Tango : An Anxious Quest for Freedom [Paperback]

Rodolfo Dinzel (Author), Gloria Dinzel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 3, 2000

For the first time a literary work on tango dynamics attempts to dialogue about the technical and theoretical aspects of this dance, that is ¨porteña¨, and shows us to the world.

Gloria and Rodolfo Dinzel have investigated for years in an endeavour to contain the driving ideas of tango, and have come up with this synthesis. If the reader happens to be a tango dancer, he or she will be able to corroborate and raise awareness as to the internal processes that take part during his dancing performances. If the reader is not a tango dancer, this book will help understand why it has been said that tango is the deepest dance in the history of human kind.

It is far from the authors intention to teach any figures, sequences, or “choreographic” secrets through this book, but to fathom the depths of this wonderful dance, its history, and its expressive capacity, penetrating the anatomic attitudes and psychological postures of the individual dancer as well as of the couple, dealing in detail each topic in each different chapter.

The authors disclose the techniques that, as Rodolfo Dinzel states, make the amateur and the professional dancer observant of posture, gesture, air, attitude, character... of the overall manner that constitute tango-dance as opposed to simply moving to the rhythm of tango.

This new turn of the century sees tango widespread throughout the world; its figures and names, sequences and choreography are what we first and faster catch on. This is only tango’s form. But Argentineans and not-Argentineans alike know, as we step into the pleasure of this dance, how arduous to reach the appropriate manner is; as we also know that only through manner can we dance tango and inspiringly transmit its essence, each time the music plays and two dancers embrace into a tango couple.

Gloria and Rodolfo Dinzel travelled all the world around dancing tango as members of the company “Tango Argentino”, putting up performances as dancers and choreographers, one of such made Mikhail Baryshnikov say that tango “is a dance of indescribable beauty, with the finesse of ballet and the fire of flamenco.”

Tango, an anxious quest for freedom, first published Argentina in 1994, was translated to German and published in 1999. Gloria and Rodolfo Dinzel are also authors of The Dinzel System of Choreographic Notation, a work that covers over 3,600 tango figures, and they are presently devoted to teaching and to the study of improvisation, mechanics technique, and a theory to practice, all of these issues that await publication soon.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

GLORIA DINZEL Y RODOLFO DINZEL (Biography in spanish)

Bailarines de extracción clásica y folklórica respectivamente; conforman la pareja de Tango Danza “Los Dinzel” en el año 1972, desarrollando así toda su carrera artística, docente e investigativa.

Gloria a los 8 años ingresa al Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón de Buenos Aires, teniendo como maestros a Michel Borovsky, Tamara Grigorieva, Renate Schottelius, Jorge Tomín, Aída Mastrazzi y Eda Aisembreg entre otros: egresando en 1967 poseyendo el número 47 del Centro de Egresados de dicha institución, siendo una de las socias fundadoras en 1982.

Inmediatamente después de recibirse viaja a Europa, donde incursiona por primera vez en la danza del Tango con el coreógrafo y bailarín Ángel Eleta en España, llegando a ser su primera bailarina.

De regreso a Bs. As. decide dedicarse únicamente a la danza del Tango.

Rodolfo ingresa como oyente, a los 4 años, en las dependencias de la Escuela Nacional de Danzas Folklóricas, participando dos años más tarde del concurso infantil de dicha institución.

A los 14 años comienza su carrera profesional como bailarín folklórico, desempeñándose como tal con los principales coreógrafos del género en la República Argentina.

A los 16 años crea junto a su hermano el grupo “Coreoimaginación Argentino”, en 1968 se recibe como docente, egresando de la Escuela Normal Mariano Acosta de Buenos Aires y en ese mismo año decide dedicarse al Tango, abandonando la danza folklórica y comienza su investigación sobre el tema del Tango Danza.

Actividades artísticas desarrolladas en el exterior:
1972 Embajada Argentina (los Ángeles, EE.UU.)/ Congreso Internacional de Turismo (Maui, EE.UU.)/ Palacio de Convenciones (Madrid, España).
1973 Hotel Crillón (Lima. Perú)/ Teatro de Miraflores (Lima, Perú).
1974 Hotel Intercontinental (Quito, Ecuador)/ Casa de Cultura (Guayaquil, Ecuador)/ Teatro Libertador (Cuenca, Ecuador).
1975 Feria Internacional de la Industria (Cochabamba, Bolivia).
1976 Televisión Chilena (Santiago de Chile, Chile)/ Teatro Municipal (punta Arenas, Chile)/ Diez espectaculares para el programa Tai Mu Ch 2 (China)/ Película “El Tango”, TV (Finlandia).
1977 Teatro Municipal (Porto Alegre, Brasil)/ Teatro Guaíra (Curitiba, Brasil)/ Restaurant Show Vivará (Río de Janeiro, Brasil)/ Televisao “O Globo” (Río de Janeiro, Brasil)/ Grabación TV (Austria).
1978 Hotel Ocean Palace (Montevideo, Uruguay)/ Televisión Canal 2 (Montevideo, Uruguay) Tanguería La Cumparsita (Montevideo, Uruguay).
1979 Televisión Japonesa (Japón).
1980 Canal 13 (México, DF México)/ Sheraton Hotel (México, DF México).
1984 Con “Tango Argentino”: Chatelet Teatro- Festival de Otoño ( París. Francia)/ Teatro de Nimes (Nimes, Francia)/ Teatro Municipal Grenoble (Grenoble, Francia)/ Teatro Petrozzelli (Bari, Italia).
1985 Quebec - Montreal - Ottawa (Canadá)/ San Antonio. Texas (EE.UU.)/ New York Teatro City Center (EE.UU.)/ Mark Hellinger Theatre, Broadway (New York, EE.UU.)/ Kenedy Center Honor (Washington DC, EE.UU.)/ White House (Washington DC, EE.UU.- invitados por Sr. Presidente Ronald Reagan).
1986 Washington Golde Gate (EE.UU.)/ The Performance Art Theatre (Miami, EE.UU.)/ Dallas, Texas (EE.UU.) / Pantaje Theatre ( los Ángeles, EE.UU.)/ The Performance Art (San Francisco, EE.UU.)/ Plate des Arts (Vancouver, Canadá)/ San Diego (EE.UU.)/ Washington Kennedy Center (EE.UU.)/ Boston (EE.UU.).
1987 The performance Arts (Miami, EE.UU.)/ Philadelphia (EE.UU.)/ Toronto- Montreal (Canadá)/ San City- Phoenix- Los Ángeles- San Francisco- Sarasota- Clean Water- Atlanta- Denver- New Orleans- Houston- Dallas (EE.UU.)/ Tokio- Osaka (Japón)/ Washington (EE.UU.)
1988 Hamilton -Quebec -Ottawa (Canadá)/ Atlantic City- Tampa- Jacksonville- Orlando (EE.UU.)/ Caracas (Venezuela)/ München (Alemania)/ Baltimore- Fort Loderler- Sunrise- Detroit (EE.UU.).
1989 Dirección y Coreografía de “Le Tango” Festival de Lutece (París, Francia)/ largometraje “En un Viejo Almacén”. TV (

Product Details

• Paperback: 115 pages
• Publisher: Abrazos (July 3, 2000)
• ISBN-10: 3000061193
• ISBN-13: 978-3000061196
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,799,160 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast success, January 9, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Tango : An Anxious Quest for Freedom (Paperback)

I'm a tango teacher. I've being teaching tango for 15 years and all my tango students are very happy with this book. From beginners first class to my most advance students.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For Tango Physics, February 24, 2003

By 

Diane Emerson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tango : An Anxious Quest for Freedom (Paperback)

This book is excellent for those who wish to really understand the physics involved in the dance - the relationship between the leader and the follower. It doesn't waste space trying to teach you figures, nor does it cover music. It is focused and precise on teaching you exactly how to hold yourself and your partner when you dance tango. I highly recommend it for intermediate and advanced dancers.

3.0 out of 5 stars A NICE GIFT IN A LOUSY PACKAGE?? ... MAYBE, October 6, 2011

By 

yvonne (Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tango : An Anxious Quest for Freedom (Paperback)

TANGO an anxious quest for freedom by Gloria and Rudolfo Dinzel, burdened by an editor asleep on the job and unnecessarily awkward and technical language, really challenges you to remain engaged ... a book should not be a struggle to read yet this small 115 page book is; how it speaks gets in the way of what it has to say, at least, for me ... and I do think it has something to say.

Is the destination worth the bumpy ride?? Now, that is the real issue here, isn't it??

There are problems of translation, spelling and punctuation (mostly missing commas) that usually do not affect comprehension but sometimes do but my difficulty with this book goes beyond that. I have, in the past, enjoyed books equally blessed with such challenges but which still retained clarity and engaged me. This book, simply put, just does not do either. Instead, I must struggle to stay on the page. Why? Though I am committed to the study of Argentine Tango, I keep getting about a third of the way through and, then, I "put it aside for later" ... and start again; I keep thinking I will get to the rest of it but, so far, I have not as, each time I try, I find myself thinking that this is a very complicated and murky way to say something very simple such as that one may achieve better balance and pivot more easily if one lands on the whole front of the foot, not the heel, but toes first and with toes active. When I glance through the rest of the book trying to see if it gets better, it seems to get worse and includes a geometric presentation of the dance ... yes, geometric ... very geometric, that is, there are about 3 dozen geometric diagrams using almost every possible geometric shape, with and without human bodies ... fortunately, most of them (not all) are in the third of its five chapters. Sometimes a diagram contains just several bare geometric shapes superimposed on each other. The related texts seem, to me, to become increasingly abstract as the book goes on; this all serves to discourage me as it seems, at times, overly theoretical and yet, not all the time, as there are moments of clarity and plain talk which makes it frustrating. So it is no surprise that being "technical and theoretical" is how the back cover describes it.

Perhaps, if I were in the class of a teacher who loved this book and made frequent reference to it in class enabling me to tie in its abstractions to concrete application, I might love it too ... but I am not. So I am frustrated because, as I mentioned, I do think that this book has something to say. Now whether the destination is worth the ride will depend on your willingness to struggle with it. For me, there were too many times when I had no idea what was meant!! Besides information on the technique, there are other things presented that I like as well such as the discussion on the topic of gender roles ... it's such a mix-up of interesting ideas and and poor presentation.

For me, it does not seem to offer enough, in what I have read so far, that I find immediately practical/helpful in my current attempts to return to Argentine Tango after an absence of several years and that may not be found in more hospitable contexts ... though I must admit I was fascinated by the idea that the posture taken originally by tango dancers was affected by things like riding a horse or the clothing one wore and curious about whether the passive role of women in the dance is really, as stated in this book, a later phenomenon not originally part of the way it was danced. I have read before about the women's steps being influenced by clothing styles that restricted movement but had not come across the idea that the passive female role in the dance might have been a product of its later evolution. This is part of why Argentine Tango keeps evolving and there can be no single right way to dance it that is true for all times and places. I would love to know more about both but this book does not say more about either ... at least not in the parts that I read. This is another problem of this book: it touched upon so many things that wet the appetite but but were not developed enough to satisfy ... but it would have to be very concise, clear and word-efficient to do that in 115 pages and it is not.

The bottom line is that, given what I most need from a tango book at this time, I have been happier with other books such as A PASSION FOR TANGO by David Turner or GOTTA TANGO by Alberto Paz and Valorie Hart as these books are more comprehensive in their approach ... and they are both very clearly written. Both are reviewed by amazon.com so you can easily compare. For a wonderful understanding of the cultural context, try THE MEANING OF TANGO by Christine Denniston.

By the way, if you have not yet discovered Argentine Tango on YouTube, check it out; start with Dario's Tango Guides.