“Tango is a feeling”: A social semiotic approach on the emotional dimension in tango reception

Abstract

Emotions, affects, represent an essential part of the sense that is capable of producing music and dance. And however immidiate those effects may seem, in actuality, they are the result of complex inferential processes, conditioned by the appropriation practices in which they are inserted. In this paper, we put forth the results of a research on the affective dimension in the processes of interpretation and appropriation of Argentine tango among milongueros (casual tango dancers). We ask ourselves: How does it feel to listen to and dance tango? Why do these effects occur? How do milongueros interpret these affects? What happens when they enter their identity narratives?
Our main conclusion is that among the emotional effects produced between the framework of the appropriation of the dance and their emergence in milongueros’ stories, there is a semiotic leap that can only be properly understood in a socio-semiotic key.