Tango LEGO

When I started tango I wasn’t so into going to dance in different places; I was quite happy in Edinburgh, I knew most people, had a regular group of people that knew enjoyed dancing with me and was generally confident. But my (full) time at Edinburgh drew to an end and, back in Braga, Portugal, I was getting cold turkeyed. So I decided to go to a milonga in Porto, about an hour drive and check out the scene.

I went in, the organisers greeted me, asked me about me, offered me a espresso and I went to sit quite happily. I stayed watching for a little bit and I was very confused. Everybody seemed to dance the same way! Everybody were copies of one another dressed in different bodies. The same ganchos, the same giros, the same embrace. Back in Edinburgh it’s the opposite. Even people that learn in the same place have different styles, different ways of walking, different solutions to get in and out of the dancing line. I asked somebody to dance and was again quite horrified when people did not understand a simple front ocho with a pasada. The simplest of things and they didn’t know how to follow it, even worse, they said that didn’t know what to do! I went home horrified that I had been learning the bad tango, that the last year and a half was hopeless.

It took me some time (weeks), but I soon realised that instead of dancing with an emphasis on the walk and on pure improvisation of movements derived from the walk, what these people were being taught was sets of moves that were pre-rehearsed and could be stuck one after the other, pretty much like a LEGO puzzle. LEGO tango? No thanks.