I'm not addicted, am I? © Lilly Schwartz

For the first time since I started taking pictures I took my camera to tango. I have been dancing tango argentino for 4 years and I am passionate about it. Well, not to say ‘addicted’! The tango scene in Berlin is quite big in comparison with the rest of Europe and people are friendly and open in most places, so it’s a great place to meet people and have a nice evening out, even just to have a drink and watch people dance. There are many different locations and it’s possible to go tango dancing every evening of the week. And there are classes with many different teachers all week long too. People even say that it’s impossible to make money in Berlin teaching tango since every second person here is a tango teacher. Maybe that’s a bit exaggerated, but definitely there are many good dancers and lots of opportunities to learn. And I also never had the intention of earning my living with tango, so I don’t really care whether it’s true or not.

I said that I am probably addicted to tango, but I usually pretend that I’m not. Sometimes I go dancing every day and sometimes I don’t go for several weeks, like in the last month. It varies. However, I always come back to it and it makes me unhappy if I have to be in a place where I can’t dance. That is because I know that if I have some great tangos it never fails to make me happy! Like yesterday when I was just trying to take it easy and take a break from the feeling that I seriously need to work on my MSc dissertation.

Traditional tango music is so lovely too. It’s often melancholic, but one shouldn’t take the lyrics too seriously. In fact, I think that tango as a whole is only fun if one doesn’t take it too seriously! Sometimes that’s difficult because it can just suck you right in and you suddenly become entangled in tango politics and maybe also some tango drama, but then it’s usually time to take a step back and not go dancing for a few weeks. However, I’m also looking forward to finishing my MSc dissertation so that I can just go dancing and take some tango lessons together with Ezequiel.

Yesterday’s picture was taken at the Tangoloft in Berlin. It’s a nice place with a great atmosphere and a black cat walking the premises. The music is 50% traditional, 50% neo, so for me there are lots of opportunities to have nice conversations too, since I don’t like neo music for dancing. However that’s the only negative point about the location and I always enjoy going there anyway.