Ceylan Orhun: "Tango is life!"

           "Tango is life," says Ceylan Orhun, a youngish looking lady going on 50 who spent several weeks recently here in Buenos Aires taking tango lessons and imbuing herself with porteño culture. "Tango is life because you have to learn to be flexible-yes that's the word, flexible. If you are rigid you cannot dance and that goes for life as well."

We're seated at the Biela bar, kitty-corner from the Recoleta graveyard. It's dusk and couples are having tea and chit-chatting about who knows what. There's a puppet seated next to us, a reproduction of a typical porteño, smartly dressed, his hat cocked over his forehead, a cup of coffee cuddled in his right hand and a smirk on his lips like that the dandys give the girls when they want to dance a tango.
Ceylan orders a lemon pie in her recently acquired Spanish.
"I hope it's as good as it is in the U.S.," she says, recalling a visit to the land of Uncle Sam. One bite later: "No, it isn't like it is there, but it's O.K."
"Who is Ceylan?" The question was a bit unexpected.
"Ha! Ha! Ha!"
"Do you know who you really are?" I repeated.
"No, I don't."
"Do you think you well ever find out?"
"Maybe. Some day. Ha! Ha! Ha! I don't know if it'll make any difference, but maybe some day I'll know who I really am. The problem is that people usually explain themselves in terms of what they do instead of who they are."
"O.K. Let's make it easy. What do you do?"
"Well…I began working for a number of companies but later on I became active in women's rights, as a volunteer."
"Is there a women's rights movement in Turkey?"
"To begin with the Turkish Constitution grants women rights. In practice, however, well it's like anywhere else. You've got cultural and religious practices which do not always project coincidental views. But in the big cities, let's say in Istanbul, women work, they get married or divorced, maybe they are single mothers, go to the university…"
"So what's the man-woman situation like in your country?"
"Until recently there was a law saying that the man was the head of the household but women's organizations began criticizing that and subsequently the phrasing was changed. Nevertheless, culture and tradition are very strong and maintain that the man is the head of the family and it is he who decides whether or not to buy a house, sell it, go on a trip, how to rear the children. The man marries the girl he loves but the woman…However, there is something else. The eldest person in the family, say the grandmother, exercises great influence in spite of the basically patriarchal structure of society."
"You mean in the countryside?"
"Yes. There you still have feudalistic type family structures, although as I just said the eldest woman is often in practical command of the household."
"Does domestic violence exist to the extent that it does in the West?"
"Perhaps we don't have as much of that kind of violence, not as much as in the U.S., but there certainly is a lot. I don't know the figures. It occurs to me however that in Turkish society there persists a different kind of respect for women. I mean men are not supposed to raise their hands to women. In the big cities there is more violence because perhaps the man doesn't have a job, he has children to take care of, and so the woman goes out to work and becomes more independent, more emancipated and it is at that point that the psychological factors come to the surface. Violence is a response to this situation. Yet what is interesting is that there appears to be more domestic violence among the middle classes."
"You mean in Turkey?"
"Yes, in Turkey, but I imagine you could say the same thing about any progressive Western country. Imagine a couple: they both work, they are both well educated, but there is violence."
"What would you attribute that to?"
"In my opinion it has to do with role. The man in this situation begins to wonder what his role is because he's at home while she is out working, going to business dinners, receptions, and so he begins to think: "Who am I? My wife goes out without me and…" You know. She works, goes to a bar for a drink with a business associate, and there he is at home, waiting."
"What about discrimination in salaries?"
"No, it isn't as bad as in the U.S. but in political parties it is still very strong. That has to do with political structure: candidates are named by the political leaders. Then you have the economic aspect. You have to have money to finance campaigns, to get the votes, and not many women have enough money to do so. In practice the political parties make a sort of list and the female candidates are way down, say on the 7th or 8th position."
"What do you think about Argentina?"
"I don't know. I came here to learn tango.
"I see. Tell me something. What is tango for you?"
"Tango is life because you have to learn to be flexible-flexible, that's the word. If you are rigid, you cannot dance. It's just like in life. If you are rigid you cannot enjoy it. When you are flexible you learn how to transform things, how to change. That doesn't mean you are going to loose your traditions, your rules, customs and beliefs. But to live fully you must learn how to be flexible. There are some people who are so rigid they cannot transfer and if they cannot transfer they cannot dance."
"So would you say that dancing the tango teaches you something about life?"
"Of course! A couple must learn how to be flexible, how to adjust, and in tango if the man takes a step backwards you must follow him, if he steps to one side you do too. It takes two to dance and you dance together."
"Some people say the tango is machista."
"No! Quite to the contrary. I believe that if a man cannot express all of his femininity, he cannot dance. Look at a man on the street and then look at another on a tango dance floor. Do you see men walking on the street the way they do on the dance floor? The tango dancer is graceful, gentle, almost feminine and you don't see men like that on the streets. A man has to express all of his femininity in order to dance. And when you see a woman dance, you realize that she becomes more masculine. She presses her chest against the man's, stands erect as if in command of the whole world; she is filled with self confidence. Just look at a couple dancing the tango. There are very tender moments. She is very sensual, very feminine, but it is at times as if the roles were reversed, contrary to what most people think. I don't agree with those who say the woman must obey the man…"
"What have you found most difficult in your study of tango?"
"Eye contact. You must remember my background. I come from a culture in which women don't look at men straight in the eye, nor do they dance cheek to cheek. In most of our dances you dance separated, like in folk dances. But in the tango you have to dance for three minutes with a man as if you were his lover and maybe you will never see him again. Just three minutes together and then you change partners and perhaps will never see each other again. That's difficult. I find it difficult to let myself go."
Cylan Orhun, a woman of acute intelligence, concerned about women's rights, the situation of the poor, those marginalized by society, but passionately devoted to tango as a way of life. The conversation drifted on the other zones, to her work, the preparation of lectures, papers, radio programs, concern about women's rights, water…
"You can do without oil, you can find alternative sources of energy, but you cannot do without water, you cannot replace it. This is a very serious problem which is being overlooked. It isn't just a problem of finding drinking water. It has to do with poverty in the world. If there is no water, there can be no crops. Then there is hunger. We underestimate the importance of the struggle for water."
I called the waiter. As we inched by the porteño puppet, I asked Ceylan if she were planning to return to Buenos Aires.
"Yes," she said, "to continue studying tango. I'm going to buy a place here so I can come and learn more about tango."

You can contact Ceylan Orhun at [e-mail]