Tacit Knowledge

This weekend I attended the encuentro Noches de Inverno in Austria, surrounded by mountains in Reichenau an der Rax, and shared with many wonderful people. Over roughly three and a half days, I probably spent around 27 hours dancing. That is a lot of time on the floor.

After so many hours, something interesting happens. The dance slowly moves out of the head and into the body. At some point, I noticed my body dancing quite happily while my mind briefly wandered off, thinking I could maybe grab a piece of chocolate from one of the bowls along the edge of the floor as I passed by. I didn't, but the fact that the thought even appeared tells me something: the dance was already happening without conscious effort.

I also notice this bodily knowledge in how I relate to music. My body seems to long for musical familiarity, for rhythms and melodies it can recognise and settle into. This becomes very clear when a DJ plays very "intellectual" music all night, constantly changing themes and structures. Especially at the beginning of a milonga, my body seems to need some orientation before abstraction.

When my body responds directly to the music and to the person I'm dancing with, it opens the door to strong emotional experiences. Feelings I would not want to be without. I personally love dancing in close embrace, often referred to as a milonguero style, but in those moments level and style stop being important. That is simply my preference, not a rule. What matters to me is how the music is felt in the other person, and how we meet each other through it.

For me, tango contains a lot of bodily or tacit knowledge. I cannot always explain what I am doing or how I know to do it. Classes and workshops help, of course, but the biggest changes in my dancing happen at milongas. Through repetition, through dancing to the same music again and again, and through being part of a social space.

That social context matters. It quietly shapes the dance and sets the boundaries of what feels right. Whether it is an encuentro in the Austrian mountains or a crowded milonga in downtown Buenos Aires, tango is learned not only through instruction, but through the body, through repetition, and through being with others on the dance floor.