I love tango. I love the music. The music reaches deep into my heart and makes my body want to move and do things. Sometimes in the milonga (tango dance parties), when the music comes on, it hits me like a bolt of lightning and every cell in my body just wants to dance!

Sometimes I could not manage to invite a girl to dance. I will sit there, drowning in the music (and frustration), in a slight trance-like state, and my fingers will be dancing the beat, the piano, the violin, or the bandoneon of the orchestra.

I'm sure it is not just me, but everyone who likes to dance would have similar experiences. That is when the music really enters your soul and the dance resides in you.

It took a lot of listening to the tango music, dancing and basically a long time for this sensation to enter my body. But the music from some orchestra came easier than others.

Carlos Di Sarli, Juan D'Arienzo, Ricardo Tanturi, Osvaldo Fresedo and valses etc, they came naturally to me, their music entered my body quite early on in my tango journey and I could dance them without extra difficulty.

But there were two types of music that took a long time for me to feel them and required a lot of effort for me to dance them. One of them was milonga and the other one was the music by Osvaldo Pugliese.

For a long time, I did not know how to dance Pugliese; The rhythm disappears and reappears, the violins were too intense, the silences and pauses were undanceable, finally the endings of the music were always too frentic.

Amongst the hits and misses, the real breakthrough came recently, in September 2007 during the Taipei festival, during the class by Javier Rodriguez and Andrea Misse on 'Dancing on Pugliese'.

After teaching a relatively complex figure which most students struggled through, the real gem of the class came when Javier and Andrea started talking about the 'sensations' felt when dancing Pugliese; what Pugliese music means to them.

It all started when my dear friend and very good dancer from Singapore, Su Lyn asked Javier and Andrea during the class, "(Judging from the size of the steps and the complexity of the figures) Do you always need a lot of space to dance Pugliese?"

"Good question." Javier smiled and spoke to the students. "In salon (social) tango, the energy (of the steps and figures) are usually projected near the embrace and embellishments usually happen at the ankle level, because other people are dancing around you. In fantasy (stage) tango, where the couple is performing alone on stage, the energy is projected more outwards, further away from the embrace. The embellishments happen much higher, knee level and above..."

He continued, "...While the epitome of salon tango is the orchestra of Carlos Di Sarli, the epitome of fantasy tango is the orchestra of Osvaldo Pugliese..."

"...Of course we dance Pugliese's music in a social milonga. But as we are compelled to be more expressive in his music, it is hard to dance Pugliese when the dancefloor is very crowded. It would be ideal if the dancefloor has more space."

Andrea chimed in, "Of course try not to slit anyone's throat on the social dancefloor with your heels when you are dancing Pugliese!..." That drew some laughter.

She continued. "...To me, dancing Pugliese is like telling a story, there is a beginning, a middle part and a conclusion."

"Yes," Javier agreed, "And in the story, there are sometimes very sweet parts, sometimes very intense and brutal parts..."

"...some parts of the music, for example when the bandoneon and piano drives the beat, it calls for you to just walk forward like an elephant..."

"...some parts of the music, calls for slow, stretched out movements like chewing gum."

"...and there are even some parts of the music, for example during a long drawn out violin, it calls for the men to just pause, be still and silent to let the women express herself individually and fully."

"Lastly..." Andrea concluded, "...there is the end part, the conclusion to the story; which is called the 'variation' or climax, where the whole orchestra plays to a rousing finish, and this is the part of the dance which is the most energetic and intense."

With that the class ended. Something inside me clicked, the music of Pugliese suddenly began to make sense. As foreigners who did not grow up listening to tango music, this little insight on the structure of Pugliese music was invaluable to us.

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Later that night, during the milonga of the Taipei Tango Festival. I danced a nice late Carlos Di Sarli tanda (set of four tangos) with Andrea. The epitome of salon tango; very formal, very elegant and very polite.

Towards the end of the night, a Pugliese tanda came on, 'Nochero Soy'. I was desperate, I wanted to dance so much with Andrea. She did not notice me at first but probably Javier saw the burning fire in my eyes, he gave a nudge to Andrea. Andrea looked my way and accepted the dance.

I remembered what Javier and Andrea said in the class and tried to 'tell a story' with the music while dancing with Andrea. But what I did not expect and what I would never forget was that while dancing with me and following every lead I proposed, she made me feel 'her story'!!!

The sensation was like she took my plainly written story and then retold it to me, with the exact same storyline but painted it with incredible colours and life of her own; the same opening chapter, the same sweet parts, same brutal parts, same pauses and finally the same concluding climax, but so much more exciting!

At that time, I cannot call myself a very sensitive leader yet; in terms of feeling what the girl wants. The memorable times, when a dancer made me feel her music and gave me a different insight to the music during the dance, are few and far between; the only one I can remember was Royce, very early on in my dancing journey she made me feel the music of Juan D'Arienzo.

But that Pugliese tanda with Andrea... I can honestly say I was a different dancer before and after dancing that tanda with her. At the start, I was still not very confident in my interpretation of Pugliese music. But at the end of the tanda I felt that the music of Pugliese had finally entered my body; and Andrea made it happen.

She gave me a very nice praise at the end of the tanda, "Now I can end my dancing night, go back and sleep soundly." ;)