Tag: argentine tango

Argentine Tango class by Marcelo Solis assisted by Mimi on salida basica

How to dance Argentine Tango: salida básica

The leader walks to join the follower and offers his left hand.

The follower takes it with her right hand and embraces the leader placing her left hand on the leader’s back, and the leader completes the embrace with his right arm.

Change weight.

For the leader:

One: step backward with your right.

Two: step to the side with your left and place your feet together.

Three: forward with your right, stepping outside your partner.

Four: left forward.

Five: feet together.

Six: forward with your left.

Seven: side step with your right.

Eight: feet together.

For the follower:

One: step forward with your left.

Two: step to the side with your right, and place your feet close together.

Three: backward with your left.

Four: right backward.

Five: cross your left foot in front of your right foot.

Six: backward with your right.

Seven: side step with your left.

Eight: feet together.

Again:

For the leader:

One: step backward with your right.

Two: step to the side with your left and place your feet together.

Three: forward with your right, stepping outside your partner.

Four: left forward.

Five: feet together.

Six, seven, and eight can be count as “tan-go-close”

For the follower:

One: step forward with your left.

Two: step to the side with your right, and place your feet close together.

Three: backward with your left.

Four: right backward.

Five: cross your left foot in front of your right foot.

Tan-Go-Close.

Maintain a close embrace during the whole sequence.

Arms maintain their shape while remaining elastic.

Walk smoothly and precisely.

Argentine Tango is an improvisational dance. However, elements like this one are useful in your learning process.

Ver esta clase en español

See more video lessons:

See all video lessons

Jorge Ortiz and Rodolfo Biagi, Argentine Tango artists.

Argentine Tango music playlist #159

Argentine Tango music playlist

A selection of tangos, milongas, and valses.

Argentine Tango music for dancing. prepared for classes, practice, or for your enjoyment. Starting with a set of tangos by Rodolfo Biagi orchestra with Jorge Ortiz, followed by Carlos Di Sarli’s instrumental selection, and many more.

More Argentine Tango music:

Share
Tweet
Share
Pin
More

Argentine Tango dancing by Marcelo Solis and Mimi in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Why do we choose to dance Argentine Tango with some people and not with others?

Why do we choose to dance with some people and not with others?

The first thing we should clarify is that possibly nothing in dance is absolutely conscious and voluntary and that chance always plays the leading role; I would even dare to generalize this introduction to all the processes of life and to everything that exists; but I am going to conform and remain in a rather humble place (which, coming from an Argentine, may arouse some incredulity), speaking only about the dance, restricting myself to a particular case of human life – although I would like you to know that I think that the dance (in this case the dance of the Tango, which I consider the kind of dance that is more dance than any other dance) is human life par excellence.

When we grow older and wise – if we weren’t fortunate enough to be born wise – our most practical, sound wisdom turns out to be that we shouldn’t spend our energies trying to control what is beyond our possibilities.

We can’t handle much more than ourselves, and what little we can control other than ourselves, we achieve anyway through great control of our actions and attitudes.

As we learn to apply this general principle in the particular cases that the development of time brings to us, Tango dancers, that is, we milongueros, find ourselves facing a problem that is not small: dancing Tango implies a strong dependence on other people, which, we continually learn, we cannot control.

Since the only thing we can access some control is ourselves, we learn to be more and more careful and meticulous in choosing the people to whom we grant the privilege of becoming dependent on them, of giving ourselves.

So we could talk here about establishing a contract with these people, a pact that has the beauty of not being manifest, not written, not spoken, and that can be freely terminated and renewed by any of the parties, a relationship of privilege and freedom that we might as well call friendship; which could not be objectively defined, with for example a list of principles and requirements. This contract, this friendship, will be constantly defined and re-defined by the subjectivities involved.

I am referring not only to the people with whom we dance; but also to the people with whom we like to chat, laugh, share or sit close; because in the milonga, what is our manifest objective, intuitive or involuntary, is to inspire ourselves, which is sometimes explained in words like “being happy,” and at the same time inspire and cause happiness in our colleagues.

On occasions we have danced with someone with whom we have felt such a connection, such an openness to express ourselves, such an encouragement to reveal our maximum capacities in the dance, that everything that was not dancing disappeared, and the world and the other couples on the dance floor were there in an almost imperceptible way; everything found its meaning and even the mistakes became necessary to that dance, so much so that, now we know, they were not mistakes but capricious choreographic creations, daughters of chance and of our strength, intelligence and preparation to integrate everything that happens in the thread of our choreography, of our improvisation, like pearls and precious stones, and exotic and unknown flowers and creatures, that nature made appear there, for us, for our enjoyment.

Will it happen again? And with the same person?

There are no guarantees for this. Neither people nor any code establishes it. Only the freedom inherent in a friendship that could come from a joyous and satisfying common experience.

However, even if we want that moment, that experience, and that state to return, we already know very well, if we are realistic, that nothing happens in the same way again. So, the dancer proposes a new goal each time: to wish and act following that wish, that the next time the dance, our dance, will be better.

And here we find that paradoxical problem: will the other person, the other people, want the same thing, something called better dancing, and that would mean at least approximately the same thing, or would it be complementary to what I call with those exact words?

This is a significant problem, and it appears here because dancing Tango is not at all something superficial. On the contrary, it requires we have the courage and the predisposition to face it, dedicate time to it, learn, study, observe, investigate, question, practice, create, do, recreate, and do countless times again, without worrying about quantities, because we could not dance Tango without being generous, starting with being generous with ourselves, with our living bodies, with our joy of being alive.

Continue learning Argentine Tango:

Leer este artículo en español

How to become a good dancer

–and keep getting better.

Find the answer

Argentine Tango music

Music to learn to dance

Listen and dance!

History of Argentine Tango

Tango is a culture

Learn more about Tango

Argentine Tango dancing with Mimi at Enchanted Tango Home 37

Live your life to the fullest.

Watch more Argentine Tango performances

Learn to dance Argentine Tango

Learn to dance!

In-person and virtual classes

See schedule:

“Nos encontramos al pasar” by Lucio Demare y su Orquesta Típica with Horacio Quintana in vocals, 1945 (English translation of the lyrics).

Music: Raúl Kaplún. Lyrics: José María Suñé

We meet as we pass
You are the same, the same as yesterday,
There is anxiety in your eyes
And the same gray of dusk.

I know of a deathly sorrow,
That in your soul left
Terror of being able to love.
And it’s that deathly sorrow,
The cross of your love, you see
Wanted to separate us.
We meet as we pass by
and today like yesterday
I love you just the same.
Still the same as yesterday, your night
Shadow and pain of a memory,
I do not have a reproach,
If you are in hell
That could do more than me.
I always have that love
It was and is yours, all yours,
Your yesterday undone
It is so far,
It never comes back.
There is a past to forget
And a great pain, which must be killed,
There is another life to live
And there is this love which still lives in me.
We have a long way to go
That’s why my voice
It clings to your loneliness.
I seek in the shadow to frighten,
The voices of horror, which shake
Your nights of anxiety.
There is a life and a love,
That is in me
Same as yesterday.

More Argentine Tango lyrics

Listen and buy:

Amazon music
iTunes music
Spotify

We are happy to have a collaboration with the people from tangotunes.com from whom some of you may have heard, they do high-quality transfers from original tango shellacs.

It is the number 1 source for professional Tango DJs all over the world.

Now they started a new project that addresses the dancers and the website is https://en.mytango.online
You will find two compilations at the beginning, one tango and one vals compilation in amazing quality.
The price is 50€ each (for 32 songs each compilation) and now the good news!