Today I address one of the most controversial issues in the world of tango lovers, namely whether there is the real Argentine tango, the authentic, certified one.


I know that for many people this is the case... those who are convinced that they have the key to "pure tango" are used to divide the world between those who respect and dance the real tango and those who dance something indefinable, which tango is not. I, forgive me, feel differently.


I don't believe that there is the pure tango, the true Argentine tango... I don't believe that there is a certificate of authenticity.
 I ask for a certificate of authenticity from the collector of numismatics, paintings or objects of value that belong to the past... they are no longer reproducible... I want someone to certify the authenticity of that painting, that coin, etc..... The Argentine tango is fortunately alive, it is current, it is not dead... it offers us emotions and it transforms with us, with society... it takes different, contemporary forms...

The tango is not jealously preserved in a casket or in a shrine taking care that it doesn't get dusty: the tango mixes with our daily life, it gets dirty with the wickedness of our society as well as it colors the pearls that humanity manages to give away.

Tango is not a dance style. 
Many people identify it as a dance style, like the apilado, the milonguero, the salon, etc. ... I do not think so because a style is just a form, a dress ... in other words it is the appearance that is not said to coincide with the substance.

The dance technique of the tango has changed over the decades.
 Just as art changes over time, so does technique, in the service of art, changes and often improves. The choreutic knowledge and body communication technique of dancers and dancers of the golden age of tango was very different from the present one. Today we have at our disposal, for those who wish to do so, the wealth of experience of many decades, nourished by insights and experiments.
 To give a very practical and concrete example, the tango technique that was offered to tango students in 1998, when I started dancing, was very different from today. Today those who want to study are advantaged because they can access a deeper level of knowledge ... the concepts and analyses have been digested and improved ... so it makes no sense to imitate in full, without an update, a way of dancing that had its own raison d'être in that precise historical period.

Dancing Argentine tango does not mean recreating a specific era.
 The style of dancing is linked to an era, so if I deeply love that way of dancing it means that I want to create a bubble, a dream, a sensation of a past time from which to derive pleasure: this, in my opinion, is not bad... on the contrary. All tastes in my opinion are to be respected, but they are just tastes! So I think it's wrong to believe that there are no other dreams, other emotions, other sensations ... the tango is generous and gives, offers a lot to those who want to drink from its source.

The tango is an attitude.
 The tango is a "way of being, a way of thinking"... the tango helps you to discover who you are, it is a ruthless litmus test. Limiting it to a certain way of dancing and ghettoizing it to a historical era (for example the golden age of tango) means in my opinion not doing it justice and means not understanding the enormous potential, even educational and therapeutic, that it contains.


Understanding the modernity of the tango. 
I deeply believe that tango is absolutely contemporary! This means, in my opinion, that we must recover its main concepts and present it to young people as a great opportunity to be together intensely, in a healthy and mutually nourishing way.

In conclusion: I have always been convinced that very often people need certainties, certainties, they need to feel on the side of reason in order to live. This is human. I start from a different principle (not better, simply different): I marry Socrates' famous philosophical thesis, that is, I know I don't know. So I constantly ask myself questions about the goodness or not of my thought and the thought of others and the desire for knowledge leads me to ask myself many questions.
 As for the Argentine tango, the approach I propose to those who believe in the "real" Argentine tango is to say: I like it this way, period.
By doing so you don't rise to solos or censors and you can create a healthy and dialectic relationship that can only be good for our beloved Argentine tango.
The Argentine tango can be a nice way to unite people and not to divide them by creating sides!