Q: (CHICHO) Speaking of Eugenia, I�ll tell you something.  Once I got annoyed with her. We were supposed to dance in La Viruta. This was several years ago. I never rehearse. Many people know that. If I have to do a choreography, which I�ve done sometimes, I do rehearse (plus, I like the creative process of choreography), but I haven�t done many because I get bored quite quickly. What I like about tango is the spontaneity, dancing what I feel at the moment. But that�s something personal. So since we hadn�t rehearsed, Eugenia, a week before, said to me�Sorry, Euge! (laughter)�she said, �Chicho, aren�t we going to rehearse?� And I said, �No, Euge, we�re not going to rehearse. I don�t feel like it.� (Laughter.) And she said �But Chicho, what are we going to show?� And I look at her and said �Now we�re going to rehearse even less� (Laughter.) 

Because I don�t have anything to show. I dance what�s happening to me and that�s what I always do, anywhere in the world. I mean, I don�t feel pressure from anyone or from anywhere because I�ve never felt it, that�s part of the process and the path I�ve chosen. 

When I began dancing tango, there were very few young people. A lot less than today. So, from the beginning, there was never much pressure. I dance and it�s always been the same: people applaud, they enjoy themselves, I enjoy myself. It�s as simple as that. And people have grown too. I go somewhere, I have a good time, they have a good time and I leave, and that�s how it is. I don�t feel any kind of pressure even when I was dancing at a time when I could have felt it. You could interpret this as a kind of cockiness as well, because I�ve danced alongside tango superstars and laughed my head off. I do what I like doing. 

First of all, I�m not competing with anyone because that doesn�t make any sense. Secondly, I don�t feel like I have to prove anything to anyone. Nor do I feel the pressure of �I created this so now I have to sustain this creation of mine.�  I don�t feel any of that... 

The other day, I was talking to a friend, in Europe, a real friend, and he said to me �Chicho is this and Chicho is that, but what is Chicho really?� I turned 41 last week. Chicho already is what he is. There are others now who have to do what I did. I�m already there. Now I�m going to keep doing what I do, but for myself. These days there are really accomplished people, great people who are very talented. So now the responsibility is all theirs. As for me... well, I�ve never really felt it. (Laughter.) The place I held for a time, the place everyone put me in, is not something that I feel like I need to hold on to today, or that I�m above or below that. Basically I�m still the same person as when I began to dance. I really feel that. If someone else comes along with something new, great, I�ll go take their classes. I don�t have a problem with that. Not at all. 

Q: (Mateo) From the �inside,� how do you see tango outside of Argentina? 

A: In Italy they�ve really captured the spirit of the milonga. The habit of going all dressed up. The women really get into it. And so do the men. So they really reflect the idea of the milonga, the essence of it.  But they�re missing the technical part and the dance. In some ways, they haven�t found a balance yet. I mean, they�ve got the milonga down, but they�re missing the dance. And there are other places that have really captured the dance, but not the milonga. That�s more in the north of Europe. The technique and dynamics of the dance are prefect, but they�re missing �milonga;� they�re missing a rootedness, love, passion...  It varies a lot. In my opinion, it�s a question of time. 

Q: So real tango is from Buenos Aires? 

A: From Buenos Aires and a few other places, but not from everywhere. Last night, for instance, I was in La Baldosa. There was no one there, but I felt that I was in a milonga. And sometimes, I can be at a festival in Europe and there are a thousand people there and I feel like going to my room and sleeping (laughs). 

Q: (Pepa) Can I ask a question related to this?  Slava, from Moscow, sent in a question about festivals.  It says: I see a lot of Argentine teachers invited to teach at festivals who, during the festivals� milongas, stay seated the whole time, chatting and not dancing.  Why? (Laughter and people asking, surprised: chatting on the internet?) 

A: I don�t know about chatting (laughter). I don�t have internet on my phone so I have no idea (laughter). Consider the fact that those of us who are travelling around the world from festival to festival get to a certain point where, for instance�.  You go to the first, right?  You arrive, you�re greeted and from the moment you arrive, they pick you up at the airport, the train station or wherever, you get into the car and... they put tango on.  (He gestures. Laughter.)  And they start to ask you, �And?  Where have you been?  What have you been up to?� So you talk about what you�ve been doing. 

The first festival goes by and you�re feeling good, you dance, you socialize with everyone... The festival ends.  You�re home for three days.  You go to the second festival.  You get to the airport and the first thing they do is... they put tango on again and they start to ask you the same things.  And that happens during seven, eight, nine, ten festivals and you get to a point where you can�t take it anymore.  So you�re sitting there at the table at the festival like this (he gestures)  because you�ve had it.  I think that that might be why. 

Personally, I get really exhausted. In almost all of the festivals they ask you (I�d almost say it�s a part of the contract) that you be present. In other words, you can�t not go to the milonga.  So you go, you�re there, you drink a Coke, talk a bit and two or three hours go by. Sometimes you stay longer because the milonga is good and you leave at 5am, but other times you just stay for half an hour and then leave.  I think it�s related to that, to tiredness, to the repetition of doing the same thing all the time.  It�s not because anything strange is going on. 

Q: (Marcela) Earlier you were talking about breaking certain limits. In your opinion, what are the limits for something to still be tango? 

A: What I mentioned earlier.  First of all, respect for the dance. The essence in terms of the relationship to the person you�re dancing with. I�m not saying �man� and �woman� because these days, especially in Europe, there are many women dancing with women and men with men. That doesn�t make a difference, as long as the dance code is respected. The music, connection, all of those elements, but above all, the idea of not breaking limits just to break them, just to do something crazy. There are many who put a headband on like this, put some crazy pants on, (he gestures, laughter) and they show off some weird steps. And, I tell you, I�m not a traditionalist, but that�s not cool with me. 

Q: That�s why I�m asking. To what point is that tango or not? 

El Migue: Up to the headband! (Laughter.) 

A: (Chicho) I don�t know how to explain it. I�d have to explain it through movement. If it starts to be like contact improv, contemporary dance... Because, in reality, there are few dancers who come to tango from other dances, but many tangueros who want to incorporate things from other dances into tango without knowing much about them. It�s better to limit yourself to what you know, focus on that to the extreme or study something else to the extreme and then try to mix the two, trying to create something great from something that they both have in common. In other words, when you try to do something half and half, you just end up with something half-assed. 

In my opinion, one of the major things that changed in tango is the code, in the sense that according to dance code, one person leads and the other follows, whether it be man-woman, woman-woman or man-man. That�s the code, those are the rules of the game. If that�s broken, in my opinion it�s no longer tango. 

If the idea of who is leading who changes constantly or we�re both just kind of out there and then come back together, and so on, (he gestures, laughter) the essential code of tango has been broken. At a very basic level, one person leads and one follows, regardless of gender. In my opinion, that should be a rule. The person who decides to lead simply has to take the risk. 

Tango, in some places in Europe, has become a bit �feminine� �I don�t know if that�s the word� because the men don�t lead, they go where the woman goes. I�m not saying that�s bad. It�s just another code. I�m not saying that you have to grab the woman and be macho, because that�s not it either... I remember that once I heard an interview with Cecilia Troncoso and she said, �I don�t understand the people, these days, who dance anyone with just anyone. I love being a woman. I love dancing within my role in tango and following the guy who is leading me.� In other words, if each person takes on a role, I think that�s what maintains the essence of what we were talking about before. If we�re talking about a choreography, that�s another thing. But in terms of social dance, the milonga, that should be respected. 

Q:  (Daniel) Mariano, considering the milonga �mileage� that you have, when you go to the dance salon now, what do you feel more, nostalgia or hope? 

A: In reality, a mix of both things. I feel nostalgia because I remember that before, tango wasn�t a club, it was a family. We used to go to Parakultural or to Chacabuco, and it was like being in a family. I feel nostalgic about that spirit. Today it�s more a club where you go and people get together. It�s more relaxed. It�s good because it�s more modern, but maybe because I feel a bit nostalgic, I�m also a bit hopeful. Or vice versa. 

I don�t feel pessimistic about tango. It�s always possible to continue creating and improving. I always feel it�s a shame when a pair of dancers are given an opportunity, either in a milonga in Buenos Aires or outside of the country, and they don�t take advantage of that opportunity. That annoys me. 

These days, for instance, �something that we didn�t see happening before� everyone dances in all the milongas, every day, every month of the year. There are exhibitions all over the world, in all the milongas, all the time and, sometimes, there are couples who dance in two or three milongas in the same month. I think that dancing in a milonga is a great opportunity to show something truly excellent. And the same goes for outside the country. The idea of travelling with tango is something else, pulling something together to travel. But if you�re going to put something together, create something! Create some kind of project, because otherwise, you go there, you do two or three jobs and then you never return to Europe. I think that that�s a lack of respect for the dance itself. 

I feel that if you�re given an opportunity, you should take complete advantage of it. Get together with a girl, practice, put something together, think about what you want to do in your classes so that you�re not simply out there offering a class with a crazy name, �Tango Figures 2011,� for instance.  Come up with some kind of didactic concept or method, something that�s yours, that you create, that you can offer. 

I see a lot of photos, for example, of tangueros who advertise technique x or y, and then you dance with them and they don�t reflect what you see on the flier. They don�t have the same clothes or the same presence or the same dance as on the flier. I think that needs to be respected a bit more. I understand that there�s a hunger (laughter), that it�s all the same, but I think it can be done better. I�m not pessimistic but I think that more effort needs to go into that. 

Q: (Cornelia) I have a question regarding what you were saying about Europe, how sometimes one person leads and the other doesn�t follow.  You also mentioned that Eugenia fundamentally changed the woman�s role.  So my question is, how can the woman take on a more significant role without breaking the dance code? That wasn�t very clear to me. 

A: If you really believe in the role you�re taking on in tango, you can do whatever you want. Eugenia never broke with that code. She transformed it, maintaining the role and her own essence. She didn�t need to change that.

Q: But what I wanted to know was, what is that new role? 

A: Visually? 

Q: No, not only visually. 

A: Ok, I�ll try to answer more or less what I think you�re asking.

There�s a change taking place with respect to depth in the quality and the sensitivity of movement.  The communication that exists today is much deeper than what was taking place ten years ago. Ten years ago there wasn�t much, technically speaking: the lead and how to follow. Today, in my opinion, we�re at an ideal point in terms of sensitivity in the man�s role and in the woman�s role, in terms of precision in the lead without being violent or aggressive and in terms of the rapid and dynamic response of the woman to what the man proposes. I think that in terms of technique, these days that aspect is very strongly established. 

That�s what happened to me with Eugenia, and now with Juana, who is as fast as a plane and, in some ways, a little more evolved in what she does than Eugenia was; in what she does with me, I mean. 

There�s a certain speed in the technique, based on communication and sensitivity, a much better perception of the lead. The better that is, the closer one is to other, the faster things can happen. Obviously, if you have a very precise technique and you develop the artistic side of the question, you can put more of yourself into it. 

If I, for instance, lead Eugenia (or Juana) in a simple turn, she�s already understood from the very first moment that I want a turn so she can add something else if she wishes. If she�s sharp and has the artistic capability to interpret that in a different way, to perceive it quickly, then that�s it. Because she�s listening to me, she�s reacting and on top of that, she�s interpreting and she�s dancing, she�s adding something of her own, whether it�s new or not. That�s what happened to me with Eugenia. The capacity she has �or Juana has, or many women today have, because there are many women whose perception of the lead is very delicate and strong� is related to that. I�m not talking about anticipation. It�s a question of perception and sensitivity. In my opinion, that�s the point, and Eugenia was one of the first women I felt that with. Before, with Lucia, everything was more led. With Eugenia, it began to be about �suggesting.�  I would suggest a movement and there was a response. With Juana, I barely need to lead anything (laughter) because we understand each other perfectly, which is taking things a step further. I don�t know what comes after that.

Q: (El Chino) Have you always danced what you felt or at some point did form or technique take precedence over the creative aspect? What happens with me is that I have trouble dancing what I feel and I end up concentrating on form. 

A: With technique you can make movements and sometimes the movements lead you to the technique. And the majority of the techniques we use these days come from movements, right? 

The technique for rebounds (rebotes) gives you boleos, for instance. Or blocking (bloqueo) gives you a change of dynamics. I think that it�s a give-and-take.  You start there and return there. In my opinion, you have to have both. You have to be able to imagine crazy things and try to reproduce them through techniques or look at the moves and try to find a technique in order to make them work.  It�s a constant back-and-forth. Sometimes it�s frustrating. I�ve often thought up and imagined things that, in the end, I couldn�t do because my body won�t allow me to. I try a thousand things but I can�t make it work. So I have to move on to something else. 

Q: (Pepa) And improvising, at any point did you ever come up empty-handed? 

A: Yes, many times.  But most of the time, it�s been related to what I mentioned earlier; when pleasure becomes work, I get stuck. When it�s something I�m doing all the time and I have to do it because I have to do it, while I�m out dancing, I�m thinking up my shopping list for the next day at the supermarket. (Laughter.) That�s when I need to stop because if not, I lose the pleasure of dancing.  But that is something that is more work-related than social. 

Q: (Pepa) Here�s a question Ra�l Navalpotro sent from Spain.  With the hindsight you have from all the years in this career, if you could go back, would you change anything?  And if so, what? 

A: No, I don�t think I would change anything. I�m happy with what I�ve done and how. 

Q: (Ame) My question is related to what you were saying about Juana�s transformation.  Don�t you think that there was a change in you, or in the role of the man, so that the woman could occupy that space? 

A: I think that every time I dance with a new person (and Mariana is here), I adapt to the person I�m dancing with. I don�t try to �bring� the person to me.

In articles like the one I did with Milena, I realized (and I say this in the most humble way possible) that what I say sometimes influences a lot of people, but, well, I�ll tell you this because it�s funny.  I�m in Europe, sitting in a milonga, at a festival and some guy goes by doing really crazy things.  But when he gets to my table, he really embraces his partner as he goes by (laughter), trying to show me that he really can dance tango... and that�s fine, it�s funny. (Laughter.) 

And it�s true what I said in Milena�s article that for me, the embrace is really important. 

I have a friend in Sweden, Ellin �I don�t know if you know her, she�s covered in tattoos, she�s really great� and once I went to visit her. She invited me to a class. She was giving classes with Riku, a DJ. So I went to the class.  It was an intermediate class and I stood there watching. And at one point, near the beginning of the class, they spoke to the students in Swedish.  I don�t understand a word of Swedish (laughter) but I can see that they all begin to embrace each other.  Not all together, I mean in pairs, but they are really embracing, hugging each other... I didn�t understand a word, but it was crazy! Then there was total silence. She walked around and looked at everyone, and so did Riku, and at the same time I was looking at them and I couldn�t believe it.  It was fantastic!  They cut straight to the chase! (Laughter.) After that, the class had a different energy. I think that it�s very important to return to that feeling of togetherness, because it�s really enjoyable.

When I took my first tango class, in Cristina Banegas� studio with Victoria and Ricky, Victoria said to me, �I�m starting a tango class, come along!�  And I said to her, �Tango, are you insane?� I was a drummer back then, nothing to do with tango.  (Laughter.) She was offended so I said �Ok, fine, I�ll go.�  I went on a Saturday and in the theatre group (you already put this up on facebook), there was a girl that I liked a lot.  Her name was Lali, Laura, and she showed up that day too! (He gestures. Laughter.) 

First they explained the �basic step� to me and to the girls separately, like they used to do.  And then we were put together again and as luck would have it (because Victoria knew), I was put with Lali. And I took her and was going to embrace her, but I didn�t even know how to do that! What a disaster! And when I did embrace her (he gestures; laughter) I can�t remember if I started to shake, but I do remember that it was enjoyable in every sense.  It was a pleasure to be with her. And from that moment on, I never stopped dancing tango.  And from that moment, I�m constantly looking for that feeling. Every time I invite someone to dance, I try to go back to that point, to that moment of shyness and surrender, a whole mix of wonderful feelings. 

Q: (El Chino) And you haven�t considered �cutting straight to the chase� yourself, giving beginner classes, going back to something more traditional? 

A: The problem is that I�m not living here. If I were living here, I have a lot of ideas about what I could do. There are a ton of things I�d love to do.  But I�m not here and that�s a very personal choice.  It�s a choice I made years ago, to stay in Europe and make this my living, not be in a single place, to travel.  And sometimes that�s a limitation in terms of what you might want to do. I would love to be able to live in a single place, to create a school, begin from zero and create a million things, but it�s a question of time. Maybe I�ll do that in the future.  I don�t know.  This is what I�m doing for the time being. But the truth is that I would love to do it and not only with beginners, because there are many intermediate dancers who have lots that needs to be fixed. (Laughter.) 

Q: (Greta) Don�t you think that these days the change taking place is a return to something more traditional? 

A: Involution.

Q: ...as if there were a limit we can�t surpass... 

A: We can.  What happens is that a lot of people who have gotten to that limit are maybe limited themselves in some way, technically, artistically or creatively. I believe that it�s always possible to go further. 

Q: But I�m talking about staying within the limits of what tango is.

A: In my view, tango hasn�t yet been fully explored in artistic terms, in terms of the show, in terms of expanding what tango is for the world, for instance.  Because the dominant image of tango worldwide is a still the image of a guy in a suit.  That�s what the world sees. I would love to say that that aspect of tango has changed and we can give it a new image, not the tanguero-rapper, but something new in tango which hasn�t been developed yet. 

Q: (Ame) And what do you imagine? 

A: That�s what I was saying before.  First of all, I don�t know how I imagine it. Secondly, I�m not sure that�s my goal. Thirdly, I�m not sure I�m the person to do it. I think that there is a ton of information and sensations, of things from daily life that could lead to something really new in tango, artistically speaking. And I�m talking about the artistic development of tango, not about the milonga.  In the milonga, I think the return to the embrace is necessary, a connection with the other person, the enjoyment. But artistically speaking, in my opinion, we�re virgins. 

I still haven�t seen a show that has really �shocked� me. There was one, many years ago that did. It really blew my mind. It was by a French choreographer, Catherine Berbessou. I worked with her on the last show that I did. But the one before that, �Valser,� I remember arriving at the theatre in the suburbs of Paris and Federico, Catherine�s husband, who is Argentine, said to me �You know how the show is, right?� And I said, �No, I have no idea.�  He said �So sit in the ninth row or beyond.�  �But why?� And he said �You�ll see.� 

So the curtain opened and the stage was covered in dirt up to here (he gestures) and the whole show was on top of the dirt and everyone was barefoot.  It was the most original show I have ever seen, and this was ten years ago.  There are a ton of things that can be done, artistically speaking, and with new techniques and everything. 

Q: And if the man can take his suit off, can the woman take her heels off? 

A: She can come out naked, as far as I�m concerned! (Laughter.)