Philip Robert

There is an active Tango community in Ashland, and I became aware of it through my friend Jesse at Bikram Yoga. About a week ago he was asking one of the ladies if she was planning to attend the Tango workshop coming up. Tango? Workshop? I couldn’t help overhearing, and I just had to ask. A Tango workshop sounded like a fun way to meet more people in my new community.

Jesse gave me the website for Southern Oregon Tango, for more information. The link for the workshops didn’t work so I called a Mr. Roy Wright who emailed me the information on the workshop. Friday night I was heading out to TANGO!

All the people I’ve met this weekend have been fantastic. When I walked into Britt Hall I was greeted by Kalani, one of the Southern Oregon University students helping out with the workshop. She got me signed in and I started looking around. One of the first people that I noticed was an attractive lady walking across the floor. Except for the streaks of grey in her hair it would have been easy to mistake her for one of the college students. A bit later when I met her properly I discovered that she was the person responsible for organizing the Tango club at SOU. She was responsible for putting together this workshop. I developed an instant crush. And then the teacher’s arrived.

Korey and Mila have been dancing together for three years. Between them they’ve got a couple of decades of dancing Tango, and they teach it well. I was impressed at how easily and naturally Korey made beginners feel welcome and comfortable. He didn’t begin by talking about steps, or what Tango was, but about walking and music and connection. Soon we were working with a partner taking steps forward or backward or sideways. The idea of a leader and a follower wasn’t really discussed in these first exercises. We were just two people collaborating on moving in a certain direction together. A bit later when we were more formally dancing and there was a leader and there was a follower Korey and Mila introduced us to the idea that more properly there was a negotiation and a collaboration as the couple decided together what would happen in the dance.

Light bulb moment! This seemed like a perfect metaphor for life, for relationships. Good relationships work because the people involved in them collaborate together on what they are going to do together. Ok now I’m really fired up and excited about this dance. The steps came, the basic ones anyway. I met a lot of fun interesting people who share a common passion, and I figured out that couples should learn to Tango.