History

Origins:

Stigma:

1920's:

1930's - 1950's:

1960's:

1980's:

Today:

Flexibility

The Music

Source:

Musical forms:

Tempo changes:

Lead-Follow Connection

Every Step is Led:

The Leader Follows:

The Connection:

The Embrace:

Gender Relationships

Introduction/Disclaimer:

Yang and Yin:

Leading:

Following:

Polarity:

On the Other Hand ... :

Wholeness:

The Tao of Tango:

The Result

At Milongas:

At Practicas:

Private lessons:

Floorcraft at Milongas (as opposed to Practicas, which are listed below):

Floorcraft is the leader's responsibility. There are several facets to it:

• General Rule: Neither leader nor follower shall kick, nor step on, nor even bump into another dancer. All of the floorcraft rules are designed to fulfill this General Rule.
• What do you do if you DO bump into anyone? Of if your partner makes contact with anyone? Of if you or your partner are contacted by another dancer when you were not paying attention or were not following the guidelines yourself? You Apologize! You make eye contact at least, to acknowledge the transgression.
• Even if the contact was clearly Not your fault, my recommendation is that you still attempt eye contact with the other leader. Doing so has 3 benefits: First, it lets the other party know that you noticed the transgression; Second, it gives them the opportunity to apologize; Third, if they do not return the eye contact, it tells you that they may be totally oblivious, or perhaps they think that the problem was your fault, but in any case it tells you to be more wary or strategic in your positioning and dancing when you're near them.
• Dance flow is in a direction counter-clockwise around the dancefloor. This is known as "line-of-dance."
• Never dance clockwise, that is, backwards, or against the line-of-dance. However, on even a single visit to any but the most crowded milongas, you will see people violating this rule. Just remember the General Rule, and if you can dance against the line-of-dance without causing collision or traffic jams, then some would say it must be OK. Use common sense. If there's a traffic jam in front of you, and a big space behind you (in line-of-dance), then you can probably get away with going backwards. Just be aware that you're violating protocol, and use the maneuver sparingly.
• A corollary of this rule has to do with the DBS - the "dreaded back step." Leaders who make back steps while facing line-of-dance are actually stepping backwards, against the line-of-dance. This can be a real problem. My mother often seemed to have eyes in the back of her head, but I've never known a guy who did. So if you haven't just finished executing a turn that allowed you to see what was behind you, and there is another couple that could take some double-time steps and move up behind you in the path of your back-stepping foot, then either don't step back, or make it a tiny step, and feel for someone else's foot under yours before you fully transfer your weight and break someone's toe.
• Keep the line-of-dance moving. Don't be doing a lot of steps in place without progressing down the line-of-dance, unless of course you are blocked by dancers ahead of you. If a space has opened up in front of you in line-of-dance, move into it. Dance at the same speed as other dancers. A good rule of thumb is to generally keep the same amount of space in front of you as there is behind you.
• Stay as far to the outside as you can. This is actually the most strategic place to dance, since no one can get into your "blind spot," which is on your right side where your vision is blocked by your partner's head (assuming you're in close embrace). Stay in single-file if you can. At a crowded venue, it will naturally happen that couples will migrate into several "rings" or "lanes" of single-file dancers. Try not to switch lanes to pass slower couples, unless they appear to be clueless and a traffic jam of dancers is building up behind you.
• Enter the dancefloor responsibly. Likewise if you pass or change lanes. Like when driving a car and entering a street or freeway - you wait for an opening, and equalize your speed with other drivers/dancers before moving into traffic.
• Pay attention to other dancers. Note their step patterns and skill level. If a given leader tends to make back steps without looking, keep your distance. If a leader is doing a lot of wild spins and turns, keep your distance. If a leader is leading his follower to make wide leg swings or high boleos, keep your distance.
• Learn to use tight turns to allow checking out traffic behind you.
• Protect your follower at all times. This is the leader's FIRST priority.

• This section is a little problematic:
• On the one hand, we teach followers to just follow, to just pay attention to their leader and the music, and to ignore all floorcraft or other issues. This allows them to zone out and really get deep into the connection, and can result in a truly exquisite experience.
• On the other hand, it requires a degree of trust in their leader - in his judgement and restraint in not leading her into dangerous situations or steps, and in his skill and ability to judge and avoid other less skilled or less prudent leaders on the floor.
• Bottom line is, while a follower should strive for that perfect world of blissful dissociation when she has let go of all concerns other than the music and her leader, the reality is that when that perfection cannot be attained for whatever reason, it can be practical and prudent for her to dance with her eyes open and pay attention, especially to those things behind her leader, where she can see but he cannot.
• Specifically, if he starts to step back into someone, her exerting a slight pull on him can be effective in averting an uncomfortable or painful collision.
• Boleos are in a category by themselves. While it's true that your leader can indicate by his lead how much energy he is asking you to put into it, if he is leading a high energy boleo on a crowded floor, do not assume he knows what he's doing. Keep your feet close to the floor.
• Some steps, like leg wraps or entradas or ganchos, give the follower the opportunity to swing her legs wide, that is, out and away from herself. This can be a beautiful and dramatic embellishment in a performance situation. However, as with boleos, if you know the room is crowded, keep your knees/thighs close together and limit the amount of leg swing you put into such steps.

Floorcraft at Practicas:

• Many of the floorcraft rules for a milonga are suspended at a practica. You can stop and chat in the middle of the flow, you can totally block traffic, and line-of-dance generally does not exist. However some rules still apply:
• Pay attention to other dancers.
• Protect your partner.
• Avoid kicking, stepping on, or bumping into anyone.

Other Protocols:

• "La mirada" and "el cabeceo" are the traditional method of inviting and accepting a dance in Argentina. La mirada is "the look," or "the stare," and can be done by either partner. Once eye contact is made, el cabeceo, "the nod" signals the request and is returned as the acceptance. In the US, of course, we're a lot less formal with protocols in general, and it's perfectly OK for either partner to just walk up and ask someone to dance.
• I've heard that the mirada/cabeceo custom developed in Argentina to allow for "invisible" rejections. This allows the hapless man to avoid being ridiculed by his mates at being publicly turned down for a dance.
• If you want to dance, however, a key thing to make it work is that you must be scanning the room and making eye contact with people you might like to dance with. A lot of people in Western cultures are not comfortable making eye contact with strangers, but, well, you just have to get over that, especially if you want to dance much when you visit Argentina.
• The custom is that you do not start dancing immediately when the music starts.
• I've heard that this practice developed in the early days of tango in Argentina. In those relatively Puritan times, those few moments when a young couple was alone on the dancefloor, before they started dancing, was the only time they could talk without being overheard by the young woman's mother or chaperone.
• After you start dancing, don't talk. Chatting, or teaching, or discussing a step or where someone bought those cute shoes, is frowned upon. Mostly it prevents you from entering that special zone of the Tango Moment, when your entire being is focused on enjoying the music and the embrace of your partner, and it distracts other dancers from doing the same.
• While you can start dancing anywhere in a song, the protocol is to stop dancing on the last beat of the music. This is one protocol that rarely gets violated. Of course, it takes some practice and familiarity with the music to stop on the very last beat, so one beat over is OK, but do not go two beats over, lest the dreaded Tango Police haul you off.
• An exception to this is: it is particularly impolite to stop your follower in an un-ladylike position with her legs spread. Lead her to close or cross before stopping.
• Music is generally played in "tandas" or sets of 2 - 4 songs, then a "cortina" (curtain) is played, a 20-30 second piece of music that is generally not dancable, to signal the end of the tanda.
• It is customary to dance an entire tanda or two with the same partner (however, see below), then find a new partner during the cortina.
• Note that not all DJ's at all venues play cortinas. Even in Argentina, some DJ's just play continuous music. Most DJ's, however, both in the US and in Argentina, do use cortinas.
• When you're done dancing with a given partner, for any reason, say, "Thank you." This is the signal that you're done and ready to sit out or find another partner. A consequence of this convention is that, regardless how much you might enjoy dancing with someone, avoid thanking them until you're ready to move on, or else you send a mixed message.
• You don't have to dance with everyone who asks you. And you don't have to continue to the end of a tanda, or even to the end of a song, if you are uncomfortable for any reason. Maybe they're throwing you around, maybe they smell bad, or maybe you're just getting a blister on your foot. Whatever the reason, just stop, explain whatever you want, thank them, and leave the dancefloor.
• If you've stopped dancing with someone for any reason that might be embarrassing to them if proclaimed publicly, it is sensitive to make up some excuse, like your feet hurt, perhaps feigning fiddling with your shoes to lend credence. The fact is that there is truth to the saying that "Everyone sees everything on the dance floor", so if you don't INTEND to embarrass someone by stopping before the end of a song or a tanda, make up a good excuse and make it look genuine.
• Most of the above is for newer dancers. This item, however, is for experienced dancers. The recommendation is for experienced dancers to spend some time dancing with beginners. The point is that everyone in the dance community benefits from an influx of new dancers. Everyone brings their own specialness to the dance, and the pollination from "new blood" helps the dance grow and evolve. Yet all experienced dancers know the hard work it takes to become proficient, and it's easy to become discouraged and give up. But sometimes all it takes is a single dance with an experienced leader or follower to encourage a beginner to do that hard work, and well, again, everyone benefits.

People who come to Argentine Tango from other dance backgrounds are often surprised and disconcerted to find a relative lack of structured step patterns. There was a time, and may still be in some circles, when the "8-count basic" was taught to new Tango dancers as a starting point. However I share the opinion with a wide consensus of Tango instructors that teaching the 8CB is a crutch that causes problems later on. The fact is that one of the things that sets social Argentine Tango apart from "ballroom" dance styles is that there is no choreography. Every step, it's speed and direction and timing, are led and followed. If new dancers start by learning patterns, they build habits of using specific steps, and it becomes more difficult to later develop spontaneity and creativity, not to mention musicality.

My approach is therefore to teach the fundamentals of ...

• Attitude and Intention
• Posture and Balance
• Movement Dynamics
• Lead and Follow

With these principles as the basics, Tango requires making five Connections:

Connecting to ...

• Yourself (Centering):

  Like in Life, where it's said that you can't love another person any more than you can love yourself, so in Tango, you can't make a connection to any partner that is deeper than your connection to yourself. "Centering" is that activity common in Tai Chi and martial arts in which one focuses one's awareness on the Dan Tian, that point just below the navel. This is our umbilical area, where we were connected to our mothers in the womb, where, according to shamanic traditions, we continue to connect energetically with the Universe outside our bodies. Focusing on this spot brings the core of our body into our awareness. When we are in touch with ourselves in this manner, we are more ready to connect to another our partner.

• The Earth (Grounding):

  Luciana Valle is famous for her admonition to "lick the floor." Another technique is to visualize being connected to the Earth like a tree, with roots extending from the bottom of your feet into the ground. Grounding is key to maintaining our balance. There are a lot of good exercises to improve your balance. Do them. Repeated practice will improve your balance.

• The Music:

  Connecting to the music means interpreting, with your steps and pauses and embellishments, the emotional content of the music. It also means dancing consistent with the rhythms and phrase structure of the compositions. The whole subject of musicality is complex and full of subtlety, and a single paragraph is surely a disservice to the topic. But suffice to say that Argentine Tango music, with it's obligatory bandoneon, is capable of expressing a wide emotional range, from tragedy to sadness to upbeat happiness and joy. The leader has the primary responsibility for interpreting the music. The challenge happens when the music changes tempo or tone, as it commonly does. The goal is to select steps and timing that are consistent with the emotional and rhythmic content of the music. It is interesting that this is one of reasons that tango music "traditionalists" object to dancing "tango steps" to non-tango music - the typical tango step patterns have evolved as an expression of the traditional music. If non-tango music lacks the characteristic cadences and emotional tones of traditional tango music, the dance that results just isn't the same.

• Your Partner:

  This is IMO the most important connection, since it is arguably the whole reason we dance tango. This is why "it takes two" to do this dance. There are several ways to improve your connection to your partner. One of the most effective ways is to just Intend a connection. For a leader, your attitude should be one of protecting, nurturing, enfolding your follower with your arms, encircling her with your loving energy. For the follower, it is imperative to not lean back away from him. You must have your heart energy directed to him, fully committing yourself to the embrace, whether open or close embrace. The stability of the embrace is another key. If the distance between you jerks around as you make every step, the connection suffers. Dancing smoothly, with the leader accommodating the follower by adjusting his steps to stay aligned with her even if she doesn't step precisely where he intended, is key to maintaining the embrace.

• Your Environment:

  Your environment includes everything in the room other than you and your partner. That includes tables, chairs, posts, and most importantly, because they are moving, other dancers. Unless you're doing a performance and are the only couple on the floor, you must interact with your neighbors. You are sharing a limited space with them. This first of all requires that you (predominately the leader) pay attention to them. The section on floorcraft lists details of first-level protocols that are designed to prevent injury. But an interesting, more subtle phenomenon occurs when everyone is connected to the other dancers. The phenomenon happens because, in addition to sharing the space, everyone is also dancing to the same music. And as noted, there are specific step patterns that have evolved to effectively interpret specific musical passages. So what can happen is that everyone on the floor will walk fast or slow or pause in the same sections of the music, because that's what the musical score calls for. So a synchronicity develops, and if the dancefloor is seen from above, all the couples will tend to move in unison, like a school of fish or a flock of birds that seem to communicate wordlessly and turn and move collectively and simultaneously. It's a beautiful thing.