Appeared in the December 2006 issue of dancenotes
Yoga’s secret ingredient for partner dancers
By Camille Cusumano
If you’ve ever felt that dancing tango requires the stamina of a martial artist, then you’re ready for Carmen Iglesias. A yoga teacher and tango dancer, Carmen has developed a program that supports the special demands of Argentine tango—and, in essence, of all partner dancing.
All partner dances require that the leader and follower carry their own weight, but tango requires even more fluidity, a nearly “liquid balance.” Both partners must be like water seeking its own level, ever-ready to shift gracefully within the improvisational patterns that define the dance.
Carmen’s method, designed after years of training with yoga masters, improves not only posture and balance, but helps you conserve rather than lose energy while dancing. She teaches men to give a crystal clear lead to followers and followers how to remain light and easy to lead. In essence, her method teaches all dancers how to relax emotionally and psychically in order to better connect with partners.
Carmen, who has worked as a fashion model, studied art, and worked as a marketing rep for Pepsi Cola, has practiced yoga for more than 20 years and danced tango for the past four. She came to Swasthya, one of the oldest forms of yoga, involving dancing “asanas” (or poses) 10 years ago. Her workshops address everything from the natural fact of breathing to the use of hands to the way we must carry and safely torque our spines.
“It’s my profession to help people manage pain,” she says. So she developed a yoga program to
support tango’s challenges. Today, she works with dancers who simply want to improve their “listening” skills in this often close-embrace dance and with those in rehabilitation who are eager to get back to dance after serious injuries.
Many dancers already know the far-reaching benefits of yoga in general, including relaxed muscles, strong and pliable joints that forestall injury, a toning and cleansing of internal organs that helps keep energy levels constant. Yoga also imparts an equilibrium that comes from deep within, the kind of balance that a martial artist projects in meeting sudden opposing forces.It is this last benefit, a core centeredness that Carmen’s workshop most pointedly focuses on.She starts participants off so deceptively simply-working with breathing-that it’s hard to believe she holds the secret ingredient to a dancer’s equanimity. But, she notes that before we can manage our muscles, “We must manage our breath to avoid fatiguing quickly.” Breathing properly is also key to rhythm, she points out, and to seamless connecting with our partner and his or her rhythm.Furthermore, she says, “Dancing in close embrace [with a stranger], our emotions may go a little crazy,” which blocks the flow of breath, locking it inside of certain energy points within the body.Carmen begins each session by checking on participants who sit comfortably-no pretzel poses involved. She makes sure they are breathing naturally, allowing the breath to come and go, not forcing it, which 
actually takes some concerted awareness. Lest they underestimate the value of this exercise, she asks the class to consider how quickly the sense of smell fatigues—sniff in too strongly and the delicate bouquet of a rose, or notes in wine, vanish.She then teaches the class to inhale when preparing to move and to exhale when executing a move-not as easy as it sounds when you consider that you might prepare and execute dozens of moves within a minute’s time, say. You don’t have time to think about when to inhale, when to exhale.If you master this breathing phase, you will find you are able to dance for long stretches of time without sweating or getting out of breath. You will master the art of tranquility—or alpha state—that pranayama, or breathing exercises, induce. It is not a hidden secret, but it is subtle, the way in which one transfers the poise from yoga to dancing. One must remain attuned—that is all.
The workshop also incorporates movement, in silence and to different types of music, so that we may witness the body’s visceral reactions to sound. During this phase, I noticed that I was yawning and beginning to feel a little tired. But when she put on music by Van Morrison who never fails to touch my musical nerve, my energy soared and was nearly palpable. It’s learning to tap into these eternal energy reserves on demand that I found most beneficial in her yogic approach.
Carmen also had us work with sound that comes from within the body-chanting. She first described the locus of the seven chakras, or energy centers, from the base of the spine to the pinnacle of the skull. Then she led us through single-syllable chants for each center, ending with the oft-heard “om.” With breath and sound moving freely and harmoniously up and down the vertebral column, where one might imagine these energy centers sit, it felt as if we were a chorus of flutes, hitting synchronized notes.
Finely tuned inside and out, we began again to move, this time to “milonga” music, the strain of tango that has the deepest roots in African dance. We worked
on a common contra-body-movement (CBM) that requires gentle torsion of the spine. Carmen calls this “body disassociation.” The vertebral column has three natural curves-cervical, thoracic, and lumbar-and without thinking about it, we often move it fluidly, like a wave. But when moving laterally, we can use a little help to keep its integrity.
Carmen helps each participant to correctly execute the disassociation of upper and lower body, using the breathing techniques we have just practiced. Having worked incrementally to condition the entire body and mind up to this point-including the five senses, the heart, lungs, muscles, and all-we begin to move elegantly, lightly.
Finely tuned inside and out, we began again to move, this time to “milonga” music, the strain of tango that has the deepest roots in African dance. We worked on a common contra-body-movement (CBM) that requires gentle torsion of the spine. Carmen calls this “body disassociation.” The vertebral column has three natural curves-cervical, thoracic, and lumbar-and without thinking about it, we often move it fluidly, like a wave. But when moving laterally, we can use a little help to keep its integrity.
Carmen helps each participant to correctly execute the disassociation of upper and lower body, using the breathing techniques we have just practiced. Having worked incrementally to condition the entire body and mind up to this point-including the five senses, the heart, lungs, muscles, and all-we begin to move elegantly, lightly.
The workshop also involves an interesting segment, moving the hands and fingers like flamenco dancers as we dance free-form, which at first seems irrelevant to partner dancing. But explains Carmen, “The hands are very important to move energy around and inside us so that we never get tired.” If I hadn’t experienced the effect of this exercise for myself, I might have remained skeptical. But as I watched Carmen’s dance, her hands twirling like wheels or fluttering like butterflies, I was mesmerized. I tried it and felt the surge of something new and sensual.
Tango teachers take Carmen’s workshop, because they know that beyond giving their students specific steps, choreography, or even technique, there is yet more to successful partner dancing, which can be viewed as a microcosm for any relationship between two human beings. Unforeseen forces always will arise.
Other disciplines can prepare the body for the demands of tango. Jazz, for example, teaches “isolations”-moving one body part, the shoulder or torso say, while keeping the rest is still. Tap dancing can prepare one for the rapid, or “faux” weight changes in dance. Pilates (which borrows its core belief from yoga—that strengthening the core of the body protects the entire body). And ballet can prepare the body for balance during isometric poses. But yoga, with its emphasis on breath and energy management, gives the body all three—the ability to isolate, change weight seamlessly, and keep one’s equilibrium while, most importantly, breathing. Gently, evenly, calmly, forever.
Information: Carmen Iglesias teaches mainly in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but has given workshops in Port Townsend, Washington. You can visit her Web site at www.danceyogacarmen.com. Or contact her at carmen5i@yahoo.com.ar. If you’re in Buenos Aires, stop by her weekly Tuesday class, 11 a.m. Email, or call (4962-4600) for address and to reserve.