Tango-Specific Features
By Elena Pankey

Our main subject of Tango Argentine Authentic Teaching is the “Energy inside the tango frame and relationships inside the embrace.” The embrace is what makes tango authentic. At the Tango Festival in Buenos Aries, the correct authentic embrace is the main thing to be achieved. Inside the embrace, a man carries a woman around the dance floor and the woman dances around the man in the space he provides for her by his frame.

In the middle of the 19th century, about 4 million immigrants, mostly men, came to Buenos Aires from many counties. Men were looking for an embrace with a woman, and dancing provided such an embrace. But because there were so many men and not enough women who danced, men needed to be very good at dancing in order to get their chance to get a dance. During the dance, they needed to hide and protect her from others by their embrace. The result was the special kind of embrace that gives tango the authentic look: The partner’s feet are far apart; the upper bodies are close.

Tango was born from many dance elements of different countries. Men exchanged their own national dance elements with each other while practicing them on the streets and before entering the expensive brothels or dance halls. Inside the buildings, the space was very limited, which gave rise to another characteristic of tango -- it could be danced in a very small space. (To read the entire article, please see the May/June 2008 issue of Dance San Diego!)

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