If you ask for what tango is, you will get as many answers as there are dancers. Some say that Canaro is tango but Piazzolla is not. Others say that it is an elaborate variation of the salida. There are those who claim that tango is about two hearts making a connection through movement on the dance floor. Someone else may say that it is the dance that is enjoyed at milongas. In art and life, and by any means in tango, contrary answers may be equally true. Yes, tango is in and of the music (and we believe that Piazzolla’s music is definitely tango music even when Bartók, Stravinsky and Shoenberg are influencing the tunes), and tango is an improvisatory variation of a few basic steps (but we do not believe that the salida is a fruitful point of departure for learning how to tango), and the dance is doubtless about how two people connect at a milonga. Still, the above is not how we primarily conceptualize the dance. This is our take.

Communicating movement

Tango is about communicating movement. Every step can be deconstructed down to three elements, and every tango step is constructed in the same manner. Yes! Every step!

1) The man invites the woman to move.
2) The woman expresses the movement.
3) The man either rounds off the woman’s expression of his invitation or he uses the momentum to proceed directly into the next step.

It would be misleading to talk about ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’ instead of ‘men’ and ‘women’. Our point is that the dance is about movement, and giving singular roles to the dancers would be to paint a very black and white picture of tango. No, it would be a grey mesh that if it was followed would render a most disengaged tango that totally would lack the energy of movement that we are advocates of. Read ‘man’ and ‘woman’ as abstractions of dynamic attitudes in the dance or roles that entail both leading and following.

The three elements of the tango steps could be voiced differently, and that would demonstrate the point.

1) The man’s invitation to movement or expression is a lead, but it is only at surface level that we can speak of an invitation. The woman cannot compromise with the direction that he orders, but she can play with qualities. She can play hard to get or she can act as the obedient wife, but she cannot question or challenge his directive. The man is the leader as he initiates the step.
2) But as the movement commences, as the flirtatious seductress or the light-footed (literally speaking) gracious dancer expresses the movement; she is the King and Queen in one person. She leads the dance. Well, she leads according to his movement directives, but what matters at that stage of the dance is not where to go but how one gets there. At this stage the man follows the woman’s expression.
3) As the step comes towards the end, the man regains control again and he is again the leader.

All is connected

Through the three stages of the dance we could thus say that the man is respectively leader-follower-leader, and the contrary applies to the woman, i.e. that she is follower-leader-follower. That would be to make matters to simple though. As the man invites the woman to move, he suggests a particular kind of energy to the movement. Still, only she can express it with her dance skills as they are manifested and interpreted through her unique body. Thus, she induces qualities to the movement that he could not foresee the full extent of. As the couple reaches stage (3) the leader must indeed make a decision about where to move next, but he does so on a basis of the movement qualities that she expressed through phase (2) of the step. The man must therefore listen gently with his abrazo and her expression will on the one hand limit how he can move further from phase (3) and into a new phase (1), but she will also have given him plenty of expression to work with to create unforeseen opportunities to directions and further qualities.

We now begin to see the outlines of how stage (1) and (3), initiation and round-off, are two sides of the same coin. The round-off is the essential precondition for how the next step will be formed, and the round-off is created by the expression (2), which in turn is a consequence of how the woman responded to the invitation to movement (1). All stages are interconnected, and as the movement is elaborated here it is hard to uphold the belief that we have three clearly distinguishable stages. We could further deconstruct the singular stages, say the first stage. The invitation to movement comes as a lead in a certain direction. The woman immediately gives a quality back (what we earlier talked about in metaphors like dancing flirtatious etc., but in plain terms she gives him different amounts of counter-movement/force at different intervals of time). There is a moment where both are attempting to lead. The man is undoubtedly the leader of directions as her answer to his invitation will always counter his movement. The interesting issue, though, is that both man and woman are for some fractions of a second both contributing with equal amounts of qualities or lead into the movement that is about to be created.

We could also similarly question the leading role of the woman through phase (2). The most obvious example would be if the man decided to give her a counter-direction as she expresses the step. In many occasions, this would lead to a boleo of some kind, depending on which step they are dancing and the timing of the counter movement. We could also imagine much more subtle ways of questioning her expression. He could infer more energy into the step or he could perhaps slow down her expression. These decisions will affect how stage (3) is reached.

We see that the concepts and roles get mixed. There is no longer a simple role as leader or follower. Instead, tango dancing on a high level demands that every so called leader or man must be an excellent follower. Conversely, women or followers must have lots of guts to express in the dance. We believe that every good dancer must be a little queer in his or her way of surfing between the different modes of listening, leading and expressing. Good dancers are simply queer dancers, no matter they know it or not.

Using the model

Now that the model is established, what use do we have for it? Well, the most obvious is for personal further development and for teaching. Assuming that you are a teacher interested in tango as communicated movement; this is the progression that you guide your students through. Most likely, you start even one step further back where the man leads and the woman follows. Then you try to ask (through movement and exercises) if that is really how one moves, and then you get into the ideas about invitation-expression-conclusion; and then those concepts are blurred. In other words, the deconstructions of the deconstruction are a fruitful way of understanding how we learn how to create tango where both dancers are expressing on equal terms.

There are numerous other ways to use the model too, but this blog post is already too extensive. Thus we will let it come to a conclusion by showing how the model can say much about how dancers move. Take an acknowledged dancer like Miguel Zotto. We find him boring, and the reason is that in the example that we have chosen, the roles are given. He leads and she follows. Period. She never takes the lead (ornaments does not make her truly independent), and they do not for a moment hover in the magical void where they do not know who has led the movement into the particular situation of the dance. They are never at the stage where they follow the movement and the energy of the momentum. Also, take note how most of the steps are of similar length, and how the dynamics are very much the same.

Now, have a look at Eugenia Parilla and Chicho. She is full of expressive power and he is intelligent and emphatic enough to let her take an equal part in the creation of the dance. That is what distinguishes this dance from the one with Zotto and Plebs, and that is why they move with such liveliness in this dance.

Someone may at this stage believe that we are arguing in favour of tango Nuevo at the expense of classical tango, but that is not true. We both believe that every classical dancer must be in command of tango Nuevo, and these two examples are arguments for that opinion. Zotto is a classical dancer without in-depth knowledge and experience of tango Nuevo, and that is why they move in a dull way. On the other hand, Nuevo dancers that cannot dance a classical tango will most likely perform something jerky. If you define yourself as a Nuevo dancer, then you still need to study tango salon seriously. Chicho and Eugenia are examples of Nuevo dancers with a thorough knowledge of their history.

Finally, have a look at this video with Murat and Michelle Erdemsel. Basically it is a classical interpretation which is spiced up with many Nuevo elements. Even so, when they are at their most conservative, they still move beautifully. That is because Michelle has a strong will to expression through movement, and Murat listens well.

We want to thank Gunilla Rydén and Henrik Uldall for first introducing us to the ideas that we discuss in this blog post. Even so, we have not tried to make an account of their ideas about tango. Instead, what we have written springs out of working with tango in this fashion for several years. Gunilla and Henrik cannot be held responsible for any wrongs said. They can only be thanked for whatever positive you may find here. We have not had lessons with them in many years but we still consider them to be among our most important role models.

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We, Magnus Andersson and Anne Marit Ligaard are tango dancers and tango teachers. Together we run Tango Tango.

Join our FB-group to keep updated on workshops in Norway.

Our webpage has plenty of articles and other goodies in Norwegian, and thus we change language now.

Vi har arbeidet mye med å skape levende hjemmesider som fungerer som ressurssider for så vel nybegynneren som den avanserte danseren.

Les mer om vår undervisningsfilosofi på: http://www.tangotango.no/meromkurs.html

Lurer du på hvilke sko du skal bruke, les denne artikkelen: http://www.tangotango.no/ressurser/sko.html

Lurer du på hva tango egentlig er for noe, les den her artikkelserien: http://www.tangotango.no/ressurser/hvaertango.html

Har du lyst til å bli inspirert, kikk på disse fotografiene: http://www.tangotango.no/foto.html

Lurer du på om du skal tørre å melde deg på, eller er du usikker på om tango er noe for deg, les disse spørsmålene og svarene: http://www.tangotango.no/meromkurs/faqs.html

Vi har mye mer å tilby på hjemmesidene, men fremfor alt tilbyr vi herlige tangokurs!

Well, actually I believe that the roles should be reversed already. Men should indeed lead, although not through force but through invitations. I believe that my role as a man is to invite the woman to express the tango through movement. I give her a direction and she answers with a quality. My task is thereafter to respond to that quality with both qualities and directions. That is how we turn into equals in the dance. That is how the dance turns really interesting. That is how women are allowed to express in tango and men are given challenges that will make them lead unforeseen repertoire and with qualities that were unknown to them. Eugenia is so strong in her expression that the male domain of the dance, i.e. leading and giving directions, turns fully subordinate. Her expression is at times so lively that the leader turns into a follower. She turns men into boys and spectators that must merely wait until the queen has had her say on the matters.

I have the most beautiful dance partner. Her body actually looks like Eugenia’s and her style of dancing is not far from there. One of the first times we danced, she “ornamented vividly”, i.e. she danced her own thing regardless of my leading. Something very fancy happened, like a boleo that would have been impossible for me to lead with the very limited dance experience I had at that time. I gave her a smile that stretched from ear to ear and exclaimed: “Do that again! People may actually think that I’m leading it!”

I am not proposing that Eugenia breaks the communication in the way that my partner did. But I am saying that it seems as if she challenges the limits of the embrace. She constantly re-negotiates the contract between male and female. She does not buy into the traditional subordinate role of the woman in tango, and perhaps that is why she looks so amazingly feminine when she dances. Expression is far more important than adhering to a particular role and Eugenia Parilla is the incarnation of that idea to the extent that I can begin to cry from watching her in a simple caminada.

Although this post is about Eugenia Parilla I want to say a few words about our experiences of how my partner somewhat whimsically kicked her legs in the air. It would be stupid to stop because it is fun and she looks very beautiful when her feet are flying high. Despite this, most teachers would have her stop. Our take has been to work with these expressions and turn them into our own, into something that is shared in the dance. This has taught me as a leader to be much more receptive and listening to her qualities and expressions, even when the dance is much simpler and definitely within the limitations of how we traditionally conceive the male and female roles in tango. It has also been a wonderful way of learning new repertoire. As I followed her movements I have learned how to initiate her extravaganzas. Our repertoire is now much richer – both in terms of repertoire and the intimacy in the embrace – than it was when my partner did her private little dance in my abrazo.

Have a look at this week’s very beautiful clip with Eugenia and Ezequiel Farfaro. He is an excellent dancer who can use his body and weight to make the woman moving. Even so, I cannot imagine that he could have a similar kind of flow and ease to his dance with any other partner than her. Although he is amazing, I still find that he struggles – in a most positive sense – throughout the entire dance. It is as if he tries to find ever new ideas, elements and qualities to give her. She accepts them, but she always gives them her own flare. He shows her his paintings as a school boy. She looks at them with admiration and then she continues playing with his expression in an even more intricate fashion. Simplicity is turned into sublime beauty. She does not wait until he gives her a new impulse, but she plays with the quality that he gave her. Her body is never still, but it is always moving towards a new expression. I believe that what makes this dance so dynamic is how Ezequiel in a sense is never in control. As Eugenia accepts the invitations to expression with such ease and instantly begin to play with the repertoire, Ezequiel must always struggle to regain control. He is a very intelligent and emphatic leader which makes Eugenia blossom with her expression. He does not tame her, and he should not. By constantly struggling he proves himself to be a dancer of high rank. Her expression in this dance is free, and what an expression it is.

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We, Magnus Andersson and Anne Marit Ligaard are tango dancers and tango teachers. Together we run Tango Tango.

Join our FB-group to keep updated on workshops in Norway.

Our webpage has plenty of articles and other goodies in Norwegian, and thus we change language now.

Vi har arbeidet mye med å skape levende hjemmesider som fungerer som ressurssider for så vel nybegynneren som den avanserte danseren.

Les mer om vår undervisningsfilosofi på: http://www.tangotango.no/meromkurs.html

Lurer du på hvilke sko du skal bruke, les denne artikkelen: http://www.tangotango.no/ressurser/sko.html

Lurer du på hva tango egentlig er for noe, les den her artikkelserien: http://www.tangotango.no/ressurser/hvaertango.html

Har du lyst til å bli inspirert, kikk på disse fotografiene: http://www.tangotango.no/foto.html

Lurer du på om du skal tørre å melde deg på, eller er du usikker på om tango er noe for deg, les disse spørsmålene og svarene: http://www.tangotango.no/meromkurs/faqs.html

Vi har mye mer å tilby på hjemmesidene, men fremfor alt tilbyr vi herlige tangokurs!

You do not need an anatomy degree to know that the arms are part of the body. They constitute the upper limbs of what is called the appendicular skeleton, and the legs form the lower part of the appendicular skeleton. Have you ever heard anyone claim that the legs should not be used in tango? What you perhaps have heard is that someone may be over active with their legs at the cost of how their trunk communicates the movement. The problem with all these cases is that the arms, legs and the trunk are not working in concordance. One part of the body acts in a fashion that the rest of the body cannot follow. Very often it is the arms that are the scapegoat, but that is a logical fallacy.

Consider this. How does a woman know when and how to move when her partner holds her in an open embrace? The answer is that she moves because she can feel it in her hands. This proposal is strangely enough controversial among many tango dancers, but through my experience as a dancer and as a teacher I find the misconception to be the source of much unsound, uncomfortable, unpleasant and jerky tango. If she attempts to follow the body but not the arms, then she is merely performing a guesswork that is not inherent in the couple’s communication. She walks because she feels her partner’s invitation to movement through his hands. Now, that does not mean that the arms are independent of the axial skeleton, i.e. of the trunk. No, but the arms are our point of communication and whether arms or the trunk is primary is to ask the wrong question. They act in concord.

Still not convinced about the importance of the arms? Consider a boleo that comes from an interrupted ocho. Would that be possible to follow through mere guesswork? Probably if you had a balance like a ballerina and the ability to read other’s minds like an oracle. On the other hand, would that vouch for a pleasant tango? No.

If we expand our awareness of arms to a Nuevo technique, or even if we are only considering a colgada in a more classical tango technique, then arms, or more correctly hands, are for short moments of time our primary focus. It is through them that we feel the dynamics of our partner’s body weight and we need to be very active with using arm and strength in order to not disassociate the arms from our body. We are rather for some moments leading our ancillary bodies with our arms.

My experience as a dancer and as a teacher is that there are many benefits with being aware of how we deliberately use our arms. Through using them we can silence them. We can work with our bodies as wholes rather than as segmented, and the tango turns much smoother at the same time as we can perform more advanced repertoire. Just as prejudice has it that there are women capable of manipulating their men into believing that their will is their husbands’, so are the arms an underestimated powerhouse in the abrazo. They rule in full silence.

Some examples of good arm use:
This is a clip that I return to over and over again. Consider the very conservative left arm of Chicho and the right of Lucia. Even so, how could she guess his will without feeling the openings in dance space that he gives her without the conscious arm work? Also, enjoy the small but exquisite colgadas at 1.10 and 1.45.

This clip with Gustavo Naveira and Giselle Anne shows many different arm techniques. Also note how he plays with not using the arms a few seconds into the dance. These two often have intelligent choreographies where they set a theme for the dance. When he plays with the hands, is that a way of saying that they will dance only with their so called bodies? Or are they rather setting the hands as their theme?

Finally, have a look at any clip with Pablo and Dana. If you watch an early clip with them, you will see hands that are perhaps overly active and often with the “Nuevo bounce” to the hands. If you find a recent clip, you will be delighted with their easy and effective communication that let them display their superior technique.

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We, Magnus Andersson and Anne Marit Ligaard are tango dancers and tango teachers. Together we run Tango Tango.

Join our FB-group to keep updated on workshops in Norway.

Our webpage has plenty of articles and other goodies in Norwegian, and thus we change language now.

Vi har arbeidet mye med å skape levende hjemmesider som fungerer som ressurssider for så vel nybegynneren som den avanserte danseren.

Les mer om vår undervisningsfilosofi på: http://www.tangotango.no/meromkurs.html

Lurer du på hvilke sko du skal bruke, les denne artikkelen: http://www.tangotango.no/ressurser/sko.html

Lurer du på hva tango egentlig er for noe, les den her artikkelserien: http://www.tangotango.no/ressurser/hvaertango.html

Har du lyst til å bli inspirert, kikk på disse fotografiene: http://www.tangotango.no/foto.html

Lurer du på om du skal tørre å melde deg på, eller er du usikker på om tango er noe for deg, les disse spørsmålene og svarene: http://www.tangotango.no/meromkurs/faqs.html

Vi har mye mer å tilby på hjemmesidene, men fremfor alt tilbyr vi herlige tangokurs!

One of the beauties with tango is how you perform the dance from the capacities that your body presents you with. My anatomy teacher from my Pilates education often said that the body is like the face. We all have two eyes, a nose and a mouth, but nevertheless we all look different. That applies to our bodies below the face too. The main map of the body is more or less the same, but its expressions vary vastly. We all have different basic conditions to work with, i.e. we inhabit our bodies and express through them in whatever fashion our anatomy allows us. We practice technique and expression as tango dancers. Some people prove to be flexible and have long beautiful flowing strides; others are more staccato no matter how they try to move. Another person gets back pains doing volcadas, a fourth person cannot get the hang of her ganchos, and a yet another dancer can pivot most elegantly. We have our skills and we practice to overcome our weaknesses on the dance floor. We work until our feet ache, and then we do some more hours on the dance floor, and slowly we progress. But why not step of the dance floor?

Pablo and Dana’s bodies are absolutely awesome. They have worn down the floor in the dance studio for countless hours, but they have also worked away from the floor to change how their bodily “eyes, nose and mouth” function. They have cultivated their bodies so that they are able to execute all the fancy stuff that they are known for, and they perform it with superior ease. Through focusing the preconditions of movement, i.e. perfecting their bodies through workout, they master the tango technique in a sense that an abundance of practice hours alone would never be enough for. In this clip, which as mentioned is absent of extravaganza, we not only see a very simple and clean dance, but we see how their bodies work with so to speak no effort what so ever. Lo and behold their balance, their closeness, their precision and perfection at every possible aspect of the tango.

Their practice has for several years inspired me to work off the floor, and my most riveting development has occurred away from the practicas and milongas. My best tango teachers indeed work with the body and movement but they know nothing about tango. Often when people ask me why I have been so preoccupied with Pilates (yoga is Pablo and Dana’s thing – which I have strong opinions about), I answer that I do it to be able to perform and experience even cleaner weight shifts. That is the essence of tango rather than flying high, and that is essentially what we see in this clip. I can only dream of becoming a master Pilates practitioner and be able to perform something as sublime as the first few weight shifts that Pablo and Dana performs here. I dare to say that this is perhaps the most technically complete tango I have ever seen. Adding to the beauty of it, their interpretation of the music is also artful.

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We, Magnus Andersson and Anne Marit Ligaard are tango dancers and tango teachers. Together we run Tango Tango.

Join our FB-group to keep updated on workshops in Norway.

Our webpage has plenty of articles and other goodies in Norwegian, and thus we change language now.

Vi har arbeidet mye med å skape levende hjemmesider som fungerer som ressurssider for så vel nybegynneren som den avanserte danseren.

Les mer om vår undervisningsfilosofi på: http://www.tangotango.no/meromkurs.html

Lurer du på hvilke sko du skal bruke, les denne artikkelen: http://www.tangotango.no/ressurser/sko.html

Lurer du på hva tango egentlig er for noe, les den her artikkelserien: http://www.tangotango.no/ressurser/hvaertango.html

Har du lyst til å bli inspirert, kikk på disse fotografiene: http://www.tangotango.no/foto.html

Lurer du på om du skal tørre å melde deg på, eller er du usikker på om tango er noe for deg, les disse spørsmålene og svarene: http://www.tangotango.no/meromkurs/faqs.html

Vi har mye mer å tilby på hjemmesidene, men fremfor alt tilbyr vi herlige tangokurs!

Therefore there are many that overlook the fact that all with Chicho is not open embrace. This is also an essential aspect of him:

It is hard to comprehend that one and the same dancer is in command of two styles as different as in these two clips. Much of today’s second clip actually borders to a milonguero style, but with some of the repertoire that is characteristic for much more recent styles of tango. The first clip, which is unfortunately disrupted half-way through the song, is more typical for how we know Chicho. There are complicated sequences in their dance, much work up in the air with the ladies feet, and most importantly they are working with an embrace that is never constant or parallel. In the abrazo they challenge each other by going in and out of it; almost as if there was no upright position but only an infinite series of volcaditas and colgaditas. Those are some of his hallmarks.

Even so, he does indeed dance most often closely embracing the woman, and he does indeed do so most beautifully. I believe that if we do not acknowledge that part of Chicho, then we do not only misunderstand a significant aspect of him as an artist. If we are dancers and try to be influenced from him, and if we only see the dynamic Nuevo dancer, then we run the risk of becoming manipulative with our tango embrace. Our tango runs the risk of looking as if we are driving tractors rather than embracing women. The key to Chicho’s success is his sensitivity; a sensitivity that he could only have found through the classical tango. The classical tango is the foundation that we build our dance upon. It is the meat (or the tofu for vegetarians) that we can season with the Nuevo spices. Too many dancers want to become elaborate directly and they forget that they are dealing with spices. Their courses of musical interpretation then turn into something rather distasteful. They are indeed capable of making the woman perform high-end repertoire but they will stagnate in their development as dancers. They will never be able to look as elegant as Chicho because there is no meat to their dance. If you have practiced a Nuevo tango for years and want to become like Chicho, then you better take lessons from Javier Rodriguez. On the other hand, if you want to be like Javier, you better learn what Chicho has to say – but that is another story for another post.

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We, Magnus Andersson and Anne Marit Ligaard are tango dancers and tango teachers. Together we run Tango Tango.

Join our FB-group to keep updated on workshops in Norway.

Our webpage has plenty of articles and other goodies in Norwegian, and thus we change language now.

Vi har arbeidet mye med å skape levende hjemmesider som fungerer som ressurssider for så vel nybegynneren som den avanserte danseren.

Les mer om vår undervisningsfilosofi på: http://www.tangotango.no/meromkurs.html

Lurer du på hvilke sko du skal bruke, les denne artikkelen: http://www.tangotango.no/ressurser/sko.html

Lurer du på hva tango egentlig er for noe, les den her artikkelserien: http://www.tangotango.no/ressurser/hvaertango.html

Har du lyst til å bli inspirert, kikk på disse fotografiene: http://www.tangotango.no/foto.html

Lurer du på om du skal tørre å melde deg på, eller er du usikker på om tango er noe for deg, les disse spørsmålene og svarene: http://www.tangotango.no/meromkurs/faqs.html

Vi har mye mer å tilby på hjemmesidene, men fremfor alt tilbyr vi herlige tangokurs!