CHOREOGRAPHY
The choreography of tango is
often the first thing that attracts people to this dance. It initially strikes one
as at once free, varied, and sensual. The legs and the feet move in precise
coordination, as though belonging to one four-legged being, meet and follow
each other in many different ways. By “choreography” I really mean choreographic possibilities, for at
its best tango is an improvised dance, with no preset sequence of movements.
This means that all pure tango steps can be led and followed spontaneously,
without any special signals to be agreed upon by the partners. One only needs
to be aware of the possibilities, after which all proper tango figures can be executed simply through a good
connection within the couple, by either stepping,
turning the body, or twisting the body. Some figures may also require a
change in levels by slight bending or straightening the legs, but that is a
relatively minor issue. THE MAIN
CHALLENGE in choreography is to let it become more complex and varied while
keeping it pure. This means
keeping partner connection close, body movement natural, and all leading and
following non-manipulated. By “non-manipulated” I mean such leading and
following which does not involve any special hand or arm signals, and is
effected with the movement of the whole body, while the embrace stays close and
effortless. Examples of impure figures are volcadas and colgadas. These figures
usually require a special lead, and inevitably violate the principles of
balance and effortlessness (see Partner
Connection and Body Conditioning
sections).
Trying to explain the
choreography of tango in writing is an ungrateful task. A video presentation
can accomplish it much more effectively, and the best by far is to learn from
someone in person. Eventually I may include a video in this website. But for
now I will present the structure of this dance in diagrams and words, also
because the diagrams may be good for showing how the choreographic
possibilities of this dance can be explored in a systematic way.
Some tango purists in Buenos
Aires claim that true tango is just walking together to the music, no fancy
figures. I would not go that far, but I would agree that walking together is
the very essence of tango, and that considerable depth of experience can be
achieved through just such simple walking. Walking together while facing each
other in a close embrace, in line with each other (meaning that the man steps
straight forward essentially replacing the woman’s foot which moves straight
back at the same time) is at once the simplest and the most difficult tango
figure. Very few dancers can do it with ease. Over the years, I also discovered
that learning how to do it well is a big key to many other figures. In my
experience, the best partner connection is discovered through walking in line.
The old-timers used to say that one should just walk for the most part of a
tango, and do figures only sometimes, preferably towards the end of the song.
But the most important point is that *all
true tango choreography is accomplished through natural walking*. That
is, whenever stepping is involved, it must be proper natural stepping, no
special manipulation of the legs and the feet. This is to me one of the most
beautiful features of this dance and the biggest key to its elegance. As I
mention repeatedly, developing proper natural movement is most important for
improving one’s tango (see Body
Conditioning section).
The purest approach to
learning tango would be to work on one’s basic movement and practice walking
together with a partner until it feels as easy as walking by oneself. After
that, many figures would feel easy. But most of us do not have the patience to
do that – we want to have a few more choreographic possibilities at hand in
order to feel like we are really dancing, really improvising. This is
understandable – I myself have succumbed to this temptation many times and on
many levels. But I have learned how to keep this drive to expand my vocabulary
in check. I now use not more than 5% of all the choreographic possibilities
which I am aware of – that is the portion of them which I can do with
relatively good quality. The rest my body is not in shape for. I used to think
that one could just practice those more difficult steps until they started to
work, but I have since learned otherwise. There were figures, like for example
the planeo, which I really wanted to learn. I went to three different teachers,
all very highly regarded, and asked them specifically about the planeo. They
all offered their theories of how to learn it, but it was to no avail. No
matter how much I practiced, by myself and with a partner, I could not get it,
until I finally gave it up. Some time afterwards, I began finding ways to
improve my basic movement. After a couple of years of that work, the planeo
suddenly started happening by itself, without much effort on my part. It
suddenly felt natural. The same kind of thing happened with many other steps. I
understood that tango choreography works best if it is reinvented by each
dancer, if it grows organically as a result of improving body movement and
partner connection. One should not work too much on figures which feel
difficult, but rather focus on doing
the simpler figures better. This applies mostly to the men, but in some
respects also to the women, who can sometimes get too involved in executing as
many embellishments as possible, as often as possible. The men, of course, are
the most frequent victims of this desire for quantity instead of quality. The
whole “open embrace” movement came out of the desire for more choreographic
freedom than what seemed
possible in a close embrace. A very frequent comment made by women is: “oh, he
is a very good dancer as long as he dances close and does the simple stuff, but
he is terrible when he separates and tries the more complicated steps.” The
varied and sometimes flamboyant language of tango can be initially fascinating,
but the truth is that the choreographic freedom of this dance is probably the
least important for its deeper enjoyment. On the other hand, the various levels
of difficulty of tango figures provide a good feedback on one’s progress – when
one’s body movement and partner connection improve, more difficult figures
become available without much effort.
It is next to impossible to
explain all the dynamics of a dance in writing, which is why this section is a
rough sketch. The main reason I am writing it at all is that I know that
understanding some general principles about how one can build one’s tango
vocabulary ad infinitum has been liberating for me. The responsibility that
comes with this knowledge is to use it in moderation, without sacrificing the
quality of the more fundamental aspects: body movement, partner connection, and
musicality. However, tango choreography
is also an effective test of all other aspects of the dance. As long
choreography is kept pure, the variety and the complexity of it will depend
directly on the quality of body conditioning and partner connection. I will not
try to explain exactly which figures a beginner should start with beyond simple
in-line walking (this is best pursued with a teacher in person), nor will I
attempt to cover the whole of tango vocabulary, which probably has no limit.
For the most part, I would like to show how this dance is built around basic
walking, and also to provide a structure for a serious student to explore its
possibilities in a more or less systematic way.
The Overall Structure
As much as I dislike the
so-called “new tango”, I must thank the originators of it for seeing the
structure of the dance with an unprecedented clarity. Before them, tango
existed as a collection of sequences which were invented by various dancers of
the past, copied and modified. There had been no systematic approach to
understanding the various choreographic possibilities. The ways to lead had
also been unclear, and sometimes degenerated into outright manhandling of the
woman. The originators of the “new tango” (Gustavo Naveira, Fabian Salas, and
Mariano “Chicho” Frumboli) understood at least two very important principles.
One is that one should lead not with the arms but with the whole body – the
lead may transmit through the arms, but must be a communication through the
movement of the entire body. The other is that the structure of tango is best
explored literally one step at a time.
(*Once again, I would like to stress that this approach is most useful for a somewhat
experienced dancer; for a beginner it is best to learn several simple sequences
and focus more on good partner connection, body movement and musicality.*)
Following this principle, I will discuss the figures which act as the most
fundamental building blocks of this dance, consisting of at most one step of
the man and/or one step of the woman. The sequences that can be constructed out
of these basic elements are too many to name or to count, and are up to each
individual dancer (at the end of this section I will discuss some common
sequences). However, the sequence actually matters a lot more than the
individual figures. In spite of a good number of possibilities which I am going
to discuss, the woman can only be led into three fundamentally different steps:
back, side, and forward. Add to it the slight variations of the small cross and
the close, plus some pivots and voleos, and that’s it! The great variety of
combinations is created by the sequences
that the man creates out of these few possibilities, what he does to accompany
them, and how well both partners use it all to interact with the music.
I like to separate the
figures by the type of lead used in there execution. As I have said before,
pure tango does not use any special hand or arm signals. The hands transmit the
lead, but the lead is sent and received by the center of the body. The main
four leads are:
-
Moving the bodies together
in the same direction – “walking” figures.
-
Moving the bodies around
each other – “turning” figures.
-
Twisting the body in order
to lead/follow a turning or a twisting of the partner’s body (an example is the
voleo which can be done by either stepping around the woman or by twisting in
place) – “twisting” figures.
-
Changing levels – sinking or
rising; there are not many separate figures which depend on this lead – rather,
it is used for certain transitions, amplifying certain figures, making the
steps longer or shorter; the only figure which depends on changing levels that
is worth noting is “the close”, as I will explain shortly.
It is noteworthy that the
same step of the woman can sometimes be led in different ways. For example, to
lead her side step, the man can either step to the side or turn his body. The
voleo can be led either by stepping around the woman or twisting in place (more
on this shortly). Eventually, a dancer can find him- or herself executing
moving, turning, twisting, and changing levels all at once. Ultimately, one is
no longer aware of the precise dynamics, but leads with a direct intention from
the center of the body. Nevertheless, to begin with, I believe this breakdown
is helpful.
Same Direction Figures
a) Parallel System
Parallel system is also
known as “natural opposite”. It means that when the man moves his right foot, the
woman moves her left, and vice versa. It is the most natural way to coordinate
the steps in any partner dance. But tango also sometimes uses the so-called
“crossed” system, which I will discuss a little later.
Below are the diagrams of
all the fundamental possibilities of stepping in the same direction in parallel
system. I will denote them with the letters W (for “walking” figure), P (for
parallel system), a number (quite arbitrary), and R or L depending on whether
the man moves his right foot
or his left. All diagrams use the point of view of the man.
FIGURE 1
Walking in Parallel System
