Interactive Tango Milonga: designing internal experience

The Argentine tango concept of connection refers to the experience of complete synchronicity between self, partner, and music. This paper presents Interactive Tango Milonga, an interactive system giving tango dancers agency over music in order to increase this sense of relation between both partners and music. Like an improvising musician in an ensemble, each dancer receives musical feedback from both her movements and her partner's. Thus, each dancer can respond to the music, driving musical feedback, thereby heightening awareness and agency in both the sound and her partner's movements. Via presentation of this system, this paper illustrates methods for developing interactive systems engaging with distinct musical, movement, and social traditions as well for composing sound-movement relationships leading to specific internal experiences within these social contexts.