Liber Art Tango is a research project created by Sebastiano Foti and Paola Campagna.

The metaphor that best defines our methodology is that of an artisan’s workshop, where, with care, patience, and sensitivity, we strive to return to the art of dance—through its connection with music—its value and its communicative power.
The goal… to return to the ancient unity, where masculine and feminine elements meet, confront each other… merge… separate… engage in dialogue, and exchange, following the musical cues.
Tango dance thus becomes a precious space where one can experience the thrill of being one…

The tango we want to offer recovers and restores value to the aspects that characterized it at its origins. The differentiation of roles in dance guarantees communication; dancers create their dialogue in the moment, made up of alternating suspensions and spirals…

So, it’s not the memory of steps that makes the dance, but the intuitive attention in harmony with the music. To be able to experience a sense of vitality and originality that makes each dance a unique moment.
Often, people find themselves repeating steps without feeling like the protagonists of their own performance. The aim is to integrate technical knowledge of movement with the here and now of the dance.

A story of a beginning…

Paola…

The basic principles were: walking, rotating the spine, not moving the arms independently from the spine, and doing it together, in an embrace, at different distances from each other…

The task seemed impossible… I then realized that learning how to walk was the most complicated thing, but if these principles were maintained, amazing things happened, and above all, one could dance without being tied to memorized steps… the steps came on their own… and, surprisingly, new ones emerged—never seen, never done, sometimes unrepeatable—because the conditions changed: the music, the space we moved in, the people around, and the person we danced with… infinite variables, infinite dances…
Tango was the apotheosis of improvisation!

I had found it—I knew why Tango had captured me—because the work on improvisation is the foundation of my research, and tango enriched and stimulated my curiosity.

As a famous musician I work with says: “Improvisation cannot be improvised.”
It’s a practice I’ve followed for a long time; a practice of life, not just dance.
It’s like asking: “How do you navigate the world? Do you always have everything planned?”
Or do you make your intuitive map? Are you someone who feels and lives differently? Being awake… conscious…

I realized the huge limitation of teaching steps, because people would repeat them endlessly, and when they went to a Milonga—that’s what the places where tango is danced are called—dancers always repeated the same learned sequences, unable to break out of that scheme, trapped.

The only problem I now faced was finding someone who shared this way of thinking with me.

Sebastiano…

She arrived—after 15 years—just when I was about to give up teaching tango, bringing with me the experiments, the seminars on innovative ideas, the blending with martial arts and a bit of contact improvisation too, but always with the feeling that something was incomplete…

She was a student in one of my classes, and I immediately noticed some interesting qualities in her, giving me the sense that I had finally found something different.
I later discovered she had a background in martial arts, was pursuing her own research on movement, was a musician, and practiced Chinese medicine… so when we met, we began to experiment together.
She had qualities that allowed me to explore things like the use of space and a certain kind of connection.
Being less experienced than me in this dance, I didn’t teach her by explaining verbally what to do—I used the technique of dancing and transforming any “errors” into steps.
This gave me the opportunity to create an infinite series of combinations.
When I reworked them in the dance, she wouldn’t stop but responded with another movement.
That’s how we began—through errors. In improvisation, people often say they almost hope to make a mistake, because that’s the moment that pushes you to create something new and unexpected.

I can say that improvisation is being ready for the unexpected.

Our research developed on several levels. We faithfully applied the principles that govern movement, working on walking, always experimenting with different approaches.
We never took anything for granted.

We worked on weight use, pushes, spine rotation in harmony with an embrace that allowed stability in the upper body, despite the strength and virtuosity of the legs.

We had fun doing things with a close embrace that were usually not done—like turns and complex leg crosses at the edge of what’s possible.

Our place of experimentation, aside from the rehearsal studio where we met weekly, was the Milonga itself.
Where others went to show off what they knew, for us it was a gym of further experimentation, even excited by the audience watching us—as an integral part of a deep communication.

And that’s where we stood out. For us, it wasn’t a performance—as tango shows are called today—but a form of expression, in harmony with the music.

Another experiment for me was dancing with my eyes closed.
I did it very often, even in the Milonga—of course, risking it… but it was wonderful, because I could see the drawing of the steps.
And with a close embrace, with the chest in contact with the other, there’s the dizzying sensation of being one person… as Plato wrote in The Symposium—originally we were one, with two heads, four arms, and four legs… then we were split… and since then we keep looking for our other half…

And here too, our research distinguishes us in regard to roles, male and female.

In reality… we both carry feminine and masculine aspects within us.
Externally, we express one or the other, so even when roles switch, there’s not such a big difference—what changes is who initiates the movement and who follows.

But even initiating and following coexist—sometimes one is more evident than the other.
No one lacks either quality. This allows for a very different kind of dance.

Tango communication is extremely powerful—always real, never formal.

And that’s exactly why Tango was born—as a social dance.

I think this aspect has been somewhat lost, and nowadays too much importance is given to championships and competitions…
I don’t know, I really believe it’s taken a direction opposite to the one it was born for.

Music leads—it’s the one that organizes what needs to be done.
The most beautiful thing… is to highlight the music through dance.
To let the body be traversed by that vibration.
There’s a quote by a jazz musician that says: “The only moment in which we can act is the present.”
And improvisation feeds on the present.
Past and future live inside you—we are all three things.
Surely improvisation is made of memory, talent, practice, and mistakes.