Tango, the Dance, Rerun 2016

By Ted Ross and Karen Lile

What is a Dance?
In its broadest sense, a dance can be any type of movement that rises above the ordinary walk and movements of everyday life. Dancing dates back to the earliest records of mankind. Dancing can express who we are, what is important to us, who is important to us, our culture, our visions, our dreams, our aspirations and the meanings we give to life. There is no limit to what a dance can be and what it can mean.

"Life is its own journey, presupposes its own change and movement,

and one tries to arrest them at one's eternal peril."

As people have created new dances, others have watched and wanted to learn. And as creators have attempted to teach others how to do what they created, communities of people have gathered around new dances and infused them with their culture and sociality.

Partner dancing has come from a tradition of teaching, learning and community. In essence, the partner dances seek to teach leaders and followers around the world how to dance a specific way so that anywhere you go, you can walk into a dance ballroom or club and ask someone to dance and they will be able to dance with you. Many of the partner dances we do today, have more than a hundred years of history that have gone into the development of the dances and the communities they are danced in. Two dance communities in particular are important to the roots of the Foxtantino. One is the Argentine Tango community and the other is the Fox Trot in the Ballroom Dance community.

"A Media Luz" por Libertad Lamarque

The Argentine Tango community sprang up around the partner dance creations of dancers in Argentina at the end of the 1800's. Its story has been told many times and in many ways. Today, the Argentine Tango community has developed into a group of people who are passionate about the dance, the music, the culture and the embrace and feeling of the Tango. They don't usually call their dance, Argentine Tango.

It is called Tango, for to them it is the first and only Tango and all offshoots are not Tango. Argentine Tango is primarily an improvisational dance that emphasizes musicality and emotion in dancing. There are strict etiquettes in Tango communities as to the way the people interact in the dancing. When you attend a traditional Milonga (an Argentine Tango social dance), you will hear mostly Tango music the whole night long. Neo or Nuevo Tango dancers have Milongas with a variety of music styles, but they are still mostly dancing the Tango through the evening.

"Alma De Bohemio" por Placido Domingo 

The Ballroom community has been strong and expanding for more than 90 years. Ballroom dances are formalized dances where steps are put together into dance figures and given names and taught in a similar manner in every ballroom around the world. Ballroom dances have come from the native dances of many cultures. When these dances were formalized into the Ballroom dance syllabus, they were changed to appeal to the values and styles that ballroom dancers were most familiar with.

If you go to a ballroom dance party today, there will be a variety of dance music played during the night, including Swing, Waltz, Rock, Salsa, Latin and Tango music. Ballroom dancers have assigned specific dances to each style and tempo of music. It is common that most of the dancers on the social dance floor will be dancing the same partner dance as everyone else to a particular musical composition. Some dances are non-progressive where the dance couples all dance in their own spot, independent. Is there more? You bet!