What inspired you to paint ‘American Woman Learning Tango’ (cover)?

The idea first came to me when I was watching Fernanda Ghi. There was a significant five second pause in one of her poses. That is where the painting started, I wanted to capture that moment. At the time I was teaching private tango lessons and my students were mostly American people. Here I was, neither American nor Argentine, I am Turkish, trying to learn English and understand the American culture. It made me think a lot about how Americans want to learn, how they observe and look at tango, and how I look at them. I felt like it was confusing for them because it was so new, they were not familiar with tango music. I illustrated that concept by having the woman face argentine tango symbolized by a bull. She is eager to learn but comes from a different background and culture. I didn’t look at it negatively but the tension between the two cultures was forceful. Tango was dark, rough and wild and the bull was a perfect symbol for that. On the other hand the American woman comes from a cleaner background, lives in a safer country. That was my perception at the time. She wants to embrace the bull/tango, and the tango is there but they cannot actually come together, there is too much tension for the woman and the bull to fuse. During the first ten days of the painting there was a recognizable bull in the painting, with strong legs, horns, dark eyes, and a head. There were also horns behind her, as if the bull was all around her. She was already in the dance. Then I painted over the eyes of the bull, I wanted to make him more subtle, I did not want it to look like a painting of a woman and a bull. I wanted to emphasize the dark side and the light side in the painting. One side was quiet and peaceful and the other was rough and old.

How did you start dancing tango?

I was working on an exhibition in 1998 in Istanbul. My agent was a tango dancer and she was trying to enlist me into tango but I was not interested. I had no dancing background. I never danced at parties and I never went to clubs. I was shy and I did not think I could dance. But I did like music, I was a musician throughout my school and college years. That day my agent asked me to come to a milonga so that I could sketch some of the dancers for my following exhibition. There was a guest couple from Germany. I was so mesmerized by their dancing that I could not draw anything. It was striking for me to see the couples moving at the same time, without choreography. I was convinced that they had danced together before, but they hadn’t. These people from Germany were dancing with Turkish people they had never met before. The very next day I decided to take workshops.

Was it difficult for you to learn tango?

At first it did not feel like a dance, it was more like a challenge, I saw it as an art form that I could explore, and it was an exercise for me. I did not enjoy tango music initially. I had no feelings dancing to the music nor did I feel the embrace, I was more worried about how I was going to do the sequence. I actually enjoyed the challenge, the difficulty, it was fun. Then after two or three years I started to enjoy the dance, I did not have to think about it so much and I started liking the music. I was listening to it at home and I wanted to dance, so I went to the milongas. I was getting through the anxiety about being able to do it.

Do you like dancing to non-tango music?

I do not enjoy dancing to alternative tango music, it's fun but it does not really inspire me because I do not feel like I am dancing tango. When I perform to non-tango music I move in a different way to that music. There are a couple of my performances to non-tango music on my website. I still prefer the classic tangos though. In the very beginning I liked Piazzolla, then Pugliese, and then Hugo Diaz; I learned a lot about musicality from him. As time goes by, I am starting to like the older music, I hate that this is happening to me, I used to hate the guys for only liking old tangos, and not Pugliese to dance to. I still think his music is amazing, but I don’t feel like dancing to it anymore. Now, I like Biagi, Lorenz or even Ciriaco Ortiz; a clear eight count, one guitar and a bandoneon, there is no big fancy orchestra. If I dance at an alternative milonga, I see it as an experimental exercise, but Biagi's tango offers me much more than that.

How do you define tango music?

To me tango is in the melody, the notes are organized in a special way, it’s not enough for music to have a similar rhythm. The instruments, the bandoneon, the harmony, the expression, the fraseos, the repetitions and balances in the repetitions – all that is in tango music. I feel it comes from the Argentine Spanish language, the way it is spoken; there is a similar composition and harmony, with highs and lows. The melody of tango has a personality and a feeling, because of its construction.

How does non-tango music affect your dancing?

I move in a different way when the music is different. It can be a tango orchestra playing a pop song, or a pop orchestra playing tango music, but my dance will be a modified tango. My body filters what it hears, and movement comes from there. I believe that I carefully follow the melody when I dance: the melody contains a rhythm which many dancers think that they should follow. To me breathing is the rhythm, whereas talking is the melody. When you say things you naturally inhale and exhale according to what you are talking about. So the melody gives me a rhythm and brings even more. There can be fluidity, organic forms in the music, or crispness; all that comes out in the dance. One day, they played a Metallica song, there were violins and strings playing, but I could not dance tango to it, I danced something else. I like to expand myself, open doors, set myself free in the movement, but I don’t feel the same thing as when I dance tango. For instance dancing Tango to Biagi, makes me realize that I am a man dancing with a woman, that is one of the first things I feel. I feel both the embrace and the music, but to me the embrace is the most important part of the dance. Though I seem to move in complicated ways at times, I have a strong technique and no fear about any step, I feel that when I dance to alternative music. It’s like an exercise; I push myself more and more. When I hear Biagi, the embrace comes up as well as the connection with the woman who is in my arms. I enjoy it so much because it makes me feel good. I have a similar approach with my friendships; the thing I like is that I feel so good when I am with my friends. Dancing tango with a partner I can connect with and to good music that inspires me makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I am a good person. I like finding myself, my personality in the dance. In life, I also like finding myself in situations where I can be comfortable, direct, and expressive.

Do you feel that tango helped you transcend your language barriers?

When I first came to the States, I danced tango socially. I soon got a partner and started dancing professionally and performing. When I met my partner, I spoke little English, and I found myself dancing without using speech. I made many friends in the milongas and I believe they understood me, not because I was talking to them but because I was dancing with them. Through the dance, they got to know what kind of person I was. I was trying to say things in the dance. I was comfortable because I was communicating. Sadly I was only communicating with women. I was not able to talk to any of the men in the milonga; some of them tried to talk to me, but I thought I was supposed to know how to talk about golf, sports, or politics. I was a bad conversationalist. Women got to know me, because the way you dance reveals your personality. Initially I was able to teach private lessons to women but not to men because I could not communicate except through dancing. If I tried to talk, half the lesson would go into it. I am more comfortable now.

Who was your strongest influence in Tango?

Gustavo Naveira was a big influence on my dance; I could not take classes with him, but I watched his videos and I got to understand his musicality. I never met Gustavo Naveira but I tried to dance like him. When I was auditioning in front of Luis Bravo, he asked me how I learned tango. I thought it was almost embarrassing to say that I had learned from videos. He mentioned that he also had learned a lot by watching. In Turkey, we did not have numbers of instructors. So we watched videos a lot.
In general I learn mostly from watching. It was the same when I went to art school, they taught us a lot but I actually learned when I had a chance to meditate on what I had heard and seen. Then I could answer my own questions. Sometimes I feel like I don’t learn much from a lesson, but after a day or two, I start thinking about it, and I realize I received some important information that really helped me. Recently I found Javier Rodriguez and E. Paludi very inspiring.

What is the concept that you teach in your classes?

My classes in Dance Manhattan are usually for advanced dancers. The way I teach and the way I dance is based on being a man who inspires a woman to dance. I prefer to be the one not dancing as much as she does. I like my partner to understand what I am trying to say in the lead even though it is not a complete and unavoidable expression; it’s more an “open to any direction” kind of lead that I enjoy. I want my partner to use what she almost senses in me, instead of me actually telling her what she is supposed to do. I like her to feel that and actually lead herself to do it. I keep my embrace very still, and my partner reads from my embrace what is going on in my walk and in my body. She feels half of the sentence and I let her complete the whole sentence. The direction of the dance can be led by the woman.
Women complain that in classes the leaders get all the information and the followers don’t learn anything. They end up thinking that if they just follow, it’s going to be great. But I run my group classes based on what women should do. I want them to be active, to understand what is going on in the class and actually do it. Some students ask me if I want them to move by themselves. Well, in the class I do. I want them to watch what their instructor is doing, understand it and do it, even though their partner is not leading well at that moment. Later in the milongas, they may prefer to just follow. They may expect their partner to give them a clear lead, but in the class, I really want the women to gain something as a dancer not just as a follower. I want them to learn how to dance. What the man learns and brings to the partnership is important but I also expect the woman to bring her consciousness to the class, to understand what is going on. I ask women to understand the lead and use it to dance to.
There is the role of the man and the role of the woman, and when they switch roles, the unexpected starts to happen. Learning how to listen does not require you to be a woman. You can learn how to listen as a man. At first, the leader hears the music; he is inspired to move because of it, there is no partner yet. Whatever he wants to do and what he actually does at the moment, he is following himself. That is awareness. He does something and he understands what he is doing or saying. I expect the same from a woman: that she hears the music and wants to move to it, and once she moves, she should be aware of what she is doing. She leads and follows herself first. Then when they get together, they both have a common point: they follow the music together. Leading a woman is in a way quite subtle to me. What each one does affects the other.
It’s like going for a coffee, and I am not trying to make you understand me, I am just talking, I am aware that I am talking, and I am listening to myself at the same time. I do expect you to understand me, but I am not leading you to understand me at all. At the same time, I am not talking about something foreign to you; I am talking according to what you can understand. So I am just leading myself to talk and if you find the conversation interesting, you will lead yourself to talk as well. The content of my discourse will make you join or not. It's not my lead. We will always follow each other, listen to each other, but we make each other talk and make each other listen naturally. All that is in the background, it happens automatically.
In a “perfect” conversation, one asks a clear question and the other gives a clear answer, but she also brings some ideas to the answer and he listens to her, then the next question will be modified and the conversation will build up. If he is really listening to her, he won’t ask the next question he was planning on asking; possibly he’ll ask a question that he never thought about. I think that's where improvisation starts. So her answers are a big part of the conversation. The speech can be subtle, maybe not always verbalized. It can be even done in more subtle expressions than she will actually sense. By picking up those subtle intentions she will be the one creating the conversation.

Do you prefer dancing with your friends or with strangers?

I do enjoy a conversation with somebody that I haven’t met before. When I perform, it feels like I am giving a speech in front of people. Dancing with a familiar person is like talking with a neighbor. Dancing with a good friend or a lover is more special. I am more comfortable with that, it’s like a direct conversation with no formal etiquette, things happen more naturally. I wouldn't say that I have a preference, they have different flavors.

Murat resides in New York City and Washington D.C. He teaches Tango in Dance Manhattan studios and runs a weekly milonga in D.C. With his partner Valeria Solomonoff, he performs in various tango venues and travels to tango festivals to dance, teach and perform. Murat pursues his career also as a painter and photographer in New York City.

To learn more about Murat’s tango teaching schedule and performances and his art work visit his website: www.muraterdemsel.com or email him @