There is no tango, nor life, without community.

I am getting ready to attend my first tango festival. I’ve just signed up for a new block of classes with my teacher in Totnes, and I am also adding my next practicas and milongas to my diary.

Improving my dance is hugely stimulating; however, at a deep level, what I’m after is community.

I can only go so far on my own. I sometimes dance in my living room and find solace in quiet moments, where I cultivate presence and replenish my energy. But, yes, I value my autonomy as much as I treasure being in touch with others.

I ran out of milk one evening, and there was just enough time to hurry to the supermarket before it closed. It didn’t occur to me that I could knock on the door of a neighbour and ask. We have forgotten how to do that. Why bother people?

My neighbour Debbie did it the other day, asking if I had potatoes or garlic, I can’t remember. She was at my door, asking.

I didn’t have what she needed, but Debbie left me with a warm feeling in my chest. This is community, and that is my soul dance.

Even with my lone wolf tendencies, I realise more and more that I cannot go solo. If anything, connection has been the main pursuit and fruit of my dancing in the free-style movement spaces of Totnes.

I’ve been in many tango classes where instructors tell me that I have to maintain my own balance. Regardless of the role you embody in a couples dance, they say, your primary responsibility is to keep your axis in the right, upheld position, at all costs and hold yourself without relying on your partner.

Sounds like good advice, but something in these statements makes me tired and a bit lonely. Part of me suspects that dancing with total self-reliance makes us islands, and separates us even in the closest of embraces.

Life doesn’t work like that. And neither tango.

“When you dance, and especially in a close embrace”, my teacher Ruth said, “the two of you are co-creating a single axis. You two are in that axis dancing around it and trusting that you are supporting it together”.

What a wonderful insight.

Separated plants and trees are in constant contact and communication below the surface.

There is room to sense and practice this. If you have mastered the perfect, self-sustained posture, that’s a foundational achievement. Great. But then, again, you could start letting go a bit (I’m talking to myself).

Start here: commit to the connection, be grounded, connected to earth, and be listening intently to the propositions of your partner and people around you.

Asking for help is a sign of strength

Collapsing is the opposite of what I’m trying to convey. Being vulnerable and expressing your needs or longings takes courage (and a good posture). You could try —as I have— to always be “self-sufficient” in a survival dance, but then you will miss a whole other wonderful side of life: the nourishing of connecting and trusting.

Last Friday, it was important to go for a walk earlier and be in nature here. It was important to have time for stillness and silence, sitting quietly on my sofa for almost an hour. And then, the spontaneous arrival of a new friend to share tea and little stories for half an hour brought another quality to my day.

Beth showed up at my door with a hug and was willing to taste a piece of walnut cake. It was nourishing at the most profound level.

And just as I was writing this line, someone knocked on my door. It was my friend Tierra, leaving a little pebble she collected at the beach in the morning. She left a hug and a pebble.

It takes two to tango, at least. We don’t go dancing because it’s a good workout. We go dancing because it connects us, it gives us the relational nutrients we are craving in our day-to-day lives.

That’s why I am delighted to learn that the second edition of Tango Connects Conference in Berlin is dedicated to this subject: building communities.

In a world with societies erecting barriers between citizens, we need to remember constantly and make very clear how much we need and long for each other.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

Thriving Communities & Social Change in Tango

4-6 September 2025
Tango Connects Berlin Conference brings together voices from diverse disciplines to explore the social, cultural, and emotional dimensions of tango communities.