As long as I dance, I hear two messages. “Tango is really difficult. It takes ten years just to learn how to walk.” And “Tango is simple! Just embrace your partner and walk in the music.” As far as learning is concerned, the first definitely rings true. Every student told me that tango is hard and my own experience confirms it. If tango were simple, the worldwide tango community would look very different. For one, it would be much bigger. More beginners would stay past their first year (nowadays it’s between ten and twenty percent) and the number of advanced dancers would be higher, with less of a skill gap between various levels and therefore less suffering because such and such doesn’t dance with us. Obviously, this is not the case.
Of course, mastering any dance at a high level is difficult. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be interesting. Developing complex skills, especially learning complex movement patterns, is fantastic for our brain. Dancing, it turns out, lowers the risk of dementia. Imagine what learning a complex dance does to your brain! Tough skills open doors to new amazing experiences and humans, on the overall, like it difficult. But we are also lazy bastards. We want it all and we want it now.
When people come to tango from dances like salsa, swing or forro, they tell me that tango is to those dances what chess is to a party board game. It represents an entirely different level of complexity. It is a dance you cannot just “step into”. As a beginner your first milonga probably scared you. It takes between three months and one year before you can go out and actually be of any use to anybody on the dancefloor. With other beginners you feel hopelessly lost and experienced dancers don’t dance with you. If you are a young woman, certain male dancers would gladly entertain you, even insist on teaching you a few steps, but not necessarily because you are a promising dancer. You can shorten this initial period if you have prior dance experience or invest a lot of effort. But no matter how hard you try, learning tango takes a really long time for a dance that is supposed to be, you know, leisure. And the more you progress, the more you realise how much there is still to learn.
So what makes tango so difficult?
Without pretending to be exhaustive, I will highlight several factors. The first might not be the one to immediately cross your mind yet it is essential and sets tango apart from many other dances. It’s NAVIGATION. In tango you have to actively move around the room all the time. Couples do not each have their own static “bubble”. It’s more like a highway. I have always believed, from my experience with solo dances, that we underestimate just how hard it is for humans to actively move around a large space while dancing complex movement patterns. And here we have to do it together with another person! The walk is the pillar element because it allows the couple to move around the dancefloor quickly. Yet, despite everyone proclaiming that “tango is all about the walk”, you will hardly see any couple really walk in a milonga. Why is that? Several reasons. First, because of congestion: if one couple does not move, the couples behind it can’t move either or start to overtake, whipping the dancefloor into a mess. Second, in tango we have many complicated figures and when we dance complicated stuff, we tend to remain in one spot. Nowadays tango seems to be much more about turning than walking. And last but not least, walking comfortably in close embrace is surprisingly difficult. Therefore, once on the dancefloor, leaders prefer to dance all kinds of other moves, making bumpy traffic problem number one of every crowded event.
The second essential complication in tango is the EMBRACE. It is one thing to lead or follow another person while loosely holding one or both hands and a totally different matter to dance in close embrace, chest, hands and head touching, arms enveloping the other person. In some moves your feet, thighs and ankles will touch as well. Close embrace is the main reason why learning to walk smoothly together is so hard. As a leader you have to advance with another person literally stuck to your chest, blocking your way, moving backwards blindly, while you try not to step on her (or his) toes. As a follower you have a person walking through you, taking you somewhere you cannot see, while you try to move away in time not to get knocked over backwards or stepped upon. In normal life the one who follows is behind the one who leads, right? Not in tango. I always enjoy the look on the leaders’ faces when I tell them in tango they are the real followers.
The technical difficulty of dancing in an embrace is to be calm in the upper body but dynamic in the legs. This combination of a relaxed, toned upper body and active strong legs requires a degree of control from your nervous system that takes a long time to develop. This is true for any dance, by the way. At first you will be either tense all over or way too relaxed, and in both states your body will be reluctant to move. Next to close we also have an open embrace, allowing us to dance larger movements. Each type of embrace comes with its own set of possibilities, but also with its own set of difficulties. Some things are harder to do in close embrace, such as simply walking in line. Other things are more difficult to communicate in open embrace, because you have no upper body contact and feel less stable, especially the follower.
Close embrace not only brings with it a lot of technical challenges, it is complicated in terms of human factor. Apart from being often highly uncomfortable, close embrace can be overwhelmingly intimate. In Western cultures we rarely hug strangers for a prolonged period of time. We even rarely hug people we know well, for that matter. For people who come into tango with a history of physical or sexual abuse, close embrace can trigger debilitating anxiety. Yet, close embrace is why we adore tango. It is what gives us our most intense experiences. The reason we tend to be selective about with whom we dance is largely due to the subtleties and the intensity of close embrace.
By themselves, navigation and embrace wouldn’t be so challenging if tango did not have a remarkably vast VOCABULARY of steps. Back in the old days, when it didn’t, people could say “tango is all about the walk!” and not fool themselves. Nowadays, when studying or practicing you will notice – and be amazed by – just how endless the possibilities are. Not only do we have a vast vocabulary, we are supposed to IMPROVISE with it in the moment. Not surprisingly, in a milonga we end up repeating the same figures over and over again because in order to use this vast vocabulary real-time you have to practice it thoroughly first. And did I mention we were lazy bastards?
Next, you have the difficulties of each role in the CONNECTION. Because of the enveloping embrace, partners must communicate by subtle messages. Subtle communication takes a long time to finetune, especially if you want to be able to communicate with a large variety of partners. A good lead is invisible and good following is instantaneous, hesitation-free, like inspiration. The better the lead, the more dancing feels as if the movements were generated directly inside the follower’s body. Good following feels like reading the leader’s mind. At a high level partners become so trained to react to the tiniest of intentions that the communication seems to happen telepathically. Show that level of connection to beginners and they will think it’s magic. And frankly, it is.
Technically, each role has its specific challenges. By “TECHNIQUE” I mean each partner’s own dancing (posture, balance, pivoting, aesthetics). While the leader’s main challenges are leading and navigating, nowadays the follower’s role tends to be more difficult technically. It was not always the case, but in the last decade the follower’s vocabulary evolved dramatically. Follower’s technique is about a very active use of the free leg and lots of pivoting at all times, all of this on high heels. Also, the follower’s movement has to look aesthetical at any moment, which is a huge technical challenge. Following well and dancing beautifully are two distinct skills. An additional complication is that the follower does not choose the vocabulary. Leaders can decide to lead difficult stuff or not, to dance difficult stuff themselves or not, to care about aesthetics or just concentrate on the “driving”. As a follower, you take what you get and you make the best of it. This is why more followers than leaders take technique classes and if you think it’s just to polish their adornos, you obviously never tried to dance back ochos on high heels without a partner or a wall.
To complicate things further we have GENRES: tango, milonga and waltz. Each comes with its own history, rhythmical patterns and specific vocabulary. Next, we have STYLES: salon, milonguero, nuevo and somewhat separately tango escenario, or stage tango. The latter gets more attention nowadays and inevitably starts to influence the way professionals perform in tango events, adding spectacular vocabulary into the fabric of social improvisation. Taken apart, each style can be seen as an array of preferred figures and specific technical and aesthetic parameters. Sometimes what is “not done” in one style serves as a basic principle in another. At the same time styles are not strictly defined, because, like tango, they have evolved organically. Most people dance what I call “fusion”, mixing steps and elements from various sources. Stylistic variations add enormous depth to tango, but make it harder to grasp, especially when you are a beginner. If on top of that certain teachers proclaim that their style is the only true tango, it all becomes terribly confusing.
If the above wasn’t enough trouble, we have the MUSIC. Despite its simple rhythmic structure, tango is rich in texture and built as a narrative, a story composed of phrases, with an introduction, some rising tension, a climax and a conclusion. Tango music captures your attention in a powerful way, richly syncopated, lavishly adorned with accents, incredibly versatile, presenting the full emotional range from tragedy to happiness, each orquestra adding its own distinct sound and colouring. You are not supposed to dance a dramatic Pugliese the same way you would a light, sunny Fresedo. Like vocabulary, musical interpretation begins with very basic concepts like stepping on the beat and moves up to complex things such as interpreting the narrative line or expressing the energetic quality of the moment: tender vs strong, light vs heavy, flowing vs bouncy. This means that in tango you have to develop your musical hearing and interpretational skills as a dancer. Did I mention tango is fantastic for your brain?
As you see, our attention in dance runs along four channels: music, our own movement, communication with our partner and navigation in space. And on all those four channels things get REALLY COMPLICATED. Focusing on all of them simultaneously is a huge cognitive task. The way our brain functions makes it so that humans can hold only a very limited amount of elements in their working memory at the same time (also called “short term memory”). The more something is new, the more cognitive resources it will require. The whole purpose of practicing is to lower the cognitive load when dancing. Once a movement is familiar, it no longer uses so much of the working memory and the focus can expand to include something else.
Communication is the primary channel, for if this does not work, everything else is of little use. With beginners we therefore try to establish a basis for partner communication first, in other words, that which makes tango tango. We insist that leaders concentrate on making steps and taking decisions, or else nothing happens, and that followers concentrate on listening and following exactly what is being led, so leaders can have direct feedback of their actions. If we stress followers with too many technical details in an early stage, they would not be able to concentrate on following. The same way we cannot demand that beginning leaders pay close attention to music, if that stops them from communicating with the partner.
When some basic vocabulary is in place and the connection in the couple is working, we can enlarge our students’ focus to include technique: balance, posture, aesthetics. Eventually we bring their attention to the music and cultivate a sense of flow on the dancefloor. For beginners with prior dance experience it is easier to include music and their own movement already at an early stage because they come with a developed body awareness and are able to follow the rhythm. Beginners with experience in contact improvisation, couple dances or martial arts usually have an easier time with communication. Everybody will run into problems with navigation, though, simply because the other channels take up so much of our attention.
As teachers we keep oscillating between the four channels, directing our students’ attention to one or two things at a time. If the cognitive load is too high, the students will get overwhelmed and give up. Therefore we have to slice the material in layers and to take people through stages progressively. The more difficult a dance is, the more stages there will be and the longer it will take. Often, in order to pass through a stage successfully, teachers have to pretend the next stage doesn’t exist. For example, we insist that beginners learn to step in three clear directions: front, back and side. Every time they make a diagonal or a curved step, we tell them they cannot do that. Once the students are capable of making clear lines with these three directions, we say: now you also have diagonal and curved steps. In another example we tell leaders at first to never lead with their arms. Once they have an understanding of the embrace as a frame and a space, their arms well connected to the upper body, we show them which movements they can and have to, actually, lead with their arms.
This phenomenon produces frequent moments of astonishment “And I thought I knew everything!” and is related to how humans develop control of their motor functions. If we let students walk in every possible direction from the beginning, they will be zigzagging all over the place like a drunk crowd on a night out. They first have to learn the basics of a precise, clean walk. To deviate gracefully you have to control the primary directions. To disconnect something effectively, you must have everything connected first. In that sense tango is full of paradoxes because literally everything is possible. One teacher may tell you things in exact opposition to what another teacher told you. Many people stop studying after a couple of years because they simply cannot handle this reality. So, if right now you feel like you have to learn everything all over again, don’t despair. Have a glass of champagne: you just got to the next stage.
Accepting that tango is difficult in general means that, if it is difficult for you in particular, you are perfectly NORMAL. It is difficult for all of us. We can safely say that tango is not for everybody and not be condescending. It also explains why so few people make it into their second year, why truly advanced dancers are a small minority and why in every community there will always be some kind of hierarchy based on how people dance, despite our efforts to be sociable. So, when someone declines to dance with you because of a large skill gap, remember this person has a point. You have the right to decline a dance for that reason, too.
We can deny tango its complexity, nostalgic of the days bygone, but who are we kidding? Every art form, tango included, always moves towards a higher complexity, because in art stagnation means disappearance. Yet, paradoxically, the statement “tango is simple, just embrace your partner and walk to the music” is also still true. Only it’s not about the learning, it’s about the dancing. Just because tango is complex, your dance doesn’t have to be. Tango is a language and like a language, it can yield both poetry and small talk, silly jokes and deep thoughts. Here you might expect some encouraging statement from my part, something about taking the challenge and persevering in your efforts, but in truth, it is all up to you. I will say just this: tango growing more and more complicated means that this dance is still vibrantly, passionately, gloriously alive.
October 18, 2018
Veronica Toumanova 