Tango and Enactivism: First Steps in Exploring the Dynamics and Experience of Interaction

Abstract

Tango dancing is not just ethnographically interesting, but might actually provide a way to study interaction as such. An orientation to this improvisational dance as an embodied practice and experience is given. Enactivism is proposed as an adequate framework for further study. It is argued that approaching tango in terms of participatory sense-making, mutual incorporation and consensually coordinated action helps in clarifying its possible contributions to (cultural) psychology. Possible contributions such as facilitating the study of the dynamics of interaction, of intersubjectivity and of culture as joint activity.

Full text

Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science
Tango and Enactivism: First steps in exploring the dynamics and experience of
interaction
--Manuscript Draft--
Manuscript Number:
Full Title: Tango and Enactivism: First steps in exploring the dynamics and experience of
interaction
Article Type: Original theoretical contribution
Keywords: Argentine Tango; Enactivism; Participatory Sense-making; Consensual Coordination;
Embodied Interaction; Cultural Practice
Corresponding Author: Floor van Alphen, M A, M Sc
FLACSO Argentina
Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
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Corresponding Author's Institution: FLACSO Argentina
Corresponding Author's Secondary
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First Author: Floor van Alphen, M A, M Sc
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Order of Authors: Floor van Alphen, M A, M Sc
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Author: Floor van Alphen
Title: Tango and Enactivism: First steps in exploring the dynamics and experience of
interaction
Affiliation: FLACSO, Argentina
Mail: fvanalphen@flacso.org.ar; floorvanalphen@yahoo.com
Abstract: Tango dancing is not just ethnographically interesting, but might actually provide a
way to study interaction as such. An orientation to this improvisational dance as an
embodied practice and experience is given. Enactivism is proposed as an adequate
framework for further study. It is argued that approaching tango in terms of
participatory sense-making, mutual incorporation and consensually coordinated
action helps in clarifying its possible contributions to (cultural) psychology. Possible
contributions such as facilitating the study of the dynamics of interaction, of
intersubjectivity and of culture as joint activity.
Keywords: Argentine Tango – Enactivism – Participatory Sense-making –
Consensual Coordination – Embodied Interaction – Cultural Practice
Introduction
Tango has spread out over the world the last couple of decades and has also come to the attention of
psychological research (e.g. Rosa, 2007; Luckmann, 2008; Olszewski, 2008; Kimmel, 2012). Not only
because it is interesting as a research subject, but also because it might provide methodological and
theoretical aid. In his recent contribution Tateo (2014) has given an elaborate introduction to tango’s
history, music and dance. He presents tango as a ‘dialogical social object’ and argues that studying it
might help dialogical theorizing and methodology. In a mixed ethnographic-idiographic approach
tango arises as a ‘third volume’ that a dancer interacts with while also interacting with a dance
partner. Tango, as the traditional gaze of the audience enabled by the social-historical setting of the
tango salon, dialogues with the dancers on the dance floor. Interviews illustrate how the dancer’s
identity is constructed in dialogue with the tango discipline and the tango community. However, the
dialogue with the dance partner, that is, the tango dancing itself, is hardly elaborated. Tateo
describes the dance as dialogical, but does not seize the chance to explore this embodied interaction
and its dynamics. Nevertheless a more detailed consideration of how tango dancing is practiced and
experienced, is both as essential to understanding tango as it is to exploring its contribution to a
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wider (cultural) psychological field. Tango might actually contribute to theorizing and studying the
interactive process as such.
This article proposes to approach tango as an embodied practice. That is, a way of doing that
encompasses its history, music, and tradition, but in addition as actual coordinated movement and
the experience of this activity. First an orientation to this embodied practice is given from a tango
teachers point of view. Thus a concrete idea about how a tango dialogue is initiated and developed
might be formed, ready to be investigated. Second, how studying this practical aspect of tango is
possible and relevant to (cultural) psychological investigation is elaborated by taking an enactive
point of view. The conceptual toolkit of enactivism helps to clarify tango dancing, relating it to other
human activities, framing its empirical investigation and contribution to a psychology beyond the
classical dichotomies. Approaching tango dancing as ‘participatory sense-making’ allows for studying
the social interaction or dialogue as such. Approaching tango dancing as ‘mutual incorporation’
allows for investigating the experiential aspect of this enactive intersubjectivity. And tango as
‘consensually coordinated action’ helps accounting for the inherent normativity of the cultural
practice, the autonomy that agents nevertheless have, and the learning process that connects them.
These three enactive processes are involved in, or underlie, many other human activities, but they
seem particularly evident and accessible in tango dancing. The empirical explorations of the
constitutive role of culture in psychological processes might therefore greatly benefit from
investigating tango. However, culture is in the case of tango dancing not just a mediating tool,
constraint or dialogical partner, but also the joint activity itself.
Tango as embodied practice
Tango is practiced and developed by its practitioners not just declaratively, but in the very act of
communication and coordination between two bodies: the improvisational dancing itself. To
properly understand tango as an embodied practice, and make this accessible for non tango
practitioners, is to explain the first steps into the learning and dancing process. Let us consider
therefore the question of how a tango-dialogue is initiated. In contrast with other couple dances this
is not just a matter of learning the steps or following a visual example. The mirrors often found in
dance studios might actually interfere with the exercises that aim at establishing contact between
the beginners. This contact is not a matter of visually observing the other body, but of embracing and
perceiving the movement of the other body, in the tactile and kinesthetic modalities. Looking at the
own body or at the body of the dance partner and controlling the movement visually does not help
much in training kinesthetic perception and coordination. Especially when the beginners need to
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learn how to improvise together. Improvisation in couples, at the essence of tango dancing, requires
strong bodily connection (see also Tateo, 2014). Teachers aim at showing how to improvise by
providing the beginner with the rules and boundaries needed for the mutual coordination of this
improvisation. The principal boundary is the embrace: remaining together throughout the dance
limits the possibilities of individual movement. The main rule is to follow or lead the movement of
the other body (something that ultimately comes down to more of a bodily conversation between
dance partners; see also Olszewski, 2008). This enables an activity that individually would not be
possible: walking in an embrace. Now, what does this walking in an embrace imply from the learner’s
perspective?
The embrace is matter of role: as a leader you put your right arm around the waist of the follower
and lift the followers right hand up to shoulder height with your left hand; as a follower your left arm
is around the leaders shoulder. With the upper bodies together you cannot look at your feet, so you
practice the coordination of the lower body through proprioception. The movement itself will
organize the body, and the dance partner’s body, if you let it. That is to say, attempting to be too
controlling of your movement often interferes with the self-organization of the bodies. Now,
accommodated in an embrace the beginner starts practicing with shifting weight from one leg to
another. Without talking the leader should give the follower sufficient bodily cues, and the follower
should sufficiently perceive these, to balance from one side to another together. But when in a
closed embrace, it is actually hard for the two bodies to not shift weight together. This would require
an active resistance to the movement, or an accidental loss of balance. To practice improvisation is to
play with the timing and intensity of moving from one leg to another and see whether either the
follower is with you in these shifts, or the leader perceives you to be on one leg or the other. There
should be no pulling or pushing, just a gentle embrace perceiving and communicating body positions.
INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE
The improvisation of a step to the front or to the back is a simple matter of having shifted the weight
of both bodies to one side, liberating the legs on the other side. If you follow me standing on my left
leg, then you are on your right leg. If I were to move forward my free leg would logically make a step,
and if your body perceives this movement then you will quite automatically take a left step back. This
is schematically illustrated in figure 1. The body organizes itself: taking a step is the obvious way of
moving the entire body in a certain direction and not to lose balance. Taking steps together, without
looking at your feet or communicating verbally or any predetermined choreography, is basically a
matter of perceiving the weight of the other body on one leg or the other, perceiving the movement
of this weight to the front or to the back, and finally to hold on to each other. It should be clear who
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leads and who follows the movement, but in terms of perception of the other body’s weight or
position these two roles are not that different. Moreover, taking the lead, or demonstrating the
intention to move, can also be communicated through bodily activation: it doesn't even need to be
explicitly declared.
On paper these exercises might seem more complicated than in reality. As long as no reflexive
awareness interferes too much with straightforward bodily organization and communication the first
attempts to walk in an embrace need not fail. Most often breakdowns in the attempts to establish
contact and move together are a matter of focusing too exclusively on the self or on the other or of
excessive tension in the body. Yet, the experience need not be contaminated by fear to step on each
other’s toes or anger with a clumsy dance partner. It can also involve the fun of practicing this
embodied non-verbal communication, being surprised and amused by sudden breakdowns or
synchronizations, and discovering the endless possibilities of improvising movement together.
Indeed the shifting of weight and the mutually coordinated first steps alone already combine in many
different ways, and the possible movements exponentially grow with further practice. Practicing
tango for a leader is mostly exploring these first few cues, or the possibilities given by the teacher to
coordinate different movements together with the dance partner. For a follower practicing is mostly
dancing and literally incorporating as many different embraces and tango experiences, embodied in
as many dance partners, as possible. The ‘infinite possibility’ the famous Argentine poet Leopoldo
Marechal (1970) was talking about when describing tango, is most likely this discovering of the
indefinite amount of possible steps, embraces, musical interpretations, intensities and shared
emotions that a few improvisational cues enable. Or, in a more phenomenological sense, it might be
the boundless feeling of effortlessly moving together as one, as a result of a successful bodily
coordination and communication.
The practical aspect of tango emphasized here involves dancing as very concrete shared movement,
with a few basic and accessible principles that enable improvisation and the experience this involves.
The tango music plays a significant role in the improvisation. The 2x4 rhythm and dialogues between
the instrumental sections of the orchestras guide the dancing couple’s walking tour. Yet musicality is
often interwoven in the learning process at a later stage, as was also affirmed by Olszewski (2008).
During the beginner’s first steps the beat might overdetermine the movement and prevent that it is
bodily coordinated between leader and follower. Musicality in tango is, however, too vast a topic to
discuss here. It makes for an whole body of literature on its own. Theory and research on music and
intersubjectivity is already quite advanced (e.g. Malloch & Trevarthen, 2009; Español, 2011). In the
embodied improvisational aspect of tango we can see how constraints, such as the embrace and the
music, that have been handed down by tradition, make a creative activity and development of a
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personal tango style possible. As many dance teachers know, improvisation exercises without a set of
concrete criteria (such as ‘in this class we will explore the articulations of the arms one by one’) are
bound to fail. At the same time, the results of improvisation exercises are different for every dancer,
so that they develop their own dance. The individual styles developed through improvisation in turn
make the tradition possible. The music and history of tango accumulated and embodied in the
teacher’s dancing is handed down to the learner through metaphors, exercises, and moreover
concrete bodily cues.
This practical aspect of tango is in the first place an addition to the aspects elaborated by Tateo
(2014). He presents tango as a historically dynamic culture, as ‘dialogical’, but at the same time
throughout the paper it emerges as an ethnographic object, a dance discipline, a group culture. That
is to say, tango is principally a third volume in the dialogue, something the dancing couple interacts
with. The emphasis is not on the dance, as a dialogue or interaction, itself. Now, in agreement with
Tateo, tango as a tradition can be quite dogmatic. This also depends on who preaches it. However, it
is not only a constraint. The activity and experience enabled by the many traditional constraints is
also tango. Dialogical theory and methodology seem to aim at studying the interactivity of tango
dancing too, but how can it be both a third volume in the dialogue and the dialogue itself? To clarify
the embodied practice of tango another developing theoretical framework is available. Instead of
introducing tango as a third volume, enactivism allows for introducing tango as the interactive
movement in which dancers participate. Also it frames the further empirical investigation that the
observations made in this paper, based on tango teaching experience and conversations with fellow
teachers
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in Buenos Aires, need.
An enactive point of view
The enactive approach has been developing outlooks on social cognition (De Jaegher & Di Paolo,
2007), cultural psychology (Baerveldt & Verheggen, 2012) and psychology in general (McGann, De
Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2013). This naturalist but nonreductive framework, emerging in cognitive science
(Varela, Thompson and Rosch, 1991), examines the coupling between agent and environment, as
such. The focus is on the dynamics of this interaction between an autonomous living organism and
the inherently valuable or meaningful world around it. The process central to enactivism is sense-
making, that is a “relational and affect-laden process grounded in biological organization” (De
Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007, p. 488), an “embodied and situated activity” (Baerveldt & Verheggen, 2012,
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For example, an interview with Olga Besio published in the Dutch Tango Magazine ‘La Cadena’ in June 2011.
http://enflor.nl/besio/
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p. 165), or the “coordinating and adapting to various constraints on our actions” (McGann, De
Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2013, p. 204). Enactivism thus presents a continuum between living and
cognition, between perception and action. Importantly, the framework gives phenomenological
experience a significant role. For an in depth explanation I refer to the elaborate theoretical and
conceptual work done elsewhere (Di Paolo, 2005; Varela, 1997; Thompson, 2007). In relation to
tango, the attempts to extend sense-making into the social domain (De Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007)
and cultural meaning making (Baerveldt & Verheggen, 2012) are most relevant. The extended
conceptual apparatus of enactivism, mentioning ‘participatory sense-making’ (De Jaegher & Di Paolo,
2007); ‘mutual incorporation’ (Fuchs & De Jaegher, 2012) and ‘consensually coordinated action’
(Baerveldt & Verheggen, 2012) seem particularly useful. These processes help clarifying the
essentials of tango dancing, while at the same time these ideas can be clearly illustrated by tango
dancing experiences. Moreover, they gives us a clear sense of what needs to be further investigated
in tango.
Tango as participatory sense-making
In a tango embrace two agents are quite literally coupled. While improvising the dancers coordinate
their action to a varying degree. De Jaegher and Di Paolo define coordination as “the non-accidental
correlation between the behaviours of two or more systems that are in sustained coupling, or have
been coupled in the past, or have been coupled to another, common system.” (2007, p. 490).
Different kinds and amounts of coordination occur in tango, begging further study. Beginners often
imitate the teachers’ movement and mirror or anticipate the movement of the dance partner. The
coordination ultimately aimed at is synchronization. However, fluidly walking in an embrace as if the
partners have merged into one organism is not that common. The coordination ebbs and flows.
Dancers can become increasingly sensitive to breakdowns with practice. For example, if a leader
suddenly encounters a difficult situation on the dance floor, the follower can perceive this even with
the eyes closed. Or when a follower interprets the music with a particular embellishing movement,
the leader is aware. However, not only the dancers determine the coordination. As De Jaegher and Di
Paolo propose, the social interaction is itself autonomous. Tango dancing would not be a social
interaction as such if there were no two autonomous agents involved, but the act of dancing is not
reducible to individual behaviors. The coordination itself can break down, without either of the two
dancers being responsible. Surely, when the music ends both dancers stop dancing. However, it often
happens that the synchronization itself can surprise both dancers at the same time. For example,
both dance partners suddenly smile because they know they just shared a moment of perfect
interpretation of the music, or just made a weird new move together without having explicitly
intended to do so. Somehow they entered into each other’s sense making with respect to the music
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and the spontaneous movement. Or rather, participatory sense-making occurs: “the coordination of
intentional activity in interaction, whereby individual sense-making processes are affected and new
domains of social sense-making can be generated that were not available to each individual on her
own.” (2007, p. 497). The improvisation, framed by the music, the dance floor, and the embrace, can
lead both dance partners beyond themselves. This autonomous interaction can, and should be,
studied. There is also a particular phenomenological aspect to this interaction, explained next.
Tango as mutual incorporation
Fuchs and De Jaegher (2009) conceive of social understanding as a process of participatory sense-
making and mutual incorporation at a phenomenological level. That is, taking agents not only as
autonomous systems but also as lived bodies that not merely couple but also reach out to embody
each other in reciprocal interaction. Tango dance partners can thus “experience the holistic
development of the situation which is co-constituted by their bodily movements” (Fuchs & De
Jaegher, 2009, p. 474). Mutual incorporation, like participatory sense making, is a matter of degree.
With near perfect synchronization the experience can be that of expanding into the other body.
Often with practice a very precise kinesthetic perception develops that allows the leader to know
exactly where the weight or axis of the follower is. For example on the inner side of the front part of
the ball of the left foot. The tiniest movements can thus be coordinated. The follower’s perception
can be as precise up to the point of perceiving the leaders intended direction before the leader is
even aware of where the movement is going. In the ongoing process the difference between the
roles can evaporate. Rather “the in-between becomes the source of operative intentionality of both
partners” (Fuchs & De Jaegher, 2009, p. 476). Of course experiencing the other body as if it were
your own is not possible. There is always a component of otherness in mutual incorporation, if only
the thrill of not exactly knowing where you are going because this not only depends on you. In tango
it depends on the dance-partner, the other couples on the dance floor, the music, and the relational
autonomy of the interaction itself. On an experiential level all these constraints nevertheless can
feed into feeling expanded or open-ended. This is all the more exhilarating when the dance partner,
right after the dance has ended, affirms to have felt something similar. Such observations greatly
welcome additional research, for example systematizing introspective data on the experience of both
dancers by comparing them in retrospect. According to Fuchs and De Jaegher mutual incorporation
involves mutual affection and truly joint creation of meaning. Correspondingly, the
phenomenological ‘merging of horizons’ in tango is not possible without engagement with and
dedication to one another. If the interaction is not reciprocal, then unidirectional incorporation
occurs: the other is then an instrument in individual sense-making. When asked, many followers will
probably affirm that bad leaders unidirectionally delimit their autonomy and experience.
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Tango as consensually coordinated action
In terms of perception and coordination tango thus far resembles a kind of social skill. Indeed, the
perception of one another and coordination with each other needs to be practiced. The coordination
of movement in tango, however, does not often arise spontaneously between two practicing
beginners. Rather, these beginners engage with an already existing practice that provides
improvisational cues and traditional codes. Also, they engage with music that has been playing for
decades. Tateo (2014) describes very well how tango, like so many other social activities is inherently
normative. The embrace is more than just a physiological constraint on our individual action, it is a
tradition. The spectator’s gaze penetrates into the dancer’s experience, increasing his or her self-
awareness. Our action is not only valuable for our self-maintenance, in the way that enactivism
understands meaningfulness, but also valuable with respect to the existing tradition, a historically
accumulated meaningfulness. To account for tango as a historical practice from an enactive point of
view, is to further build upon the structural coupling between two sense-makers, or the social
interaction, as we’ve just seen. Between two dancers an autonomously meaningful activity develops:
they dance tango. Through shared activity and mutual incorporation the individual dancers add to
their experience and a history of tango dances accumulates in the dancer’s body. Also, the tangos
danced add to a history of participatory sense-making. The structural coupling between sense-
makers results in a consensual domain, and we become “mutually adapted to others in a history of
consensually coordinated action” (Baerveldt & Verheggen, 2012, p. 171). Tango is the exemplary
consensual domain, as it literally is developed by ‘sensing together’. That is, tuning into each other.
This can happen between two dancers, between different couples circulating on the dance floor,
between the dancers and the music, and between the dancers and the setting of the tango salon.
There is a consensual coordination of actions (Baerveldt & Verheggen, 2012), an agreement on tango
codes, or rather these are ‘enacted’. The historically accumulated participatory sense-making
influences new participatory and individual sense making. Full cultural determination from the
enactive point of view, one that stresses the autonomy of living systems, is not possible. However
the consensual domain does orient individual sense-making. The tango dancers attune to the
ongoing practice of tango dancing, in a same way that we engage in Wittgensteinian language games
(Baerveldt & Verheggen, 2012). As was illustrated above, this is very clear in learning tango. The
tango teacher orients the beginner, and this happens in an embodied way. Dancing tango with the
teacher is really a shortcut to entering into this consensual domain, embodied by the teacher.
However, tango practice is not just a matter of adaptation. As we’ve seen it is also a matter of
developing improvisational skills that enable the dancer to develop his or her tango. In the words of
Baerveldt & Verheggen (2012) there is both cultural training and personal stylization. In this cultural
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enactive framework we can account for tango dancing as embodied interaction and tradition. No
third volume of tango is necessary here: the normativity of tango is in the dancing itself. In turn,
studying how people learn to improvise in tango can make the practice, as both stylization and
training, particularly clear.
Conclusion
As we have seen dancing, or at this point maybe enacting, tango involves an improvised coordinated
movement between two people, and the likelihood of experiencing an open-endedness or ‘infinite
possibility’, that is constrained and enabled by an inherently normative practice. This is of course a
mere orientation, in need of further study.
Considering tango dancing from an enactive perspective allows for studying the interaction, the
experience involved and the practice or skill. In tango it is impossible to disregard the embodied
being. This is fundamental to the entire practice. At the same time, like other human activities, tango
cannot be reduced to individual organization. Participatory sense-making and mutual incorporation
give tango a generalizability: these processes describe the social interaction and understanding that
also happens in carrying on a conversation or when children engage in ‘playing out’ a story with their
dolls. However, tango dancing is more than an appropriate example of these enactive processes. It is
also a way of approaching intersubjectivity, as “a process of embodied interaction and generating
common meaning through it.” (Fuchs & De Jaegher, 2009). It allows looking closely at the interaction
itself. A very precise analysis of tango’s ‘intersubjectivity at close cuarters’ has been developed by
Kimmel (2012), inviting more empirical work on the dynamics and experience of interaction. Because
the intersubjectivity is ‘simplified’ into body-language and at the same time suspended over the
duration of a tango, it might provide good empirical access to the interaction as such. Through tango
we “might examine how quickly and easily a person can couple with their environment (particularly a
social one), and explore the dynamics of such coupling.” (McGann et al., 2013, p. 205). If the proper
question for future research is indeed “how we acquire the embodied dispositions that allow us to
act competently within human consensual domains and language” (Baerveldt & Verheggen, 2012,
p.182) and cultural psychology should study embodied normativity involving conversation,
ritualization and stylization, then investigating tango dancing and learning becomes all the more
interesting. It might very well contribute to the development of this framework.
I do not want to suggest that tango should not be studied from a dialogical framework, as Tateo
(2014) has made an important contribution. Yet, on the dance floor tango is a practice engaged with,
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rather than a third volume dialogued with. This dialogue typically happens when dancers reflect on
what tango is, on themselves and others as tango dancers. That is, when they are talking about tango
instead of doing the dancing. And it is essential that tango is studied as the dialogue itself. I’m aware
of the discussion between enactive cultural psychology and the social representations approach
involving dialogical theory (Verheggen & Baerveldt, 2007; Chryssides, Dashtipour, Keshet, Righi,
Sammut, & Sartawi, 2009; Verheggen & Baerveldt, 2012), suggesting that the theoretical differences
are insurmountable. Both approaches blame each other of ‘cartesianism’. However, the enactive
approach to social cognition and enactive cultural psychology can hardly be called solipsistic, as has
hopefully become clear in the application of these ideas to tango. Neither does Tateo’s contribution
(2014) suggest that tango is merely ‘in the head’ or ‘out there’. Importantly, both approaches abhor
mainstream cognitive science focusing on individual representation and taking culture as a mere
context factor. Nevertheless, work explicitly looking at dialogical theory and enactivism is necessary
to provide clarification about how they differ in approaching interaction. The focus on interaction in
dialogical theory (e.g. Grossen, 2010) seems similar to the enactive emphasis on studying interaction
as such. Also, from an enactive point of view the empirical work on discourse and narrative in
cultural psychology is greatly welcomed (e.g. McGann & De Jaegher, 2009). Further studying tango,
both an embodied dialogue and consensual practice, might provide additional clarification. As an
activity it is but a basic version of complex intersubjective processes and higher order (cultural)
psychological processes. It does, however, provide a concrete outlook on studying social skill and
cultural training, and as a practice it most definitely dissolves the dichotomy between cultural
context and individual cognition. So if you still have some (contemporary) version of a mind-body
problem, then try walking in an embrace.
Acknowledgements
This paper would not have been possible without the inspiring conversations with and kind help of
Ezequiel Di Paolo at the University of Basque Country.
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(Figure made in word document itself: careful with moving it around as the caption somehow
became a separate part.)
you
me
Direction of
movement
Free foot
Standing leg
Embrace
Figure 1. First tango cues schematically represented
Figure