Tango in Sydney: Would you like to Tango?

"Would you like to do a tango performance tomorrow?"

What? Tomorrow?

This was the unexpected phone call I received from a guy I met a couple of months ago at one of the Milongas* in Sydney. He was a tango instructor from South Korea, and with me being Korean too, he must have felt comfortable dancing with me, especially knowing my professional dance background. To make a long story short, the dance was for the opening ceremony of a college for senior Korean citizens in Sydney, and I said, well, why not? Yes. The very next day, we did a dance performance!

*A milonga is a term that can refer to a social event or location where people dance tango together.

Here is a one-minute snippet of the Tango Performance from the other day.

Daon College Opening Ceremony at Auburn Community Centre NSW

Music: Por Una Cabeza

It's been a while since I've tangoed but oh well, you just tango on.

If you make a mistake, get all tangled up, just tango on.

This is a famous line from the movie 'Scent of a Woman' in a tango scene. In the scene, a blind, retired army officer (Al Pacino) invites a young lady to dance. She is very shy and it's at that moment, he delivers the line. They tango to the music called Por Una Cabeza, which I chose to dance to as it is very famous. I knew that most of the audience consisted of Koreans in their 60s and 70s, so I thought it would be nice to dance to something that they might be familiar with.

In case, anyone is interested in watching the part of the movie. :-)

After the performance that day, luckily someone videoed it and I put the snippet of it on my social media. Then someone asked me, 'Don't you miss your dancing?' to which I answered 'No, not at all!' with a big smile!

What changed? How is it possible I don't miss dancing?

It's because I am simply happy being! Before, it was dancing that I 'had to do' in order to feel joy and happiness. But nowadays, I am just able to enjoy my daily activities and still feel the same joy and happiness!

When I think of it, it is a huge difference. From a life of a constant chase, whether it was dancing or other forms of activity, in order to feel 'alive', I now embrace a life where I feel alive doing even my mundane daily activities. In fact, they are not mundane at all anymore.

Every day becomes a new day, and there is some excitement in it too.

Clearing up my mind through meditation definitely helped, and I feel truly happy and grateful.

A tango opportunity that came out of the blue made me realize many things about how my life changed through meditation. This unexpected chance to dance tango was truly wonderful, so I thought I'd write a blog about it.