Anahí Viladrichbe instituted. Through time, I found in the tango field my own niche
of ritualized performance from where the meta-language of Argen-
tines’ social solidarities and conflicts are exposed, dramatized, shared,
and occasionally solved.
As shown in this chapter, a generous part of my ethnotango incur-
sions were spent trying to figure out how to represent myself (and
how to be represented by others), which in the end led me to create
my own version of a non-tanguera who likes tango, or even better,
who likes hanging out with tango dancers of all sorts. Initially, my
incursions into the tango world had provided me with a unique op-
portunity to place myself within a transient state in which I parsimo-
niously moved from being just an observer of the tango scene to be-
coming an active anthropologist doing her job. Following a symbolic
pilgrimage from my identity as an Argentine to that of an anthropol-
ogist I was finally able to connect with others on the basis of these
dual social identities. This transition between roles nurtured my unex-
pected encounters in the field in which a sense of “communitas” was
built (V. Turner and E. Turner 1978 ). Neither a dancer nor a tango
fan, my lack of ascription to any of the social roles typically attached
to most tango habitués provided me with a safety net that nurtured
countless opportunities for dialogue and endearing confessions on the
part of my informants. As occurs with others in contexts of rituals of
pilgrimage, we (so-called anthropologists and tango dancers) could
engage in spontaneous social liaisons because we left aside the social
markers that would have created barriers between us in other circum-
stances. Relieved of the pressure of being who were supposed to be,
my tango friends and I recreated a temporary space in which our in-
teractions were supported by the certainty that our paths would miss
each other in the mainstream world.
Over time, the tango field played a greater emotional role in my per-
sonal life than my professional persona would suggest. I often found
myself longing for the time I had spent with some of my tango pals,
chatting over the ordinary and uneventful details of the vernacular
tango scenery. Occasionally, I was faced with the puzzle of wanting
to remain in the tango milieu above and beyond my corseted costume
as an anthropologist. If, on the one hand, studying ethnic nationals