Tango FAQs

What is Tango?

Far from the highly stylized, ballroomish, rose-in-the-teeth Hollywood depiction, the tango is the ultimate social dance.

Why is Tango the ultimate social dance?

Because you go to a milonga (an event where tango is danced) with the expectation that you may dance both with people you know and (if you are lucky) with a person you have never seen before from another country perhaps. You may observe these people before you dance with them, to see how they treat their partners and how they express themselves in the elegance of tango. Either type of partner on any given night may inspire you to the point where a smile appears on your face that is completely beyond your control.

What's so special about Tango as a dance?

Any tango dancer will bend your ear for hours on this one. Tango is a dancer's dance. For instance, ballet dancers never die.. they just move to the tango. The freedom of expression is virtually limitless.

And yet, in its essence, the tango is as simple as a walk -- together. The dance only defines some basic principles about how two people can move relative to each other in space. After the "lead / response" sensibility is understood, the rest is a journey of exploration into your ability to express yourself with a partner to music you both hear.

The tango requires a connection between partners that is in addition to anything they may be experiencing physically. In other words, other forms of dance rely on frame and tension to maintain a physical connection between partners. At it's best, the tango turns every beat of the music into an interaction that requires movement of each dancer independently in response to the suggestion of their partner. For more on this, register here.

Tango is worldwide. If you know the principles of tango, you can go to any major city on this earth (someone is working on a Lunar milonga I'm sure) and many small cities and dance closely with someone, with the mutual understanding that the affair is just for 10 minutes. It is not at all necessary to know the verbal language of your partner to tango… and tango well.

I am a man... sounds like fun

You bet. Two people can join with music, most often in an embrace that is closer than in any other activity we can do in public in our current culture. Register for class here.

I am a woman... sounds dangerous

Somewhere around 1920, the tango became popular and migrated from its seedy roots in Argentina to the upper class both there and in Europe. Over the subsequent 30 years the culture of tango evolved to include a set of behavioral rules of civility that made the dance acceptable to many if not most moms. These customs are unique to the tango, are sometimes downright hilarious, and persist to this day. Women have control in tango. They decide whether to accept an invitation to dance or not. At any point during the dance or between songs, a woman may simply leave the floor… no questions asked (this happens very rarely). Additionally there are a few reasons why men will act with complete decorum in the dance. First, they are most often gentlemen and cherish the privilege of dancing in a close embrace with a woman. Second, any impropriety on the part of a man will risk his reputation in the community. Given the investment in learning the tango, the risk of becoming ostracized for this reason is simply too great. Lastly, though alcohol is a part of the usual environment of the tango, it is virtually never abused there. The reason is that tangueros and tangueras love to dance so much that they are unwilling to sacrifice any physical control at the expense of their tango. Tangueras will spot the exceptions a mile away.

If you are from, say, Maryland and you are not a mom but you have a mom, you can pretty much be assured that your mom will look at this activity with a cocked eye and a healthy, mom-sized dose of suspicion. If you are a Maryland mom and you have a daughter, you can pretty much be assured that your daughter will have exactly the same thoughts about your tango as the tango would, on first sight, appear to be scandalous. In either case, you can assure your mom or daughter that there is a more "prudent" form of the tango called "open embrace" that is becoming all the rage and that they should not worry and go find their own sandbox.

If you are still concerned, the fundamentals class is taught exclusively in an "open embrace" so that students can "see" what is going on. Subsequent classes will transition to the posture and possibilities of a "close" embrace that is the hallmark and standard of the tango.

In reality, the "fear" of the embrace goes away all too quickly and you are left with the marvelous feeling of closeness that is unique to the tango. Soon, hugging someone becomes very natural and you become sad for people who do not allow themselves the freedom to do it.

Who does the Tango?

Everybody. Well.. not quite. Let's just say there are certainly no demographic boundaries for the tango. Every age, color, nationality and sensibility is represented. That said, there are a few characteristics that you can spot in tangueros (men who dance tango) and tangueras (women who dance tango).

(Going far on a limb) Men who dance tango, whether they know it or not when they start, like to dance. Men who have meeting women as their only goal will usually not climb the investment hill to learn - they will find a (.com?) path with less effort to accomplish that mission. Men who stick with it will always have a combination of traits that include healthy doses of persistence, curiosity, self-confidence and humility.

Women who dance tango have a need to express themselves with grace and recognize that tango is a rare opportunity for this in our culture.

To find out more about who does the tango, register here.

What shoes should I wear to tango?

Wear shoes with leather bottoms. Here's why. Pivoting is common in the tango. You need a slight amount of traction to help you push off the floor when you dance. However, if you have too much traction it is more difficult to pivot. The torque it takes to make you pivot gets communicated to your joints (especially your knees). Tangueros wear a variety of different types of shoes.. but they all have leather bottoms of some sort.

Dance shoes for tango, almost always have a chroma suede sole. If they do not, any shoe store can put apply a chroma suede layer to the existing sole. The sole is applied to the front of the sole, not the heel. The nap of chroma suede will naturally "lay down" to become slick on the bottom resulting in a shoe that has some traction but remains slick enough to pivot. However, if you encounter a slick or "fast" floor, you can use a shoe brush to raise the nap of the suede and provide more traction. It is, therefore, an adjustable traction sole. Most experienced dancers have chroma suede soles on their shoes.. whatever the style of upper.

Both men and women can get by with a standard hard leather sole. Women pivot more than men in general, so a fast sole is often most comfortable for them. Women sometimes carry more than one pair however, because if the floor is fast (slippery) the hard leather sole does not provide enough traction. The second pair is usually chroma suede.

Tango shoes for either men or women most often have a heel that is slightly higher than a normal shoe. Why? Because when the embrace closes in tango, each partner will have a slight forward aspect to their posture. The angle of this posture is created at the ankle. A raised heel will decrease the amount of calf stretch required to allow your heel touch the ground. In short, it is more comfortable to dance in close embrace with a raised heel.

Women have other considerations for heel height that include style, comfort, and the fact that a raised heel can offer an increase in height of several inches. Height matching in tango is not essential, but may make dancing close embrace more comfortable and connected.

A vendor of dance shoes for tango in Baltimore can be found at www.tangoessentials.com.

More FAQs later....