BUENOS AIRES – On a small dark dance floor in Buenos Aires, a group of men and women are showing its never to late to Tango.
It’s certainly a pleasure, but the couples aren’t here just to show off their moves.
This club uses the famous dance to help Parkinson’s patients overcome symptoms of the disease.
These can include tremors, problems with balance and cognitive decline.
The Foundation for Argentine Tango runs these free weekly workshops for patients with impaired motor skills.
They’ve found the stimulation of rhythmic steps and accompanying music can alleviate symptoms.
Clinical studies in the US, Canada and the UK have shown that structured dancing classes help with Parkinson’s.
In London, doctors paired up Parkinson’s patients with dancers from the Royal Ballet.
In Buenos Aires, it’s Tango that is helping people with Parkinson’s.
Juan Roberto Lopez, a 77 year-old patient, is delighted by with the progress he has achieved.
He says: “It helps people who have Parkinson like me. It helps maintain balance. Everything is about balance in Tango.”
As well as helping battle through the tough Argentine winter, group exercises enable patients to exert more control over their movements.
This month the city hosted a conference to discuss how the dance can be used therapeutically.
The International Congress of Tango Therapy discussed the therapeutic effects of Tango’s plaintive songs and melancholic melodies on different pathologies.
One of the conference contributors is Patricia Ida Frola.
As well as having a clinical background as a dermatologist, the 59-year old herself has Parkinson’s disease.
Frola says she’s conducted her own research on how the dance can reduce body stiffness, a common symptom of the disease.
Frola describes her body’s response with great enthusiasm: “What happens to the brain? It decodes. The first stimulus goes to the heart, changes the heart rate and sends a stimulus back to the brain. From there, it modifies the metrics of the electrical muscle stimulation. I am then filled with joy.”
She shows us one of the painful manifestations of the illness: over time, her toes curled in a claw-like way, which has impeded her ability to walk.
Dr. Frola developed a technique she calls “the human GPS”: two transparent plastic sheets which lay out the eight basic Tango steps for the men and and for the women.
The colours enable the patients to negotiate the moves more easily.
Group leader Agustin Gonzalez Espindola says: “It occurred to us that everyone’s brain sees red colour as a ‘stop’. Blue colour refers to a cautious movement. If we watch a car race, the blue flag means that a driver will pass another one.”
Dancing the Tango here is evidence of a remarkable progress for many of the Parkinson’s patients.
Some like Frola have been barely able to do the simplest chores.
She remembers: “Wanting to put ironed clothes in my children’s closet and suddenly falling back as I opened the door: this is called dysmetria: the body cannot assess the distance needed to execute an action. Or being exhausted from chopping parsley and saying: ‘How come? Chopping parsley?”
Parkinson’s disease can also affect younger people.
“I am happy to feel the music. I had never listened to Tango. My family never listened to Tango. Just listening to the music, rather than lyrics like said Patricia, fills your soul,” says Irene Kiss, who was recently diagnosed with with the disease.
Dance therapy is not just about coordination.
Diseases like Parkinson’s often lead to depression and a therapeutic session of Tango can help raise spirits.
Psychologist Rosa Beatriz Sosnitsky says: “Remembering familiar songs from one’s childhood or youth makes one connect with pleasant memories. Happiness is one of the emotions that last the least, like a spark, a shooting star.”
Tango’s flamboyance has made the dance popular around the world.
Sosnitsky believes this will make Tango dance therapy attractive to people in other countries.
She says: “Many foreigners who like the culture of Tango like in Japan, Colombia and Beijing somehow own Tango too.”
The pleasure of dance helps maintain a positive attitude.
Frederico Costantino who also has impaired motor skills says: “When someone has the strong desire to achieve something, he or she can dance even in a wheelchair. That is the way it is. I told myself: ‘if I stay prostrated, I would still dance this way, with a crutch.’ I was lucky enough to keep my leg, it is a little bit shorter and it is hard for me but I’ve still got the style, which is something important when dancing. I could not picture another future for me.”
It’s never to late to start.
An old Argentinian proverb says: “The Tango is waiting for you.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzYD3EdK7vU
This video was produced exclusively for Associated Press on August 7, 2015. Click here to watch it. AP’s client, CCTV, published it here.
