Author: Mark Jahnke

I’ve been living in Buenos Aires for a little over a week, and I just finished the first week of classes at DNI Tango, a tango school here renowned for its focus on technique.  And it has been nothing short of MAGICAL.  First of all, though, before I dive into life here, I should dive into what exactly tango is.

When you think of tango, what do you picture?  Raise your hand if you picture this:

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OK so technically tango is a social floor dance, but these are the photos I have of me doing what you might think of as a stereotypical tango.  But, since I’ve arrived here, I’ve learned a whole lot more about this dance in its purest, most Rioplatinese form. (also spoiler, the third photo is actually from a rumba-bolero-we-arent-sure-what-to-call-it!)

Tango is a form of social dance traditional to the Rio de la Plata, which forms the border between Argentina and Uruguay, but it was also modified and influenced by a few other countries and cultures along the way.  At first, it was a working-class dance between men in warehouses and other places in Buenos Aires and Montevideo.  In fact, the word “tango” was supposedly in use in 1789 referring to parties thrown by slaves.

The dance itself has been influenced heavily by the cosmopolitan nature of Argentina as a country of immigrants, with visible influences from France, Italy, Cuba, Spain, slaves, and others.  One of the single biggest influences came in 1910, when the first bandoneón (the “tango accordion”) arrived in Buenos Aires from Germany.

The dance stayed super localized until the 1900’s, when a series of orchestras from Buenos Aires traveled around Europe, igniting a craze that swept Paris, London, New York, and bizarrely, Finland.  As it became fashionable in Europe, so did it among the upper classes of Argentina as well.

Tango, in its original Argentine form (I’m going to refer to it this way for clarity, even though the origins of the dance are shared with Uruguay), is danced in the so-called “close embrace,” the abrazo cerrado, which is similar to a hug where the dancers maintain contact in the chest, with one hand in hand and the other arm around the back of the other dancer.  This connection in the chest means that the dancers are literally dancing cheek to cheek.  This embrace (it is never called a “hold” or a “frame”) is one of the hallmarks of the dance and creates its powerful introverted intimacy.

Now imagine how that went over in high society in 1910, a society that was previously scandalized by the waltz.  WALTZ.

So naturally, the dance was spun off into the more “acceptable” ballroom style, doing away with the close embrace and replacing it with a more standard set of ballroom holds, standardized steps, and so on that is still practiced today as the ballroom tango in the American and International styles.

Unlike the standardized ballroom dances, though, the Argentine tango has no set steps.  It has no basic step, and no standardized combinations of steps that are pieced together and have been the same for decades.  Instead, the entire dance is improvised, each time that it is danced.  And unlike the tangos of figure skating, these tangos have passion, introversion, humor, and yes, even some playfulness, far more levels than are explored in the ballroom and ice tangos. Now watch this video from the 2012 World Championships.

Yes, that was IMPROVISED.  In fact, the entire dance is taught using “structures” and elements, and then teaching you to combine them in different ways, with different entries, exits, tempos, feelings, and such.  With all of this, the dance itself has actually continued to evolve, and a different style emerges between individual dancers and between different couples.

And perhaps another major difference: the Argentine tango is still chiefly a social dance, as evidenced by the preponderance of milongas in Buenos Aires, a tango party where a live band or a DJ will play different styles of dance music with strict social codes for asking to dance and continuing for a certain number of songs, and so on.  People of all ages come to dance everything from simple intimate walks to dramatic quick changes of direction with sweeping ochos and boleos and pauses in perfect time with the character and timing of the music.

This improvisation and individualization mean that every couple will have their own feel for the dance, their own favorite steps and combinations, and their own look – and when they trade partners over the course of a night out, new figures and characters will again emerge.  In fact, there are people who attend milongas solely to watch the dancers as they create and recreate new and old shapes and steps.

And therein lies the magic… every dance contains a surprise and something delightful and new with each new measure of music.  A pause, a quick step here, a moment there, all focused inward creating a dynamic magnetism that makes it impossible to stop watching… and makes it that much more magical when you are dancing it yourself.