During his service from 2004 to 2009 as the Minister of Tourism for his native Panama, the singer-songwriter, actor, and political activist Rubén Blades largely refrained from his many pursuits in the entertainment world.
But before diving headlong back into his salsa career, Blades finished a project several years in the making: a collection of 11 of his original salsa compositions re-imagined as tangos. Carlos Franzetti, a Grammy-winning pianist from Argentina, arranged and produced Tangos, which was recorded in Buenos Aires using the veteran tango musicians of Leopoldo Federico’s orchestra.
This according to “Rubén Blades: Tango storyteller” by Thomas Staudter (DownBeat LXXXI/9 [September 2014] p. 16).
Today is Blades’s 70th birthday! Above, performing at the 2014 Latin Grammy Awards, where Tangos won the award for Best Tango Album; below, an excerpt from the record.
Recent research suggests that tango dancing may be an effective strategy for influencing symptoms related to mood disorders.
In one study, 41 participants were randomized to tango dancing for 1.5 hours, four times per week for two weeks, or to a wait-list control condition. Self-rated symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, insomnia, self-efficacy, satisfaction with life, and mindfulness were assessed at pretest, posttest, and one month later. The tango group participants showed significant reductions in depression, anxiety, stress, and insomnia at posttest relative to the controls, whereas satisfaction with life and self-efficacy were significantly increased. At a one-month follow-up, depression, anxiety, and stress levels remained reduced relative to the wait-list controls.
In another study, 22 tango dancers were assessed within four conditions in which the presence of music and a dance partner while dancing were varied in a 2 x 2 design. Before each condition and five minutes thereafter, participants provided salivary samples for analysis of cortisol and testosterone concentrations and completed the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. The data suggest that motion with a partner to music has more positive effects on emotional state than motion without music or without a partner. Moreover, decreases of cortisol concentrations were found with the presence of music, whereas increases of testosterone levels were associated with the presence of a partner.
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