The Tango Experience

Conferences
Written By Raffaele Rufo

Performance/Presentation at the Public Pedagogies Conference held at Victoria University, Melbourne, 12-13 November 2015

Through my experience as professional Tango Argentino artist, researcher and educator I have come to the intuitive conclusion that practicing this art form can have a positive personal and social transformative impact on people's lives. I believe, as most artists do, that the power of the Tango lies in its embodied and relational nature. Tango practice requires a deep form of listening (to one’s and other bodies, to space and music) and of letting go (of rational thoughts and judgments). Moreover, you can’t dance the Tango on your own. You not only need a partner, but also a network of dancers. People may embrace this form of expression to fill an existential gap. But, when they go past the initial stage of enthusiasm or even addiction, they not only realise that there are no drawbacks, but they also start seeing how the Tango, as a discipline, has enabled a spontaneous process of learning and community development.

This conference was an opportunity to reflect and elaborate on my art practices and processes of inquiry as ways to develop and share innovative knowing, i.e., knowing that can keep alive the tacit, embodied, relational, participatory, and multimodal dimensions of the tango experience. My performance moved multimodally (dancing, storytelling, projecting videos), critically and self-reflexively across a continuum of roles (participant, participant-observer, observer-participant, observer) and modes of inquiry (detaching, approaching, engaging). I tried to explore creatively whether and in what ways the real social networks generated through tango practices can be configured as innovative pedagogical spaces, i.e., as spaces where community development and learning processes are mutually imbricated in a tacit and informal web of embodied connections. Is it possible, by working in/on such spaces, to envision and elaborate a new generation of praxis frameworks for arts-rich pedagogies and arts education/community programs?

 

Raffaele Rufo

Raffaele Rufo (PhD) is a dance artist, a facilitator of artistic and cultural processes, and an independent scholar committed to community and land regeneration. His artistic background is entwined with the Australian ensemble ‘Liminal Theatre and Performance’ and with the Argentine Tango dance, which he later combined with Contact Improvisation, Body Weather and somatic movement. After focusing his performance practice on Melbourne’s public urban spaces, Raffaele has explored the questions of roots and exile in Milan and Rome through the ecosomatic relation with the nonhuman and matter. His ongoing and recent creative projects include ‘Rituali di Pa(e)ssaggio’, ‘Danced by the Tree’, ‘Return of the Centaurs’, ‘Ecokinetics’ and ‘Ecosomatic Persephone’. He is co-founder of the International Forum for Eco-Embodied Arts (IFEEA) and collaborates with Teatro del Lido di Ostia as artistic director of ‘La Selva’ Residency. Raffaele holds a Phd in dance and performance from Deakin University and his research has been published in academic journals and book collections.

www.raffaelerufo.com
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Tango Is About Letting Go