Argentine Tango is a social dance and a musical genre that originated in Argentina and Uruguay. In the US, it is commonly confused with Ballroom Tango, though this is a later derivation. See History of Tango and Tango music for the origins and development of each. This article describes the dance itself. A couple dances Argentine Tango. ... Argentine tango may refer to: Argentine tango as a sub-style of Tango (dance). ... Social dance is a major category or classification of danceforms or dance styles, where sociability and socializing are the primary focuses of the dancing. ... Musical genres are categories which contain music which share a certain style or which have certain elements in common. ... A couple dances Argentine Tango. ... Tango postcard, c. ... Tango music is traditionally played by an orquesta típica, a sextet which includes two violins, piano, doublebass, and two bandoneons. ...

General

Argentine Tango consists of a variety of styles that developed in different regions and eras, and in response to the crowding of the venue and even the fashions in clothing. Even though they all developed in Argentina and Uruguay, they were also exposed to influences reimported from Europe and North America. Consequently there is a good deal of confusion and overlap between the styles as they are now danced - and fusions continue to evolve. North America North America is a continent[1] in the Earths northern hemisphere and (chiefly) western hemisphere. ...

Argentine Tango is danced in an embrace that can vary from very open, in which leader and follower connect at arms length, to very closed, in which the connection is chest-to-chest, or anywhere in between. Close embrace is often associated with the more traditional styles, while open embrace leaves room for many of the embellishments and figures that are associated with Tango Nuevo.

Tango is essentially walking with a partner and the music. Musicality (i.e. dancing appropriately to the emotion and speed of a tango) is an extremely important element of tangoing. A good dancer is one who makes you see the music. Also, dancers generally keep their feet close to the floor as they walk, the ankles and knees brushing as one leg passes the other.

Argentine Tango relies heavily on improvisation; although certain patterns of movement have been codified by instructors over the years as a device to instruct dancers, there is no "basic step." One of the only constants across all Argentine Tango styles, is that the follower will usually be led to alternate feet. Another is that the follower rarely has her weight on both feet at the same time. Argentine tango is a new orientation of couple dancing. As most dances have a rational-pattern which can be predicted by the follower, the ballast of previous perceptions about strict rules has to be thrown overboard and replaced by a real communication contact, creating a direct non-verbal dialogue. A tango is a living act in the moment as it happens. Improvisation is the practice of acting and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of ones immediate environment. ...

Argentine Tango is danced counterclockwise around the outside of the dance floor (the "line of dance") and dance "traffic" often segregates into a number of "lanes"; cutting across the middle of the floor is frowned upon. In general, the middle of the floor is where you find either beginners who lack floor navigation skills or people who are performing "showy" figures or patterns that take up more dance floor space. It is acceptable to stop briefly in the line of dance to perform stationary figures, as long as the other dancers are not unduly impeded. The school of thought about this is, if there is open space in front of you, there are likely people waiting behind you. Dancers are expected to respect the other couples on the floor; colliding or even crowding another couple, or stepping on others' feet is to be avoided strenuously. It is considered rude; in addition to possible physical harm rendered, it can be disruptive to a couple's musicality.

Differences from Ballroom Tango

Competitive vs Social Dance

Ballroom tango steps were standardized by dance studios in order to better facilitate judging at competitions. The steps have been relatively fixed in style for decades.

However, Argentine tango is a constantly evolving dance and musical form, with continual changes occurring every day on the social dance floor in Argentina and in major tango centers elsewhere in the world.

Argentine Tango is still based heavily on improvisation. While there are patterns or sequences of steps that are used by instructors to teach the dance, even in a sequence every movement is led not only in direction but also speed and quality (a step can be smooth, pulsing, sharp, ... etc.).

The Embrace (Abrazo)

A striking difference between Argentine tango and ballroom tango is in the shape and feel of the embrace. Ballroom technique dictates that partners arch their upper bodies away from each other, while maintaining contact at the hip, in an offset frame. Embrace could refer to two bands Embrace, a United States band. ...

In Argentine tango, it is nearly the opposite: the dancers' chests are closer to each other than are their hips, and often there is contact at about the level of the sternums (the contact point differing, depending on the height of the leader and the closeness of the embrace). In close embrace, the sternums of both the leader and the follower are in complete contact and they are dancing cheek to cheek (or in the case of a larger height difference chin to forehead). In open embrace, there can be as much space as desired between the partners, but there should always be complete contact along the embracing arms to give optimum communication. Since Argentine tango is almost entirely improvisational, there needs to be clear communication between partners. Even when dancing in a very open embrace, Argentine Tango dancers do not hold their upper bodies arched away from each other; each partner is over their own axis. Whether open or closed, a Tango embrace is not rigid, but relaxed, like a hug.

Walking (Caminada)

Another difference is that the leader may freely step with his left foot when the follower steps with her left foot too. In English, this is sometimes referred to as a "crossed" or "uneven" walk (or as "walking in the crossed system") in contrast to the normal walk which is called "parallel" or "even." In ballroom tango "crossed system" is considered incorrect (unless the leader and follower are facing the same direction).

The nomenclature originated with the Naveira/Salas "Investigation Group." Early on, they used 'even/uneven' to describe the arrangement of legs in the walk (or turn). By the mid-'90s they began using 'parallel/crossed' and later 'normal/crossed'.

The music

Argentine tango music is much more varied than ballroom tango music. A large amount of tango music has been composed by a variety of different orchestras over the last century. Not only is there a large volume of music, there is a breadth of stylistic differences between these orchestras as well, which makes it easier for Argentine tango dancers to spend the whole night dancing only Argentine tango. The four representative schools of the Argentine tango music are: Di Sarli, D’Arienzo, Troilo and Pugliese. They are dance orchestras, playing music for dancing. When the spirit of the music is characterized by counterpoint marking, clarity in the articulation is needed. It has a clear, repetitive pulse or beat, a strong tango-rhythm which is based on the 2x4, 2 strong beats on 4 (dos por cuatro). Astor Piazzolla stretched the classical harmony and counterpoint and moved the tango from the dance floor to the concert stage. His compositions tell us something of our contemporary life and dancing it relates much to modern dance. Carlos Di Sarli (January 7, 1903 - January 12, 1960) was an Argentine tango musician, orchestra leader, composer and pianist. ... Aníbal Troilo (July 11, 1914 - May 18, 1975) was an Argentine tango musician. ... Osvaldo Pedro Pugliese (December 2, 1905 - July 25, 1995) was an Argentine tango musician. ... Photograph of Piazzolla playing his bandoneon. ...

Steps

While Argentine tango does not teach amalgamations of steps like swing, salsa, or ballroom dances do, there are some recurring figures that are taught. Here is a fairly typical order of steps that may be taught in a beginner classes.

• Walks - a couple, in embrace, walks in unison
• Salida Simple, or "eight-count basic" - salida as "the way out" onto the dance floor
• Cruzada - (from cruzar - to cross) Action of the follower crossing her left foot over her right at certain points in the dance
• Ocho - a figure-8 traced by the follower's feet when moving forward or backward.
• Media Luna - a half giro.
• Lapiz - "the pencil" - curved figures traced by the toe as an adornment
• Molinete - "windmill" a turning figure of the follower around the leader (synonym for Giro)
• Giro - a turn (in either direction)
• Sacada - one partner displaces the other's unweighted leg
• Gancho - one dancer hooks their leg around their partner's leg.
• Barrida - one partner sweeps the others foot, displacing it along the floor
• Arrastre - (= drag) synonym for "barrida"
• Volcada - rotating the woman around her axis, while her axis is tilted toward the man, causes her to "capsize" making the free leg "spill" tracing a figure on the floor
• Colgada - both dancers pivot with their axes tilted away from vertical, counter-balancing each others weight.
• Parada - one dancer, usually the leader, halts the motion of the other dancer usually by blocking with the foot
• Sandwich - one dancer, usually the leader, places both feet on either side of the others dancers foot. Generally occurs after a Parada, with the second foot brought in forming a gentle squeeze on the other side of the foot which was halted with the parada.

Gancho means hook in Spanish and Portuguese, and describes certain hooking actions in some dances of Latin American heritage, in Argentine Tango (leg action) and Salsa (arm action and foot action) in particular. ...

Related Dances

Argentine Tango dancers usually enjoy two other related dances: Vals (waltz) and Milonga.

Music for the Vals is in 3/4 time but otherwise very similar to Tango music. Tango dancers dance the Vals much like they do tango only with a waltz rhythm that has one beat per measure (at a beginner-level). This produces a rather relaxed, smooth flowing dancing style in contrast to Viennese Waltz where the dancers often take 3 steps per measure and turn almost constantly. Experienced dancers alternate the smooth one-beat-per-measure walk with syncopated walks, stepping on one- two- or (rarely) all three beats in a measure. Vals is characterized by its lack of pauses, and continual turns (giros) in both directions. Viennese Waltz (German: Wiener Walzer ) is the name of a ballroom dance. ...

Milonga is essentially Tango; the differences lie in the music, which has a strongly-accented beat, and an underlying "habanera" rhythm. Dancers avoid pausing, and often introduce syncopations called traspies and broken rhythm into their walks and turns. Milonga uses the same basic elements as Tango, with a strong emphasis on the rhythm, and figures that tend to be less complex than some of those danced in some varieties of Tango. Milonga is a South American form of music, as dance, as the term for the place where tango is danced. ...

Milonga is also the name given to tango dance parties. This double meaning of the word milonga can be confusing unless one knows the context in which the word "milonga" is used. People who dance at milongas are known as milongueros. Milonga is a term for a place or an event where tango is danced. ...

Styles of Argentine Tango

Tango canyengue

"Tango canyengue" refers to a style of Tango danced until the 1920s. Reportedly, the long tight fashion in dresses of that era restricted the follower's movements. Consequently, the style involves short steps. The dancers tend to move with knees slightly bent, the partners slightly offset, and in a closed embrace. The style tends to be danced to a 2/4 time signature. The time signature (also known as meter signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each bar and what note value constitutes one beat. ...

Tango orillero

Tango orillero refers to the style of dance that developed away from the town centers, in the outskirts and suburbs where there was more freedom due to more available space on the dance floor. The style is danced in an upright position and uses various embellishments including rapid foot moves, kicks, and even some acrobatics, though this is a more recent development.

Salon Tango

Salon Tango was the most popular style of tango danced up through the Golden Era of the dance (1950's) when milongas (tango parties) were held in large dance venues and full tango orchestras performed. Later, when the Argentine youth started dancing rock & roll and tango's popularity declined, the milongas moved to the smaller confiterias in the center of the city, resulting in the birth of the "milonguero/apilado/Petitero/caquero" style.

Salon Tango is characterized by slow, measured, and smoothly executed moves. It includes all of the basic tango steps and figures plus sacadas, barridas, and voleos. The emphasis is on precision, smoothness, and musicality. The couple embraces closely but the embrace is flexible, opening slightly to make room for various figures and closing again for support and poise. The walk is the most important element, and dancers usually walk 60%-70% of the time during a tango song.

When tango became popular again after the end of the Argentine military dictatorships in 1983, this style was resurrected by dancers from the Golden Era:

• El Turco Jose Brahemcha
• Gerardo Portalea (deceased)
• Luis "Milonguita" Lemos (deceased)
• "Finito" Ramón Rivera (deceased)
• "Lampazo" Jose Vazquez (deceased)
• Virulazo (deceased)
• Miguel Balmaceda (deceased)
• in the milongas at Club Sin Rumbo, Sunderland, and Canning.

One of the most famous examples of the elegant Salon style is the Villa Urquiza' style, named after the northern barrio of Buenos Aires where the clubs Sin Rumbo and Sunderland are located. Dancers who are currently leading the wave of Villa Urquiza Style tango are Villa Urquiza is a barrio or neighborhood of Buenos Aires city, capital of Argentina. ...

• Carlos Perez y Rosa
• Jorge Dispari y La Turca
• El Chino Perico
• Javier Rodriguez y Andrea Misse
• Andres Laza Moreno y Samantha Dispari
• Fabian Peralta y Natacha Poberaj
• Geraldine Rojas
• the Misse family (Andrea, Sebastian, Gabriel, y Stella).

To this day, tango classes that teach the "Villa Urquiza style" are held in Club Sunderland every Monday and Wednesday nights around 8pm.

"Estilo milonguero" (tango apilado/confiteria style)

This style originated as the 'petitero' or 'caquero' style in the 1940s and 50s in closely packed dance halls and "confiterias", so it is danced in close embrace, chest-to chest, with the partners leaning - or appearing to lean - slightly towards each other to allow space for the feet to move. There are not many embellishments or firuletes or complicated figures for the lack of space in the original milonguero style but now also those figures are danced, which only at first glance seem impossible in close embrace. Actually, a lot of complicated figures are possible even in milonguero.

Although the rhythmic, close-embrace style of dancing has existed for decades, the term "Milonguero Style" only surfaced in the mid- '90s when the name was created by Susana Miller, who had been the assistant to Pedro 'Tete' Rusconi. Many of the older dancers who are exponents of this style (including 'Tete') prefer not to use the label. Susana Miller - one of the most prominent teachers, choreographers, and dancers of the old milonguero (apilado) style of tango. ...

Tango Nuevo

Tango Nuevo is a dancing and teaching style. Tango nuevo as a teaching style emphasizes a structural analysis of the dance. It is a result of the work of the "Tango Investigation Group" (later transformed into the "Cosmotango" organization) pioneered by Gustavo Naveira and Fabian Salas in the 1990's in Buenos Aires. By taking tango down to the physics of the movements in a systematic way, they have created a method of analyzing the complete set of possibilities of tango movements, defined by two bodies and four legs moving in walks or circles. This investigation provided a view of a structure to the dance that was expressed in a systematic way. Tango nuevo or nuevo tango is a form of both dance and music in which elements of jazz and classical music were incorporated into traditional Argentinian tango. ... For other uses, see Buenos Aires (disambiguation). ...

In walks, their explorations pioneered what were once called "alterations" and are now called "changes of direction" or "cambios". In turns, they focus on being very aware of where the axis of the turn is (in the follower/in the leader/in between them). This tends to produce a flowing style, with the partners rotating around each other on a constantly shifting axis, or else incorporating novel changes of direction.

Many of the recent popular elements in tango vocabulary, such as Colgadas, owe their debut on the tango scene to the popularity of Gustavo's and Fabian's approach.

From this teaching style, a new and unique style of dancing has developed, called by many a "tango nuevo" style. The most famous practitioners of "Tango Nuevo" are Gustavo Naveira, Norberto "El Pulpo" Esbrés, Fabián Salas, Chicho Frumboli, and Pablo Verón. Interestingly enough, all of these dancers have highly individual styles that cannot be confused with each other's, yet can be easily recognized as Tango Nuevo. Chicho Frumboli is one of the famous Argentine Tango dance dancers. ...

Tango Nuevo is often misunderstood and mislabeled as "Show Tango" because a large percentage of today's stage dancers have adopted "tango nuevo" elements in their choreographies. Tango nuevo or nuevo tango is a form of both dance and music in which elements of jazz and classical music were incorporated into traditional Argentinian tango. ...

Show tango

Show tango, also called Fantasia, is a more theatrical and exaggerated form of Argentine tango developed to suit the stage. It includes many embellishments, acrobatics, and solo moves. Unlike other forms of tango, stage tango is not improvised and is rather choreographed and practised to a predetermined piece of music.

The advent of "alternative Tango music"

While Argentine Tango has historically been danced to traditional tango music produced by such composers as Osvaldo Pugliese, Carlos Di Sarli, Juan D'Arienzo, in the 90's a younger generation of Tango dancers began dancing Tango to what was referred to as "alternative tango music"; music from other genres like, "World Music," "Electro-Tango," "Experimental Rock," "Trip Hop," & "Blues," to name a few. Artists like Kevin Johansen, Gotan Project, Otros Aires, Tom Waits, Portishead & Louis Armstrong are among those favored in alternative tango music playlists. Carlos Di Sarli (January 7, 1903 - January 12, 1960) developed smooth, clean-sounding, powerful arrangements which his orchestra played the walking beat of salon tango. ... Juan DArienzo ( 1900- 1976) was known as El Rey del Compas (King of the Beat). ... Kevin Johansen was born in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1964 to an Argentine mother and an American father, lived most of his childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area, but moved with his family to Buenos Aires at the age of 12. ... Gotan Project is a musical group based in Paris, consisting of musicians Philippe Cohen Solal (French), Eduardo Makaroff (Argentine) and Christoph H. Müller (Swiss, former member of Touch El Arab). ... Recognized as the fist electronic-archaeological tango band, Otros Aires mixes the first tangos and milongas records from the beginning of the last century (Gardel, Razzano, D`arienzo, etc. ... Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. ... For the town, see Portishead, Somerset. ... Louis[1] Armstrong[2] (4 August 1901[3] – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo[4] and Pops, was an American jazz musician. ...

Tango Nuevo is often associated with "alternative tango music", see Nuevo tango, but depending on the dancers, any of the other Tango styles may be danced to it. Nuevo tango or Tango nuevo is a form of music, which was born as elements of jazz and classical music were incorporated into traditional Argentinian tango. ...

Tango films

A culture developed for tango films in the Cinema of Argentina beginning in the early 1930s. See Category:Tango films. The Cinema of Argentina has a long tradition, and plays an important role in the culture of Argentina. ...

• Tango Steps

See also

• Tango (dance)
• Carlos Gardel
• Ástor Piazzolla
• Lunfardo
• Maxixe (or Brazilian Tango)

A couple dances Argentine Tango. ... Carlos Gardel (1933) Carlos Gardel (11 December 1887/18901 - 24 June 1935 Medellín, Colombia) was one of the most prominent figures in the history of tango music. ... Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla (March 11, 1921 – July 4, 1992) was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. ... Lunfardo was a colorful, slangy argot of the Spanish language which developed at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century in the lower classes in and around Buenos Aires. ... The maxixe (pronounced ma-shi-sh), occasionally known as the Brazilian tango, is a dance, with its accompanying music, that originated in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro in 1868, at about the same time as the tango was developing in neighbouring Argentina and Uruguay. ...

External links

Culture and Community

• eng.tango.info - nearly complete worldwide tango information system, free and neutral, includes festivals, milongas, links, teachers, musicians, poets, DJs, CDs.
• Planet Tango Preserving and fostering all aspects of Argentine Tango culture
• Tango, our dance A tutorial
• batango.com: Loomis's Luscious Lexicon of Tango Linguistics
• La Yuega: A tango learning journey to "La Yuega"
• Film of Typical Orchestra Fernandez Fierro
• InfoTango - Tango Argentine in Poland [en][de][pl]
• Tango Argentino Search Engine [en][de]
• Tango
• Tango Style Tango news and videos

Festivals

• google-map with tango - tango festivals and cities, worldwide, up to date.
• Cosmotango Organizers of the "Congreso Internacional de Tango Argentino" (CITA) ("International Congress of Argentinian Tango")

Tutorials

• Dario's Tango Guide - a bi-monthly video podcast to help improve your dancing
• Argentine Tango Videos, including a step of the week

• A great description of tango
• Selected Updates Streaming-flashvideos Tangoing