There are few things as completely Argentinian than the tango. It’s the dance that defines our national character, born out of the country’s immigrant experience in the first decades of the 20th Century. Sometimes it’s slow and sensual, and sometimes it snaps like a sharply turned heel. Either way, I love it.
Most visitors to Argentina experience tango at a show, where professional dancers turn crisply to the sound of an orchestra, playing well-defined roles, where the men are hyper-masculine and the women’s dresses are slit to the thigh. But tango is so much more than these cliches. If you want to understand the real tango, let me take you on a tour of a milonga – the tango dance hall you’ll find across the country – to show you how we dance for our own pleasure.
Falling in love with tango
I didn’t grow up in a tango household. For my parents’ generation, tango was never a part of their lives. Its popularity started to fade in the 1960s with the arrival of The Beatles and Rock & Roll. A decade later, tango wasn’t even old fashioned any more – it was threatening. This was the time of military rule in Argentina, and tango was associated with Peronism, the political system the junta had overthrown. What tango had meant in the golden age of the 1930s to the 1950s, when orchestras played to halls full of dancers, started to fade from popular memory.
It wasn’t until the 2000s that tango really started to make a comeback in its home country. There were several popular tango shows that had toured the world, and when they came back to Argentina the time was ripe for its rediscovery by a new generation. I was just 17 years old and growing up in Mendoza, and I can remember the excitement of connecting with something with such a big and rich history. All the new tango kids were going out and talking to their grandparents, discovering that many of the great dancers and musicians of the golden age were still with us, and eager to pass on their traditions.
In the beginning, I didn’t take it very seriously. It was fun, but I was happy to just pick up the moves as they happened, rather than take any lessons. That all changed when I travelled to Buenos Aires, and saw the really good dancers in action.
Learning the steps
To understand tango — and what prompted me to start lessons — it’s essential to understand the milonga. A milonga is the place that people go to to dance tango (it’s also a dance in itself, but we’ll come to that), and a milonga is a place that is governed by rules. These are called codigos, and they’re there to make the dance run smoothly, but they’re not written down so they can easily trip up a novice dancer. At my first milonga in Buenos Aires, they definitely tripped me up.
There was a guy there that was a really amazing dancer. I didn’t really know anything about the unwritten rules, so I invited him to dance. We danced one dance and then he promptly said ‘thank you,’ and sat down. I was shocked! I knew I was only just starting to learn, but to be abandoned after a single song was proof that I didn’t know how to behave at a milonga. I didn’t understand the codigos.
Nowadays, I absolutely love taking novice dancers to a milonga. And even those who barely know a step always have a great time, because the trick is to go with someone who can point out who is doing what on the dancefloor, how to ask someone to dance and when to just sit back and watch.
The rules of the dance
To picture yourself at a milonga, imagine yourself in a large hall, or maybe a restaurant or club that has a dance floor. Food and drink is very much part of the experience, and people sit at tables at the edge of the dance floor, watching the action.
At your dream milonga, the music is played by a full orchestra, but these are rare, so you’ll often dance to a classic tango sextet instead. There’s someone at a piano, a double bass, two violins and two bandoneón – a type of accordion that gives tango its special flavour (I’m biased, but maybe that’s because my husband is a bandoneón player). If you’re lucky, there’s a guitarist and a singer as well. If there’s no band, it doesn’t matter too much – tango DJs are very skilled at putting together the best music to make the evening flow.
It should go without saying that choosing music is absolutely essential. The dancing is broken down into a group of four songs called a tanda, all of which have the same rhythm and tempo, and (if the DJ is good), all from the same year and played by the same orchestra, so that the music flows through the dancers. When you realise that every couple always dances a complete tanda, you can imagine my horror when that guy in Buenos Aires sat down after just one song – and why I was so determined to improve my steps.
After every tanda there’s a cortina, which is a short piece of music that’s not meant for dancing, but is a chance for dancers to return to their sets or take to the floor. Then, another tanda will strike up and the dance starts again. People are often surprised that not all the music you’ll dance to is tango. Nearly a third will be milonga, which is like a looser and more relaxed type of tango, or vals, which is an Argentinian waltz. But whatever is being played, everything comes in sets: to give everyone a chance to spend a proper amount of time on the dancefloor with their partner.
Glances across the dancefloor
But how do you actually go about finding a dance partner? This is the other place where I went so badly wrong on that first visit. One of the rules of the milonga is that everyone watches everyone – and sees everything. When you become a regular, this is a real delight. You can point out all the characters: the nervous new couple, the Russian guy who came here to learn tango, the old man with the light feet who’s still wearing the same suit he wore when he was dancing here in the 1960s.
But you’re also evaluating who you want to dance with, and who might like to dance with you. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman – it’s all done with a look. This is the cabeceo, and it’s absolutely essential. Say there’s a guy I want to dance with – I’ll make repeated eye contact with them, which will hopefully be met with a nod of the head – if he thinks I’m a good enough dancer. When the next tanda starts, we’ll dance.
If someone is trying to catch my eye that I don’t want to dance with, I’ll avoid his gaze until at least the first song has ended, because at that point he won’t be able to invite me to dance. It can feel like a strange system when you first encounter it, but I love it because it works so well. You always end up dancing with someone you’re well matched with, and it’s a subtle way of avoiding the walk of shame you’d get from crossing the dance floor only to be turned down.
The cabaceo is the one rule I wish I’d known on that first milonga in Buenos Aires. But getting to introduce new dancers to it is all part of the joy of tango. Those who are just there to have a drink and see the dancing get to enjoy it on a new level, because people-watching on the periphery is almost as much fun as the dance itself. Those who have just a few steps can take part and try to catch the eye of someone they think might make a good partner for the next tanda. And all of us get to sit back and watch the action late at night when the tango shows finish and the professional dancers come to the milongas to play wondering if they’ll ever try to catch your eye.
It’s been a long journey for me, but those lessons really do pay dividends: when a professional tango dancer catches you in the cabaceo and you dance a tanda together, there’s really nothing quite like it. Being able to connect with another person while dancing is where the magic of tango lies for me. Rules that seem daunting at first turn into a gateway to something marvellous. So if a tango show has given you a taste, why not follow it up and join us at the next milonga?
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All images by tango photographer Johanna Jezernicki, reproduced with kind permission.
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