Kramer & Sigman Films - The Tango lesson / La lección de tango Video

This film is based on my own experience and exists between reality and fiction. When I first started taking tango lessons it was a break from the intensely cerebral, sedentary process of scriptwriting - the "serious" work I was doing at the time. But what began as something on the sidelines of my life -something done for pleasure, for fun- gradually became an obsession. Then the obsessions became a fire fuelling a new film. I abandoned Rage, the script I was writing, and started to work on what was to become 'The Tango Lesson'. But what began as a process of integration--of my various lives as dancer, performer, writer, director--became a tightrope walk. The high wire was held taut by the uneasy relationship between fact and fiction. I knew that this story could only be told from the inside out. I knew I had to live it. And despite never having desired to perform on film--being, like many directors, quite camera shy--I knew that I had to perform in this one because the impetus for the film came out of my own desire to dance. Without the driving force of that longing I would be lost and the impetus for the film itself would be lost. I knew that I needed to cast real tango dancers in the film, none of whom had acted on film before. I had to climb into the ring with them and be prepared to reveal myself as much, or more, than I was asking of them. My life was beginning to look like the stuff of musicals - and the plot started to write itself. But instead of the storyline ...