Tango therapy in Argentina
A couple dances tango during the "All of us are crazy for tango" program's annual festival at the psychiatric Hospital Borda, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 4, 2013.
Tango teacher Laura Segade says she and her friends joke that the only difference between the dancers is that some are “crazy on the inside” of the hospital and others are “crazy on the outside.”
Buenos Aires
Marcela Hourquebie does the tango with a patient during the "All of us are crazy for tango" program's annual festival at the psychiatric Hospital Borda in Buenos Aires, Dec. 4, 2013.
The program’s name, playing off a common expression for mental illness, reflects the enthusiasm of both patients and visitors for Argentina’s national dance.
Buenos Aires
Tango dancer Nelson Martinera attends the "All of us are crazy for tango" program's annual festival at the psychiatric Hospital Borda in Buenos Aires, Dec. 4, 2013.
The program was created in 2001, driven by the need to connect the patients with the outside world. There, in a light-filled dance hall deep inside the public hospital where mentally ill men have been treated for 150 years, both patients and visitors discover how much they have in common attending dance classes open to all.
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Revelers dance during the Barracas Tango Festival at the psychiatric Hospital Borda in Buenos Aires, Nov. 16, 2013.
The four-day festival is held in different venues in the Barracas neighborhood, well known for its tango culture.
The celebration seeks to rescue this popular culture, preserve the neighborhood and to be inclusive to all people. This year they chose Hospital Borda as one of the venues, which has a tango program that meets twice a month named "All of us are crazy for tango."
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Cesar Pavon plays the accordion during the "All of us are crazy for tango" annual festival at the psychiatric Hospital Borda in Buenos Aires, Dec. 4, 2013.
Psychiatrist Silvana Perl runs the classes held every other Wednesday, including their annual tango festival.
She says therapy happens when hospitalized men dance with visiting women: It makes them part of a powerful social and cultural current that runs through Buenos Aires, and gives both dancers the shared human contact that is essential to community.
Buenos Aires
Dr. Guillermo Honig, right, dances tango with Christine Eydeux, of France, during the "All of us are crazy for tango" program at the psychiatric Hospital Borda in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nov. 13, 2013.
Eydeux says, that in the past five years, every time she visits Argentina, she attends the Wednesday program, that meets twice a month. Because of her frequent attendance, she was named godmother of the program.
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
