Lesson One
Music
Every dance has its own unique music, and you cannot master it without developing a feel for this music. The internet has much tango music online. This includes a web page which has links to complete pieces of tango music especially good for dancing.
Listen now to a tango. You should hear a steady ONE-two-Three-four rhythm. The ONE and the Three counts are the major beats of the music and come about a second apart.
In recent years there has arisen a musical movement called neotango. It has three intertwining threads. Some tango musicians use non-traditional instruments and techniques when playing tangoes. Some play non-tango music with traditional instruments and sensibilities. And some people dance tango to non-tango music.
Use the online music to practice the lessons in Tango Corazón. Then perhaps join the neotango movement. Look in your own music for works that have the tango rhythm. If you can walk to it, you can dance the tango. For tango is based on walking.
Walking
Walking is basic to tango. This makes it easy to get started dancing it right away, though there is surprising complexity behind this apparently simple activity. (Famous milonguero Pupi Costello says "Figures are easy. Walking is hard.")
For now, start the music, close your eyes, and listen for each major beat. Then begin stepping in place to each major beat. When you feel natural moving to this rhythm, open your eyes and walk around the room, trying to step exactly on those beats. Do not worry about anything else. Just practice this SLOW SLOW rhythm for a few minutes. (As you become more expert you will learn how to spice up your dancing by varying the basic rhythm.)
Now walk some more. This time, walk counter-clockwise around the outside edge of the floor. This is called the Line of Dance by Anglos, though Argentines have a more poetic term for it - la pista, the flow. It helps dancers avoid running into each other.
If other people make it impossible or dangerous to follow the LOD, you may briefly travel against it or even cross the empty center of the floor, then continue the LOD. Place obstacles in your path to simulate people (or imagine them), then curve your walking to the left or right to go around them.
Style
Argentine tango uses some of the same step patterns as other walking dances, including freestyle foxtrot, paso doble, quick step - and the Texas Two Step! But you can instantly tell these dances apart because of the way the dancers move and relate to their partners.
Practice walking around the room without music, stepping forward onto the balls of your feet, not onto your heels as you do in ordinary walking and in many dances. It may help you to imagine you are a great jungle cat, powerful and graceful. If you keep this image in mind when you are working on tango style, often your body will automatically take on the same power and grace.
Now practice walking BACKWARD along the Line of Dance. Turn your head to the side to help you see where you are going. Women should look to the right, men to the left. Straighten your leg a little more than you ordinarily would and reach back a little further than might feel natural at first. This will help prevent bumping knees with your partner when you dance. It also adds to the cat-like look and feel of your walk.
Whether walking backward or forward, keep your weight over the balls of your feet. You can practice walking on tip-toes to more quickly strengthen the stabilizer muscles in your toes, feet, and ankles. It will also help you build the habit of dancing with your weight forward. But when you actually dance do not do it on tip-toes. This is too tiring for most people. Even if you have had much ballet training and it is easy for you, avoid it. It will get you out of the habit of using your heels, something needed in more advanced tango dancing.
Embrace
No other dance connects two people more closely than the Argentine tango, emotionally as well as physically. Part of this is the dance position. You face in the same direction (the woman's right, the man's left) and so dance almost cheek to cheek. You also keep your arms around each other for the entire dance.
Take your partner (real or imaginary) in a standard dance position. Keeping your upper body straight, shift your weight onto the balls of your feet. This will push you and your partner very lightly together, helping weld you into a couple.
If you are a man, pull your partner toward you with your right hand behind her back. If you are a woman, place your left hand on your partner's upper arm just above his biceps and push against him. Both pull and push should be as gentle as you can make them and still remain firm.
Extend your other arm (the woman's right, the man's left) to the side in the usual ballroom manner. Do NOT let your arm sink like a lead weight, or flop around like wet spaghetti. Instead press very lightly against your partner's hand. During practice you may want to keep your "balance" hand flat against your partner's palm rather than clasp it. This way any lapse in pressure will cause your hands to slide apart, giving you instant feedback so you can quickly fix the problem.
It's a good idea to practice dancing with an imaginary partner with your arms and hands properly placed. This will strengthen your muscles and habits so that you can keep a good frame without thinking about it.
Now try walking in the Line of Dance with your (real or imaginary) partner, the man facing forward along the LOD, the woman backward. Do this first without music, trying just to keep a good connection with your partner. Keep your head up and turned slightly to the side, staying aware of your surroundings as well as your partner. Then turn so that the man can walk backward along the LOD, and the woman can walk forward along the LOD. Now walk some more.
Lastly, put on some music and walk around the room in time to the music. Try to do everything right that you have learned so far, but do not try too hard. Instead, concentrate on having fun. Because you are dancing, not grimly trying to become perfect. Dancing is not just a physical activiy. It is also an emotional one. Learning to feel and enjoy the music and to cherish your partner is also part of learning to dance!
Pattern Building Blocks
You may take lessons from several tango teachers. You may also go to many milongas, as tango dance parties are called. If so you will see literally hundreds of step patterns. This can be very discouraging until you realize that these complex patterns are made of a few simple ones by varying and combining them in a few simple ways.
The simplest, most basic tango pattern is la Caminata (the Walk), which you have already been doing. But now you will see how it is part of a system of dance patterns. Knowing this system will help you learn new patterns quickly. It will also help you make up your own patterns.
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The building block of the Walk is the Two-Step Walk. There are several versions of it. The most commonly used is el paseo (the Stroll). To do it, start from the Ready position. This means that your feet are close together and most of your weight is on one foot, leaving the other free to begin walking. If you are a woman step backward with your right foot then backward with your left. If you are a man step forward with your left foot then forward with your right. Do not leave your legs apart after the second step. Instead bring your free foot (the woman's right, the man's left) up beside your supporting foot. Do not put any weight on the free foot. This brings you back to the Ready position, poised to do another Two-Step Walk or some other pattern. |
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Patterns can be varied in several ways. One is by varying the length of each step.
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For instance, if you do both steps of the Two-Step Walk in place, so that you go nowhere, you have done la cadencia (the Cadence-Counting step). This is an important pattern, though it might not seem like it now. Do not forget it. We will spend more time on it in later lessons. |
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If you do the second step of the Two-Step Walk in place beside your other foot, you have done la caza (the Chase). In ballroom dancing this is called the Chassé (French for "chase") because one foot chases the other. If you reverse the direction of the second step, so that you return to your starting position, you have done la cunita (the Cradle, or Rock step). Do not stand with your legs apart as you do the rock; bring your feet close together at the end of each step. |
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Practice each of the four kinds of Two-Step Walks for a minute or two. Pause between each to make sure you have done each one right. By focusing on just one at a time, you'll be able to master it faster.
Improvisation
In the Argentine tango you do not robotically do standard step patterns in standard sequences to a set rhythm. Instead you create new step patterns and combine them in ways new to you. Creativity and improvisation are valued more than correctness by the best tango dancers. (When beginning to study tango only the leaders improvise, but as you become more advanced followers also become able to do it.)
Since all variations of the Two-Step Walk begin and end with your weight on the same foot, you can combine them in any number and order. Try putting several versions of the Two-Step Walk together. Perhaps two Strolls, a Chase, a Stroll curving 90 degrees to the left (as if to follow the curve of the floor), and another Stroll.
End by doing three or four or five Rock Steps, pivoting on each step to the left so that you make a 360 degree counter-clockwise turn. This pattern is called las cunitas (the Cradle-Rocking Step). It's useful if your path is blocked by other dancers. (You can also turn clockwise by pivoting to the right on each step rather than to the left.)
Notice the feeling the different patterns give. The Stroll lets you travel and feels smooth. The Chase feels more abrupt. It can be used to mark the end of phrases of music, the way you use a comma or period in writing. The Cradle-Rocking pattern can express tenderness because it feels gentle, like rocking a baby.
El circulo (the Circle) is another simple pattern that you can make from the Two-Step Walk. Just do two (or three, or four) Strolls, pivoting always to the left after each step so that you circle back to the beginning of the pattern. (You can also pivot to the right to make a clockwise Circle.) Like Rocking patterns Circles can let you keep dancing when you are blocked in every direction, but Circles have a different physical and emotional feel.
Dancing
So far you have been studying to better understand tango and practicing to improve your technique. But tango is not just an intellectual or athletic activity. It also has esthetic and emotional and social sides. To learn these you must dance, even if you only do it in private. Even if you only do it with a pretend partner!
So start a piece of music that you and your partner like, or request or wait for one if you are at a dance. Embrace your partner, but do not begin to move or expect to move right away. Open up a space inside yourself and let the music fill it, to become part of you. Let your body very (very!) subtly "bounce" to the pulse of the music. Enjoy the melody and whatever singing there might be.
Also, focus on your partner and your connection with them. Try, but not hard, to make your frame good. "Listen" to their "body language" and imagine what they might be experiencing. Enjoy the feel of your arms around them and theirs around you.
It may help if the leader does one or more repetitions of el zarandeo. Literally The Shake, a better translation is The Cuddle. It is like a Two-Step Walk without moving your feet at all. Just pivot left a bit, pivot to the right, and pivot back to the center position. This lets you test and adjust your embrace. And like all tango "steps" it has an emotional side - which is why it is sometimes translated as The Cuddle!
If you are leading the dance, when it feels right - not before - begin walking. If you are following, do not be anxious to start. Resist (just the tiniest bit) the leader's efforts. Your resistance will actually help your partners lead you and make it easier for you to follow them.
Keep your head up and stay alert to obstacles and others around you but not hyper-alert. You have a lifetime of skills that will protect you and others. When you occasionally bump another couple or your partner say "Sorry!" but do not make a big deal of it - as long as you didn't kill or maim anyone, anyway!
When you or others make a mistake - and everyone does no matter how good they become - do not try to figure it out or work to correct it. You are supposed to be dancing, not analyzing or practicing technique. Just recover from the mistake as gracefully and quietly as you can and continue dancing. As you get better at handling mistakes you will fear them less. You will also sometimes discover a step new to you when you recover from a mistake.
As you dance you might think of yourself as a great jungle cat, or some other image of power and grace and beauty. Often you will begin to feel and move and even look the way you imagine.
The Soul of the Tango
Every dance has its unique flavor. As time goes by and you continue to study and practice and dance it, tango will become easier and more automatic. You will be better able to experience el alma del tango - the soul of the tango.
This is a blend of several essences - the flow of creativity that comes from the unusual freedom in tango to improvise, the agility and precision nurtured by tango style, the almost operatic intensity of the best tango music and musicians, and the emotional closeness to your partners.
This feeling, more than mastery of dance mechanics, is what makes an Argentine tango dancer. And when you begin to feel it you will be one too.
Introduction
Lesson 2
