An April morning and my Cambridge flat is filled with sunshine. Alberto Carol sings of the memories that emerge as he lingers over a cup of coffee. I’ve come across three other tracks by this singer, all recorded in the 1940s. Together they make a sweet set of four tangos, high on my list of favourites for my next milonga (1). Sadly, my DJ days are behind me but I treasure the transformation that the dance and its music created…
With Let’s Dance 2026, the UK’s celebration of dance for health and wellbeing, in full swing across the UK, I’m thinking back to the morning 15 years ago when two tango teachers and myself, a dancer with Parkinson’s, came together to explore the impact of Argentine tango on the experience of the condition and to share what they were learning (Tango and Parkinson’s: the View from the Dance Floor, Animated Winter 2013).
It’s nearer 20 years since my first tango lesson and, two years later, coinciding with the arrival of Strictly on our screens, my diagnosis. From the start, I was a ‘wobbly’ dancer and trips to Argentina did nothing to dispel the nerves. Moving from Cumbria to Cambridge, I was determined to build my confidence and signed up for all that tango in the city had to offer – group classes and practicas (2), supplemented by individual lessons with the organiser, John Connatty. We were soon joined by dancer, teacher and psychologist Dr. Ellie McKenny and we began to document the positive effects of the dance on my mind, body and spirit.
Research had already shown the importance of exercise, particularly dance, in managing the disease, countering its effects and encouraging neuroplasticity, improving balance and gait, and for the social and emotional benefits. Studies in the United States were beginning to identify features of Argentine tango that seemed made for therapeutic intervention: patterns of stepping, the reliance on improvisation rather than a fixed sequence of steps, and that unspoken dialogue with the partner in response to the music. My immersion in the dance meant that I experienced these benefits intensely at first hand and this passionate encounter created an urgency to share some of the magic. After an uphill struggle with crowdfunding, my book The Tango Effect: Parkinson’s and the Healing Power of Dance was published in April 2020 – just in time for the first lockdown.
As anticlimaxes go, this was pretty devastating.
Certainly I was pleased with the presentation of the book: the beautiful photos reproduced well and the publisher Unbound came up with an attractive cover. I was satisfied with the content, too, an authentic portrayal of the routine agonies of a neurological condition blended with some sense of the richness of tango. It is also a paean to the sustaining qualities of friendship. But the timing couldn’t have been worse. No book launch, no big tango party, festival appearances cancelled.
Attempting to keep interest alive, I moved online. Readings from the book under the heading Tango in Lockdown are still available here and on my website alongside podcasts, interviews, round-table discussions and videos. The bigger disappointment, though, was in the lack of take-up. I had assumed that friends and contacts in my various worlds – writers, Parkinson’s and tango – would be eager to respond to the challenges implicit in the narrative. Even after restrictions were lifted, though there was a warm response…but not much action…
John, Ellie and I arranged a taster class for the local Parkinson’s group but it wasn’t a success and there were no takers. Perhaps it was time to face reality: we had failed to come up with an answer to Ellie's question: “How can the tango effect be bottled?” and would have to accept that ‘tango is never going to be widely available on prescription…’(3)
So I was surprised at the end of last year to find in my inbox an email beginning: ‘May we talk about tango and Parkinson’s?’ David Thomas, Chair of the UK Argentine Tango Association (UKATA), was keen to use the group’s new charitable status to push ahead with a programme promoting tango for health and wellbeing, in line with the government’s social prescribing policy. He had a response for Ellie too: “I want to see a poster advertising tango in every GP surgery.”
Not only that, but the proposals were actually underway: alongside the thriving Adapted Tango program in the US and various initiatives in Buenos Aires, the UK now has tango classes for those with Parkinson’s and similar conditions in Sheffield and Glasgow and one planned for Worcester. I recently heard of a class in East London, too, and another in Reims, France, led by an organiser from Northumbria, all with a team of trained volunteers and all rooted in the local tango community.
Meanwhile, dance opportunities for people with Parkinson’s in other genres were becoming firmly established. In New York, the Mark Morris Dance Company had developed an evidence-based artistic programme, now 25 years old, with a focus on the participants as dancers. The model was adapted in the UK by English National Ballet, with classes often linked to a current production. My initial horror at the idea of a designated Parkinson’s class evaporated in the warm welcome I received from their Dance for Parkinson’s in Ipswich sessions and I enjoyed the chance to become a member of the corps de ballet for an hour. Now, I often join David Leventhal’s Dance for PD classes online live from Brooklyn.(They’re great, though of course they’re not tango.)
There are particular features of tango – stride length and changes of direction, walking backwards, for instance – that distinguish it from other dance forms and make it worth including as an option. But the lasting impact – for me at least – won’t be the practical gains. Rather it will be what one clinician described as the ‘emotional boost’ of the mutual response to music: that intense non-verbal communication with a partner in the embrace, a validation of self and a powerful counter to isolation.
It’s evening now. Carol’s voice conjures ghosts from the past -- ‘the hand of memory presses on my heart…’ -- and I’m back on the dance floor. The music fills me. Safe in my partner’s arms, aware of the other dancers moving with me, I am restored to wholeness and the possibility of grace.
www.kateswindlehurst.com
Notes
- Milonga has three possible meanings in Argentine tango: a particular style of music, the dance style that matches this music and the meaning here: the event where dancing takes place
- From the Spanish, the term refers to those regular practice sessions where dancers work obsessively on improving their dance!’
- Swindlehurst, K, 2020 The Tango Effect: books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Tango_Effect
- All images: John Connatty.