TRANSCRIPT ~ EPISODE 17

EPISODE 17: Party every day, with Yolanda Hume

Producer/Host: Liz Sabatiuk | Music: “El Adiós” composed by Maruja Pacheco Huergo with lyrics by Virgilio San Clemente and arranged and recorded by Sexteto Cristal with Guillermo Rozenthuler | Image Credit: Unknown

YOLANDA:
I try to invite people from the milongas to come and have a meal because sometimes because of the protocols-

LIZ: To, like, integrate people a little bit?

YOLANDA: No, just to get to know you. Who is this person that I see at the milonga that I might even dance with you, but do we really talk? No, you've got how many seconds between the songs? And actually, I don't want you to talk to me. I just want you to dance with me, you know? And so come, let's have dinner together, let's mix ages. And you know, that's the other cool part about where we dance here. It's such a diverse community. So I kind of make it a practice of how I get to know my community. Because it's so easy to have a group and because you have a comfort level with that group, never do- never-

LIZ: And be, like, cliquey.

YOLANDA: Yeah, without intending. I think it's more out of comfort level.

LIZ: -comfort.

[MUSIC]

LIZ ID INTRO:
I'm Liz Sabatiuk and this is Humans of Tango, where we explore what tango has to teach through the experiences of those who dance it.

LIZ SCRIPT:
When I reached out to Yolanda Romero Hume for an interview, she invited me to her home. I usually interview folks on Zoom. But I am eternally grateful that I was able to accept Yolanda's invitation. Turns out her home is a big part of her tango story, and it was a cozy, wonderful place to get to know this person I've kind of known for many years a little better. We laughed, I cried twice, and we even danced a tanda. And speaking of knowing, Yolanda and I know a lot of the same people through the DC Tango community, so there will be many names mentioned - some with notes, some without.

YOLANDA:
So you probably want to know, how did I get started in tango, right? Funny enough, it was because of my daughter. She, you know, was a ballet dancer. And if you're a ballet dancer that does not become a professional, you have to find a dance. So she lived in New York, and at some point she finally found- she found tango. She did like two months at a dance school. And, um, I was going to be in town in New York for the last lesson, so she asked the teacher if I could come. And truly what struck me the most was the music. I was like, "I don't know what this music is, but I really like it." You know, it didn't even occur to me that it must be tango music. [LAUGHS] So then she had a birthday party and we came up, and we took a tango class and we saw our first milonga. And I was totally enchanted.

In December for Christmas, I said to my husband, "I don't want any presents"-' cause he did not want to dance, because he went to the Naval Academy, and they made them do social dance, and they made them in those days go to tea dances on Sunday. That's a whole great story right there. And so he didn't want to dance. So I said, "you pick the dance. I don't care what it is. I want you to go with me for two months. I need to dance." And he said, "Okay, let's pick tango, because- we'll dance tango like Cassie." I always kind of smile when I look back on it, because I was like- he was dancing for me, going for me, but he really wanted to dance with his daughter, which I think was just lovely. And he did.

So this is what I say to my daughter. I go, "Okay, I gave you life. You gave me tango. We are even. You owe me absolutely nothing for the rest of my life."

LIZ: [LAUGHING] What about your sons?

YOLANDA: Oh, that's a- no, that's a good story. Okay, so that's a good story. So Griff and I started dancing. And the first year, he only danced for me. And he didn't go too much and I went more. But we'd already been married like, I don't know, 32 years. And it was kind of like, "Honey, you want to stay home and play World of Warcraft, you go right ahead. I'm going dancing." And then I had a wee small milonga where we lived in La Plata, Maryland. And Jake and another teacher came out.

[LIZ ASIDE] Shoutout to Jake Spatz.

YOLANDA: Every week at this Greek restaurant, we would have a class and then a lovely dinner and a milonga, a very small one. And something happened during that maybe six months that we did that that grabbed him. And then after the first year, he danced for himself, which is when he really learned to dance, right? So my boys, who don't understand at all, have decided that mom and dad have gone off the deep end. And one of the times we even went, we were going to see the second child- Jay, who lived in Austin, Texas. We were going to see him. And then we found out there was a tango festival.
And so we did both. And so the two boys would talk and decide we were nuts. And- "they're not even coming to visit us. They're just coming to Austin because there's a tango festival," which was, it was half true. We went on a Caribbean tango cruise and we just went everywhere and did everything and had a really lovely time.

So, you know, after four years he - you know this - he died very suddenly. About two months later, I get a call from the older boy. "Mom" - I go, "yes" - "you know, Jay and I have been talking." I go, "yes." And he goes, "You know, we thought that you and dad were crazy." I go, "Yeah, I know. You've told us about 20 times! And frankly, we didn't care. You know, it's like you can think we're crazy - we're having a good time." And he said, "We thought you were crazy with this tango thing, but we want you to know that we think it was the best thing you could have ever done." So, that was really important to me. So now this crazy lifestyle that I lead - Mom's going to dance in Bosnia, and mom's going here to dance, and mom is going to China with Martín and Maurizio - and they're like, "Go, mom, do it, do it." So it's kind of important that your kids are with you, you know. We kept saying, "we don't care if you think we're crazy." But in a way, we did. You know, don't admit it, kind of a thing.

LIZ: Totally.

YOLANDA: That's a long answer.

LIZ: It's good; it's good.

[MUSIC]

LIZ SCRIPT:
I'd only been dancing in DC for a short time when I attended the memorial service for Yolanda's husband, Griff. I had met Yolanda and Griff several times and danced with Griff at least once, but I didn't feel like I knew them very well. In fact, I remember feeling simultaneously humbled by how little I knew about Griff and Yolanda's non-tango life and moved by how the DC tango community mobilized in the wake of loss.

YOLANDA:
I just let the word out, you know. And I mean, at that moment, you're out of your mind, and the church is saying, "How many people?" Well, so, in the end, there were almost 300 people. Eighty of them were tango dancers. And this is like, I don't know if any of them would ever listen to this, but they'll never know how they got me through that. Because he- because he worked for the Navy, and he was pretty high up, so I had, like, the Admiral of the Atlantic Fleet there, giving me condolences, and about 60 of his workers. And it's really nice, but you don't know who they are. And so you're just like, "aaaah, yes, yes, thank you, yes, thank you." And then I would see tango dancers in the background, and I would go, "Okay, somebody I know! Thank you, God." You know? It was really, really important. They got me through that whole church service, that whole thing. And, did I expect that many people to come? No. They really, from the time he died forward, they just showed that kind of support.

My friends who are not tango dancers, who end up being widows, the first thing the widow is gonna complain about is that she's lost her travel partner. I get so many invitations to travel- I get more invitations than I can take up, from young people who want to go- "Oh, I'll go with you. Can I go with you to Buenos Aires?" That and, when you all of a sudden don't have a spouse, there are many things that you miss. But one of them is hugs, and one of them is physical touch, and one of them is a travel partner. I mean, there's a lot of others, but those three things tango can give to you. And so a lot of times I just joke and I say, "I'm just here to dance because I need hugs tonight." And I'm joking, but the truth is I'm telling the truth, you know? We need the human touch.

And it was interesting because really the way I grieved was, or how I got through my grief, was I used tango as my therapy. And I literally would dance almost every night. And it was the only thing that kept me going, was how I got through the whole thing, you know? And then in the process, I created this craziness that I have here now, lifestyle that's pretty awesome, you know? [LAUGHTER]

LIZ: Well, why don't you tell me more about that since you have a perfect segue there?

YOLANDA: So one night we were all at Zandunga-

[LIZ ASIDE] a popular D.C. area milonga

YOLANDA: -there was a young woman who was from Richmond who at 3.30 in the morning said to me she was gonna drive to Richmond.

[LIZ ASIDE] That's Richmond, Virginia, about a two-hour drive away.

YOLANDA: I said, "Oh no, don't drive to Richmond. I have a," you know, "come stay." And then Martin Enos and his girlfriend-

[LIZ ASIDE] Shoutout to Megan.

YOLANDA: -were spending the weekend here. And so we all got up in the morning and I made them breakfast and we sat around and talked tango and friends until 3 in the afternoon. Well, we probably didn't get up till 11, but, you know, I expected them to eat and go. And I thought, this is something- I want to repeat this. I like what this is. This is how you really, really get to know your tango friends, is by sitting and sharing, you know, and having wine or sharing some food. So I said to my daughter, "I want to make this a tango house, but I don't want to be an organizer. Because I don't want to worry about whether or not they make money. So I want to host them and house them. But I don't want anything to do with the money part of it." So I just kind of, I guess I put the word out. I don't even know how the word got out. But Katya Merezhinsky called me and she was bringing in Alejandro Barrientos and, um, Rosalia-

[LIZ ASIDE] That's Rosalia Gasso.

YOLANDA: -that lovely young woman who, you know, passed away not so long ago. And so she said, "I don't have a bedroom for them. Will you take them?" I said, "yeah!" And then I thought about it. Like, what have I done? Oh my goodness, I don't know. So I was literally, they got here to the house. I gave her the key. They got here to the house. I came home from the milonga. I was walking up the stairs and I was like, "Oh my God, I'm going to have these people for six days. I don't know who they are. Is this going to work? I don't know." And I walked in and she came up from upstairs. And first of all, Rosalia is this, like, light of sweetness and goodness. She took one look at me and gave me a hug and I went, "Oh yeah, this is going to work just fine. This is going to be cool," you know - which it was, you know. So after that, people knew I would house the teachers, but I don't, they have to be self- a lot of them that stay with me organize themselves. Sometimes I have teachers almost, you know, six to eight months a year.

But it's okay, because think about it. I am a widow and I'm retired. And I come from a culture where I'm used to having, I don't like living alone actually. So this is very self-serving. And people who are, I guess, you know, just not as social think, "I don't know how you do that." I go, "it's fun." But it's not necessarily fun for everybody, so, you know, it just, it just- this works for me. It gives me company, someone to drink wine with, someone to cook for, because I don't like to eat alone. I don't like to cook and just eat by myself. So it's quite, quite wonderful.

LIZ: And you get a ton of private lessons.

YOLANDA: I get the best. I get the best private lessons in the whole wide world. And then I never dreamed that- uh, it all started with Martín and Maurizio.

[LIZ ASIDE] That's Martín Maldonado and Maurizio Ghella, long-time teaching and performing partners, originally from Rosario, Argentina, now based in Vienna, Austria.

YOLANDA: He came down here and it was breakfast and he said, "I have an idea." I go, "yeah." He goes, "you come and visit us in-" because they stay a month with me, right? "You come and visit us in Vienna." And I was like, "okay." I've been to Vienna, you know. I was like, "okay," but I was not buying the ticket, right? So then the next day he came, he said, "I have a better idea." I said, "What's your idea?" He said, "If you come this day, you can go with us when we teach at the Schloss, at the castle in Germany. And then we'll go back to Vienna for a week or so. And then you can go with us to the other festival in Croatia." And I go, "Okay, now you're talking. Now you're talking." So that kind of started this whole, you know, they invite me. Or the truth now is, because we're such a family group, I can invite myself. In fact, I did invite myself to go with them to China, because they showed me pictures of Shanghai. And I was like, "Oh, I had no idea it was that beautiful." So I was like, "Okay, next time you go to China, I want to go." So I would have never gone to China, you know, otherwise.

LIZ SCRIPT:
I asked Yolanda to tell me more about how she got so close with Martín and Maurizio and some of the other tango professionals who've stayed with her over the years.

YOLANDA:
Martín and Maurizio- I have some good stories, but... I don't even know if I should say some of this, but um- so I was a schoolteacher, and I honestly didn't know- if I knew any gay people in my life, I didn't know I knew them, because everybody was in the closet or- nobody said anything. So 2007, I went to a tango marathon at Trinity College and they had two guys who were Turkish. I should know their names, but I don't-

[LIZ ASIDE] Those names, with apologies for my pronunciation, are Serkan Gokcesu and Ozhan Araz.

YOLANDA: -and I made the really bad assumption-

[LIZ ASIDE] "bad" meaning ill-informed

YOLANDA: -that they were gay, and I was not comfortable with that, 'cause I didn't know it, you know, because part of prejudice is... not knowing. So I was like, "I don't know if I want to really take their class." But I, when I got there, I had no choice, they were teaching the beginning track. And I go to the very first class, and I'm, you know, I don't know. And I don't know out of ignorance. And I asked a question, and then I said to myself, don't ask any more questions after this, because immediately one of them came up to me, took me out into the middle of the floor. I mean, I'd been dancing like a month, two, you know, and he took me out to the middle of the floor, and he answered my question by showing how, yes, this could be done. I don't know what it was- "Can you slow it down? Can you do this? Can you do that?" I was- died. But then at that moment, I went, "Oh, this is just a really good person. If they're gay, I don't really care. This is a good teacher. This is a good person. This is a hands-on teacher," and I like those, right? And so I was like, "Oh, yeah, get over it, girl," you know. So, let it go. By the time I met Martín and Maurizio- you know, I mean, I'd been- done that. So they- Julia brought them over here to meet me-

[LIZ ASIDE] That's Julia Schiptsova, a longtime organizer in the D.C. area and beyond.

YOLANDA: -because the first year, they were only going to teach here. And I think it started when they walked in the front door, because they were dressed - you know how they dress. They looked like they were going to do a performance. And I said, "Oh, you look so lovely. Why are you so dressed up?" And they looked at me and they said, "Well, we're dressed up for you." I mean, because you kind of have to really know them to understand why we are where we're at. So that first year, they were teaching here. I got to know them that way. The next year, they had broken up. Maurizio stayed in one place, and Martín stayed with me. And then the next year, because they have a very lovely working relationship and an extreme- just a respect and love for each other. It's really lovely to witness people who, you know, can love and then grow out of love and then still maintain a really loving relationship, it's, it's- I think they have a lot to teach us. So, why? Why? It's because I think they are people that if you give to them, they want to reciprocate. You know, I just think they're incredibly beautiful human beings.

And Juan and Sol, I started with the two of them when they were together.

[LIZ ASIDE] That’s Juan Cantone and Sol Orozco. And, side note, you can hear from Juan in episode 6 of this podcast and look out for an upcoming episode featuring Sol - and (and) you can find videos of all the tango professionals mentioned in this episode in the show notes.

YOLANDA: I had them, I think, twice, and then they were no longer together, and now I have them separately. I love them like my children. I, um, sometimes spend more time with them than - all of them - than I do with my own children, because my children are here, hither and gone. So, it's hard to say why.

LIZ: Are those your core tango babies, those four?

YOLANDA: And Marcelo. Marcelo has also been here.

[LIZ ASIDE] That's Marcelo Gutierrez.

YOLANDA: Marcelo lived here almost a year with me at one point because he had a visa issue and he couldn't leave. So, I don't know why, you know, but it's, it's quite lovely.

And there are other people that have come in and out that I like every bit as much, but their lives changed and they don't come anymore to DC, you know, so I don't think it's just a matter of, "I only like these people," you know, a little bit circumstantial. But, you know, we all are kind of a really great family. And I joke because my own first son is 50, 72. Juan was born in 72; he's 50. Martín is 50. So I have three 50-year-old sons, you know - fertile Myrtle. [LAUGHS]

[MUSIC]

YOLANDA:
So, so what happened was, you know, my husband was, we thought in fine health and not. And we had Thanksgiving at my, the older son's- the oldest child's house. We had a brand new grandchild that was three weeks old. The next day after Thanksgiving, you know, you- we're all, the two grandpas are fighting over the baby, who's going to hold the baby the most because they were both leaving the next day. We played cards. We ate. We drank wine. We watched Christmas Vacation on the TV that I'll never be able to watch again, and we went to bed. And we were asleep maybe an hour and a half when he had, I think it was a blood clot. And um, I saw, uh, it was such a graphic lesson on the fragility of life because he was in the bed and he hit me and I jumped out of the bed and I looked at him and he was, you know, choking basically. And, um, and when I walked out of the room, I heard a death rattle. So he died as I ran to get my daughter-in-law who was, [LIZ LAUGHS] who is a doctor-

[LIZ ASIDE] That's me laughing with embarrassment because I was crying so much.

YOLANDA: -so, what I experienced was it was like looking at a candle and the light is flickering and then- [BLOWS] it's that fast. It's that fast. It's how fragile life is. So in a way, that's helped me appreciate so many things about life, about what's important in life. You know, 'cause there's all these cliches- "Oh, live every day of your life like it's the last day." Well, shoot, if you saw what I saw, you would live like I do too. And so if they say, you know, come with us to China, I'm going to China. I'm gonna go here. I do as much as I can. And I try to value each day as much as I can. And I just party. I really just try to party as much as I can. And enjoy, like, the people that the Earth has put in front of me, right, at that moment. And it's the result of that very graphic lesson that I saw.

You know, Jessica Zappia lived with me for a couple of years. And I invited her one night for a party. I said, "Come. I'm having a dinner party," which- I don't know if she was living with me. And I said, "we're having a dinner party tonight. Can you eat dinner with us?" She said yes. So I set the table. I cooked the food. I did everything. And she arrived and she sat down and there were three of us. And she said, "this is a party?" I said, "yeah, there's three of us. It could have been a party with two of us." But, you know, what a party was to her- a party to me is, like, "Ooh, the three of us are gonna sit here. We're gonna laugh. We're gonna talk. We're gonna eat some really good food. We're gonna drink some wine. We're gonna tell some stories. We're gonna share." Um, and so I just kind of live my life that way.

LIZ: Everything's a party. [LAUGHING]

YOLANDA: Everything is a party. Because you're dumb if you don't make every day a party and enjoy the absolute moment of what it is. Part of it's, you know, what happened to me. Part of it is that tango gives me that opportunity to enjoy these people that I have.

I look back on the four years that my husband and I danced together. And I think, oh my, if we had known that he was going to die, without trying, we were doing exactly what we should have done. Because the children were gone. We had a little bit of extra money. We had extra time. Our kids thought we were crazy. We had a wonderful time. And I was like, I'm so glad that we lived that way, right?

So you have that first life. You have a trauma in your life, you know. And then you, you- can you overcome it? Can you, you know, people that are dealing with grief, can you just... There was many a day I had to get up in the morning. I would wake up in the morning and say, I don't want to breathe today, let alone get out of this bed. No, no, get your big girl panties on and get out. And I would just go to the milonga, almost not being able to breathe. And people would embrace me and I'd make it. And then I feel, like I said, very grateful that I was able to have that, the support. To this day, if I need something, there's about ten, unfortunately they're all guys because that's who I danced with, right? And so I can call them up and say, you know, "Michael Davis, can you come over? I got a flat tire." "Yes, I'll be there." You know, "I think I need help putting my barbecue together." And they're here. So that whole, uh, one life moving into the next, hugging the people and embracing the people and including the people in your life, that- I kind of feel like Tango picks my friends, right? That's okay I don't have time to go out and pick other ones.

I also feel like I feel very grateful that I was a Navy wife because I had to learn to be extremely independent and raise three children, often by myself because he would do six months on a ship. Gone.

I also think that being a teacher, I taught 20 years kindergarten to third grade and 11 years seventh graders, 12, 13-year-olds. And you often have to dig very deep to love this child because they're not very lovable, all of them, right? And you have to dig deep 'cause I'm going to spend 180 days with this child, right? So it would be better for me to like this child and get on with them than, you know, whatever - the opposite. I feel that ability to learn to dig deep, to find something in this person that we can have a relationship with. A lot of the people in the community say, "oh, you like everybody." I go, "no, actually, I don't-" Maybe I shouldn't admit this, but I really don't like everybody. But-

LIZ: You won't name names now, though.

YOLANDA: No, no, absolutely not. No, I'm at the age now I can't remember who they are. [LAUGHTER] I can't remember who I don't like. So, no, you just have to learn to look for the best in somebody. And I think I feel like from being a teacher I have those skills, which add to this tango experience, that I can have people in my house sometimes that I don't know and just look for the best and find "what do I like, what works here?" I think we are the culmination of all our experiences, you know, as we get older. And I get up every day and say I'm the luckiest woman in the world. I have a lovely little garden. I have wonderful people that come in and out of my house. I get to dance.

[MUSIC FADING IN - LYRICS IN SPANISH]
En la tarde que en sombras se moría,
buenamente nos dimos el adiós;
mi tristeza profunda no veías
y al marcharte sonreíamos los dos.
Y la desolación, mirándote partir,
quebraba de emoción mi pobre voz...
El sueño más feliz, moría en el adiós
y el cielo para mí se obscureció.
[MUSIC FADES]

YOLANDA:
One of the first lessons I took with Maurizio, you know, he danced with me and then I said, "Okay, what?" And he goes, "you know, you're blocking me. You're blocking me. You're not really letting me in." And I was like, "Mm, mm, mm - I knew it. I knew that there was like that last, that I wasn't opening up. And then he said to me, "you need to dance with me like you welcome people into your home." And I thought, gosh, what an interesting thing to say. And I thought about it because I love to have people in my home, right? And I like to share my house with people. And so I was like, Okay, I'll work on it."

LIZ SCRIPT:
Of course, I had to ask Yolanda if she feels like she's learned to dance like she welcomes people into her home.

YOLANDA:
You can only give that much if your partner is giving it back to you. So, um, for many reasons - I'm short and I'm definitely usually older in the community - so you kind of have to be, you kind of run a fine line that you don't want to just grab this younger person and feel like you're invading their everything, you know? So you kind of have to play a fine line there on when you can do that. And I think you only get those dances on- totally soul-opening, totally connected dances - with certain people at certain times. And- the ones you walk away with and you go, "I've been somewhere. It's a very special place." I think I maybe have had 20 of those. And two or three with someone I didn't know at all - that's the most interesting one. So, yes, I can do it, but it doesn't happen every- it would be too exhausting to dance like that every tanda, right?

I always describe it as I swam upstream. It was always hard because I, I'm not, you know, the beautiful young thing. And I'll give the example that I was in Buenos Aires at a class at the Galería Pacifico where they have really good Argentine classes. And I'm there taking the class and it's time to rotate to the next person. And the guy takes one look at me and walks away. And in walks a young hot thing. And he walks right over and takes her to the dance floor. And then - they were right next to me - and she says, "Oh, thank you. This is my second hour of tango." And I was like, "Well, you got what you wanted." [LAUGHS] That is something I've always had to deal with. And so it's okay. What is the answer to that? Just work harder. Just be better than the best you can be, and it's not even a matter of being better than somebody else. Just dance well. If you can dance well, which is self-gratifying, then you will get your dances, right? Will you get 'em all? No, not at all. There are pe- I have been in this community since- 16 years, I don't know, 16 or 17. I could name five or six men that have never invited me to dance. Who knows why? I don't even go there.

And I'm gonna always say, you have to remember what's on the other side of the dance, who's- I don't want to say who's inviting, because I feel very strongly that I can cabeceo somebody. I'm not going to sit there like a cute little thing waiting for the men to bestow their gracious cabeceo on me and look on me. I can look at you. I just have to be strong enough that if I look at you and you look away, that I'm not shattered for life because I've now been refused, right? And when I am, I just think, "Oh, guy, you missed something good." You have to be thick-skinned to do this dance, I think. You have to not necessarily think, "Oh, that person doesn't want to dance with me and there's something wrong with me." That person doesn't want to dance with you for who knows what other thousands of reasons. It's not your problem. And I don't want to dance with anyone anymore, ever, that doesn't want to dance with me.

[MUSIC]

YOLANDA: I met a man one time dancing in Buenos Aires - an older man - who, it wasn't grief for the loss of a person, but he, I think they had- I don't know, 2000? I'm going to get the date wrong-

[LIZ ASIDE] Most likely in 2001.

YOLANDA: -they had just a financial collapse. And he said, you know, "On Thursday I had 30 people and a company and on Friday I had nothing." And, uh, he said, you know, "and I lost everything." So he went to therapy and he was going to therapy and finally the therapist said to him, "you know I think it would be really good if you went and danced tango." And he didn't even tell him why, he- "just go dance tango." And so he told me his story, you know, actually we were dancing, I don't know, we ended up sitting like three or four of us talking and he started telling the story about, you know, why he started to dance tango. And I thought, yes, it can do those things. It can do those things for you, you know.

What does it give you? It gives you a social life if you want it. It gives you exercise. It has... brain... brain, soul... brain, soul, body, value, you know. Um, for me, because I think I was a frustrated dancer, it finally gives me the opportunity for self-expression, for creative self- well, I had creative self-expression as a teacher, but it was so different, right. And here I can just like go, you know, I can just tell you I love you, you know, just because you're standing there, you know. Not because I'm dancing with you, but I can just tell you because I get to exercise the practice of allowing yourself to have emotions. We have a lot of 'em, and I think in my other first life they were very contained. So, do- yes, it gives you friends. Some people get partners out of it, you know. I have many men now, [LAUGHS] not just one. You know, I have all these young people that I love and another family, more children, you know - three 50-year-old sons, you know. So, yeah, can it change your life? Absolutely.

LIZ: I want to tease out something that you said about the emotions. Like you said, "I can tell you I love you." Would you say that the dance also has the benefit of teaching people a model for expression that then extends into their social interactions off the dance floor as well?

YOLANDA: Yeah, because I think, I mean, here we're hugging people. We're hugging people. We're physically close. We're dancing. People who don't understand tango look at it- my mother-in-law, she saw us dancing, and she was sure that everybody that was dancing, if they were dancing too close together that, you know, definitely at the end of the evening they were going home together. And she, we went and sat, the first, we took them to a milonga, and I was like, she said, "Oh, yeah, that one's with that one and that one's with that one." I said, "No, that one's not with that one, you know, Mom. 'Cause she's actually married to him over there."

LIZ: She's just perceiving the intimacy.

YOLANDA: The intimacy and the way we see it as a culture and a society, you know. So you see tango, and then you think immediately that if people are gonna dance that closely together and be that emotional and share those, that they're immediately going to arrive at a sexual place. And what I feel like from learning to dance is that you have all these emotions that you normally don't share with a person. And to me, they're all, they all come from the music, because the music is passionate, and it's this, and it's that, and it's happy, and it's, it just, it has it. And so if you're really listening to the music and letting it be part of your dance, then you're having all of those sensations. And then you get to practice sharing them with someone else that you normally would never do. And then, I don't know if I'm going to give tango the credit for me being able to hug people and say "I love you" when I normally wouldn't have done that before. But that's, I think it's a factor of tango and age.

I love that we can get to know and experience our emotions because there's a whole bunch of space before something is necessarily sexual, even when it's physical. And you can drop the door if it gets too steamy and hot, you know. Unless you don't want to - it can go there. But look, I get to, to me, my thing is when I dance then I get to play with all of these emotions and all of this music and all of these wonderful things that I never got to do before. And I think they're a part of my self-expression. And, uh, I just like going there.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Let's be like Yolanda and party every day in our own special way.

Thank you, Yolanda. And thanks to Sexteto Cristal with singer Guillermo Rozenthuler for the recording that accompanies this episode, "El Adiós," by Maruja Pacheco Huergo with lyrics by Virgilio San Clemente.

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