© Copyright 2022 by Karlos Bermann
Tango from the inside out
The list below is based on my experiences dancing and taking classes and lessons in such widely separated places as Seattle WA, Providence RI, Raleigh-Durham NC, Oakland CA and Stowe VT, as well as Buenos Aires Argentina and Montevideo Uruguay. It is also the result of my experiences coaching followers and teaching basics classes. I think most experienced dancers and teachers would agree with much if not all of what I have put down--no doubt adding their own touches and spin. So I don't make any claims for originality--unless I was the first to put this in writing (someone else may have made such a list already, but if so, I’m not aware of it). What is it good for? Well, no list, no written instructions can make you a tango dancer. This is only a guide to what you need to master. To do that will take work—a lot of work—with practice, practice, and more practice on the dance floor under the guidance of experienced dancers.
All too often I have attended classes or "workshop" weekends where the instructors or leaders barely skim the surface of the foundational requirements for tango dancers (if they touch on them at all). All too often they are intent upon giving the students or attendees their money's worth: some fancy new "moves" to take home. Seeing others effortlessly executing the moves, the embellishments—boleos, ganchos, enganches, enrosques, etc—is very appealing. Many dancers can’t wait to do those things. My advice? Keep the fancy moves to a minimum until you have truly mastered the foundations. Everything will then fall into place. Tango requires a solid grounding in the foundational elements that can only be achieved through frequent practice. Tango from the inside out. Without this it is at best no more than an imitation of tango.
The Seven Pillars, or Foundations, of Authentic Tango
1. Posture. The tango dancer’s posture is straight, from the ankles to the base of the skull. Straight as in push-up position or yoga plank position. Tango dancers do not arch the back as ballroom dancers do, nor do they bend forward or sideways from the waist. The only movement at the waist or hips is rotation to the right or left (“contra-body” opposition of the upper and lower body).
2. Connection and Frame. The true tango connection is the closed embrace, in which the dancers are in physical contact at the upper torso—generally on the leader’s right side, the follower’s left. Maintaining the straight posture described above, both leader and follower incline the body forward toward their partner, weight on the ball of one foot at a time (in tango the weight should never be split). In this posture the dancers create an inverted “V” with their bodies—their upper bodies in contact while their feet are separated (perhaps 8-12 inches, depending on the dancers). This allows for free movement of the feet. It also allows the dancers to share balance. In Spanish this connection is called carpa (tent). The open embrace, where there is space between the dancers’ torsos and they are physically connected only through the arms and hands, is not taught for traditional tango in either Argentina or Uruguay, the two countries where tango developed, although at times some form of open embrace is used for teaching purposes. Carpa is equally important for the dancers’ frame when dancing in the open embrace because the pressure and resistance, or counterpressure, of the position makes possible the physical lead/follow communication that tango requires.
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| Carlos Gavito and Marcella Durán demonstrate carpa on Argentine TV |
3. Lead-Follow. Tango is an improvisational dance. It is danced one weight change, one moment, at a time. It is imperative, therefore, that the dancers, while listening to the music with their ears, “listen” to each other with their bodies moment by moment, each tracking the sternum of the other as though there were an invisible bond between them. Lead and follow are through the connection and the movement of the torso, not the arms. The torso and the arms moving as a firm unit constitute the frame.
4. Movement. While the lead comes from the connection at the upper torso, the dancers move from their centers, which are in the area of the hips. The weighted foot pushes off from the floor, setting the center in motion. The free foot simply goes along for the ride, lightly brushing the floor with the front of the foot, falling into place under the dancer’s center in the new location. Dancers must practice centering on the newly-weighted foot, because with each weight change or “step” the ball of the newly-weighted foot becomes the base of the axis upon which they must always be ready to pivot. When stepping forward, the dancer steps heel first, rolling through the ball and toe if continuing, centering on the ball if pausing. Stepping backward, the free foot slides along the floor on the ball and toe before landing with the weight change on the ball. The heel may come down as the dancer’s axis lands in place, but only just touching the floor, with the weight on the ball (many experienced followers rarely even touch the floor with their heels while dancing). For every movement with a weight change the feet pass through the first position (feet together).
5. The Caminata. The caminata is often called “the walk” in English. But that is misleading at best. Caminata comes from the verb caminar, which more accurately means to travel. So the caminata is “the traveling.” (To call it “the walk” is too pedestrian a concept [pardon the double entendre]). In South America they like to say that the majority of the tango dance is the caminata. A tango dancer must therefore learn to <<dance>> the caminata—to travel like a dancer!
6. Musicality. When dancers have learned and practiced the first five foundations to the point that they have them in muscle memory, they can really begin to listen to the music and interpret it with their movement. Some parts of the music may suggest longer, slower steps, or pauses, while faster passages call for small, quick steps. Tango is musical drama. That drama is enacted through the contrast or conflict between fast and slow, light and dark, driving bass rhythms and bright lyrical passages, with sudden starts, pauses, and changes of direction. Our goal as tangueros and tangueras is to reflect all of that in our dancing. 
Raúl Mouré and Antonella Méndez
demonstrate for a class in Buenos
Aires, 2019
7. The Conversation (the interplay of the partners). In tango, dance is the enacting, in a stylized form, of a mutual seduction. It is something that happens between the two partners, and only to them. That is why they must be focused on each other with their whole being. Initially, as beginners, the lead and follow will be somewhat mechanical. But when dancers reach the level where they have the basics in muscle memory, that begins to change. The leader presents the follower with an opportunity to perform an adorno or embellishment. An elementary example would be leading them into an ocho followed by a parada or stop. When the leader does this, the follower has many choices. And what the follower does depends on her/his connection to the leader as well as to the music. In this example, the follower may execute a perfunctory pasada, simply stepping over the leader’s leg, or an elaborate drawn out one, caressing the leader’s leg with the shoe before stepping over. There are many possible variations. And if the leader is in tune with the follower and with the music, what the follower “says” through dance, will cause him or her to make an appropriate response.
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| Gastón Camejo and Lorena González from Montevideo Uruguay, 2014 Salon Style Tango World Champions |
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