Managing with Passion Using Argentine Tango

I need some help to take Tango into uncharted territory in Anaheim, CA on Aug 11, 2008. I was invited to develop an All-Academy Symposium at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (www.aom.pace.edu) in Anaheim CA Aug 11-13, 2008. The Academy of Management is the world's largest academic society of management and business professors (about 10,000 members).

Title of the Symposium is "Asking Different Questions - Managing with Passion"

The original proposal: The questions that Organizational scholars have been asking for the last half century all deal with how to make organizations more rational and more productive in an instrumental sense. They have not used aesthetic inquiry, gained sensory embodied and tacit knowledge that can make organizations more passionate, artistic, beautiful and happy.

In organizations, passion is denounced and belittled as being a dangerous, risky, "irrational", crazed and an extremist tendency, best avoided by managers and organizations. Ironically, we also know that no great human feat was ever accomplished without passion.

This symposium will focus on the role of passion in organizations. Passion cannot just be "explained" intellectually, it must be experienced with body, mind, and emotions. Such embodied understanding can be achieved through many visual and performing art forms. Argentine Tango (AT) music, dance and culture epitomize passion. This symposium offers an opportunity for participants to understand and experience managing with passion using AT. It will review concepts of passion and embodied learning. We will explore how AT can teach organizationally relevant skills of improvisation, leadership, teamwork, communication, and community building . This will be followed by an Argentine Tango dance performance by three couples, followed by a brief discussion and Q/A on uses of passion in organizations.

My hope is that participants will learn about passion in an embodied way and this will prompt them to start asking different questions about organizations and organizing.

I am looking for 3 volunteer Tango dancer couples in Anaheim, CA who may be willing to join this symposium to demonstrate Tango dancing as a vehicle for learning managing skills. This is NOT a Tango show. It is part of an academic conference session. We are not looking to do a "professional show", but need competent dancers to simulate milonga-like dancing. If you know of Tango dancers around Anaheim or who can travel there easily, who may be able to help, please drop me a line at paul.shri@gmail.com .