It's hard to be opposed to obvious beauty: Darko Dožić, founder of the world-famous camp in Kolašin, for "Vijesti"

Darko Dožić, one of the key people of “Tango Natural Belgrade”, the largest European tango organization, is a political scientist by formal education, with many years of experience in successfully building a “face to face” community within UNICEF, a communication trainer... He was born in Kolašin, where he founded and is currently organizing the 11th international Tango Camp with his associates. He lives in Belgrade, and he tells “Vijesti” that both cities have shaped him in a special way. Darko says that he never stops searching for a better society, for a deeper connection between people, but also for a balance between his public mission and his private life.

The first association that comes to mind when you mention your name is tango. Who else is Darko Dožić when he's not dancing?

I am currently trying to meet Darko Dožić, an ordinary man who is building his private life. That part is important to me and I miss it the most. My relationship with my girlfriend Iva is a great help to me. Otherwise, I think I am here to help people develop and connect. The results say that I am a successful community builder. In addition to Tango Natural, which is a role model for the entire tango world, I have six years of successful “face to face” community building behind me within UNICEF (a project collecting regular individual donations from Serbian citizens). For the past twelve years or so, I have been training people in communication and leadership skills, helping them make changes and build communities in their environment. All of that is part of my identity.

Besides, if we talk about activism, I would say that I am an educational and cultural activist, since I deeply believe that behind every progress there is a sufficient level of awareness, onto which appropriate education is grafted. The relationship towards nature or anything else is only a consequence of our level of awareness.

How do you balance all these identities?

They mostly get along well with each other. Until the ordinary Darko comes along, who wants his simple private life. That's when the tension starts (laughs). Tango attracted me because it combines both personal adventure and social change. Tango Natural grew so quickly because we were community-building activists, not because we were exceptional dancers.

Before founding Tango Natural, Sonja (Živanović) and I were deeply involved in the revitalization of the Serbian Green Party, but also in other cultural stories that sought to spread some new views on life. There we learned about many things that we would later need, but also about who we are.

Where is the place of tango now in a world that is changing in a direction that does not promise much good?

Good tango is always an invitation to presence. To conscious contact... Every form of violence is essentially unconsciousness, and we are all violent to some extent – when we do not feel each other, when we do not listen to each other. Tango gathers around itself a community of creative people of various professions and sensibilities. In a time of alienation and loneliness, such communities are healing oases. On the other hand, there is an obvious tension between the prevailing way of life and doing things like tango. Tango requires time, especially while learning, while dancing, and people do not have time. Almost everyone who stops learning it cites the inability to organize themselves as the reason. I think it is good to ask ourselves to whom and what we give our time.

What has tango brought you, how has it built and shaped your value system, and what has it perhaps "taken away" from you?

Tango is a great adventure - a phenomenon that includes physical activity, developing creativity, going out, constantly meeting new people, working on ourselves, traveling, expanding our world. On the other hand, it is both a diagnosis and a therapy. It very vividly shows who we are at that moment: whether we give space, how comfortable our embrace is, how free we are, whether we demand or suggest while communicating, how clear we are and how much we listen to what the other party has to say.

I am an imperfect person, like all of us. I discover, accept and change all of this imperfection through dancing and living in the tango community. Of course, not only there. Tango is a social dance and a way of life. A community is built around it that regularly gathers and lives it. This, specifically, means that in one evening you can dance with ten or fifteen different people, be supported, rejected or support and reject someone, set boundaries, recognize what your tango is and recognize people who share your experience. The average person does not have that intensity of interactions except perhaps when raising their child.

How did Kolašin, as a place of growth, determine or influence each of these identities?

He had a big influence. Sometimes I would say that I just continue to live what we had as a team in our childhood. We were a real crazy, creative tribe. Whenever I tell this to someone in Belgrade, I know that there is a risk that they will think that I am making up stories about tribes of children armed with bows and arrows, or bolt-action rifles, housed in wooden houses, equipped with vehicles that we constructed ourselves, with wheels removed from containers, about a raft that we almost drowned on, or about “borrowed” horses and a whole parallel reality that we built for ourselves. Kolašin is ideal for a childhood that even Tom Sawyer would envy.

I am grateful to our mother who had the strength and patience to keep the small apartment we lived in open to me, my brothers, and so many neighborhood children and their lively energies. That apartment was our main base, but also the place from which I began my idea of the kind of life I wanted.

Your childhood was also marked by working in the countryside, nature, basketball... Who else shaped your value system in your teenage years?

Weekends and summers spent working in the countryside with my family or just with my grandmother, cows and the view of the mystical beauty of the two Moračes and the mountains that surround them. In KK Gorštak, I “glued” enthusiasm, or rather fanaticism, aimed at building a dream that would shape such aspirations, onto an already existing character, which was largely shaped by my father’s aspiration and longing for a better world. I am learning to give that aspect a measure as well. The National Unity rally I attended when I was fifteen also had an impact. At that time, some people from the DPS filmed us from the window of the post office in order to intimidate us. Such things, and it was not the last, created a kind of oath in me to never be a part of anything like that. Željka Vuksanović also had an impact, although I hardly knew her at the time. As a teenager, I listened to her from the other room as she spoke on Radio Ozon about the fight for a fairer and more just Kolašin.

How has Belgrade shaped who you are today?

Belgrade gave me permission to be who I am. I met many interesting people there, learned many skills. If I go back, from the very beginning I was much more recognizable than in Kolašin. This does not mean that Kolašin is “worse”, but that in a small environment it is much more difficult to choose your own world and separate yourself from influences that you do not want in it. In general, if we behave with respect, people in Belgrade react very nicely to us from Montenegro… People react very well to the combination of tango dancers, peasants from Crkvina, political scientists and trainers of leadership and communication skills. That reaction is Belgrade - openness to the new and meaningful. Of course, I am talking about the Belgrade where I live. There are many people who come from small environments and continue to live exactly the same as before, not using the cultural and social currents that this city creates for their navigation. I think it is inconvenient to choose the stress that a big city brings, and not to use its advantages.

How satisfied are you with the support you receive in your hometown, when it comes to the International Tango Camp?

In Kolašin, we have been gradually raising awareness of the importance of the Tango Camp for many years. Some people are extremely supportive. Some don't understand us, but they don't hold us back. Some are still not friendly. In general, I think the situation is getting better. It is difficult to be an opposition to obvious beauty without flaws. We are very grateful and respect every recognition. We try to make people get to know us and find something good for themselves in everything. It should be said that this event, among the dozen or so international events we organize, is the most exceptional. The Tango Camp lasts nineteen days, from morning to evening, with ten to fifteen activities a day, whose video and photo content brings the city promotion that it would otherwise have to pay millions for. It is actually an active vacation festival that shows Kolašin the direction of development it could strive for. However, we still don't feel that among all those who "ask" there is undivided support that guarantees that someone will not come tomorrow who, for one reason or another, would jeopardize the largest festival in northern Montenegro. For this reason and due to previous experiences, when the camp was not implemented for five years, we always develop an alternative in our strategic plans.