually satisfied and not repressed so I can enjoy and appreciate a beautiful piece of well performed tango (with all its elements in which sexuality plays a strong role).
It's said to be a dance born in the brothels of Buenos Aires and that explains it but, thanks God, its sexual component didn't stop it from ascending to a world-wide Art form.

Again I repeat. I am a Tango lover myself ( longing to start my classes as soon as I return to Cairo).

I mention tango's sexual flavour but I don't mean it in a negative way at all.
I mean it as it is: Sexual and Sensual. Passionate. Portraying, somehow, human being emotions and physical behaviour whenever one is passionately in love (with all the joys, pain and drama of it all).
Sexuality only has a negative approach when taken by prejudices, tabus and hypocrisy. God knows how human (sexual) are HUMAN BEINGS!

It just pisses me off - just a bit though - that no one seems to bother about the lack of cloth in Tango (and Classical Ballet and so many other types of dance which use the body as an intrument and, therefore, do not hide it from the audiences) and its open sexuality and then all pointing fingers are directed (for how many centuries now?!) to Oriental Dance where dancers are actually more dressed and sensuality is not open or aggressive but subtle and transcendent.



Why is Oriental Dance so punished and target of phantasies and heavy prejudices?
It's also like someone took your heart away from your chest with their own hands and exposed it to a tempest of alternating cold and hot rains in a kind of Tropical forest I've never known before (except when making love with a man I really desire).