Tango Is a Language (I)

You might not think of tango as a language, but it truly is. Like any language, it can be taught, learned, understood, and used to convey information: intention, emotion, musical interpretation, and qualities of movement—such as type, size, direction, speed, and variations. Those who speak this language fluently can communicate seamlessly on the dance floor, reading their partner’s cues and responding in harmony. Those who don’t often struggle to express themselves or interpret their partner, leading to awkward and frustrating experiences.

Tango, like any language, has its own alphabet, vocabulary, grammar, and composition. The parts of the body—head, arms, hands, torso, waist, hips, legs, and feet—form tango’s alphabet. With these, we build steps—the vocabulary. Musicality and communication provide the grammar, guiding how steps are combined into an expressive, improvised dance. Choreography, which arranges steps into a cohesive artistic performance, is the composition.

As with any language, the study of tango should begin with its alphabet and grammar. Without the alphabet, words cannot be formed. Without grammar, words cannot be used. A common problem in tango learning is that we focus almost entirely on vocabulary—memorizing steps—while neglecting the alphabet and grammar. We don’t embrace correctly. We don’t understand the functions of various body parts, using them awkwardly or improperly in dance (see The Functions of Various Body Parts in Tango). Our posture is poor. Our connection is broken. Our bodies are stiff, heavy, and inflexible. We are unable to dissociate the upper body and the lower body. Our movements lack balance and stability. We don’t listen to the music. We don’t step on the beat. We don’t follow the mood or sentiment of the music. We don't communicate well. Our lead is unclear, and our follow, clumsy. As a result, even though we may know many steps, we cannot combine them in a way that is meaningful, musical, harmonious, and beautiful.

Tango also has a vast vocabulary. But just as no one knows every word in a spoken language, no one masters all the steps in tango. Fortunately, fluency doesn't require exhaustive knowledge. In Chinese, for example, there are over 60,000 characters. The most comprehensive dictionary—the Kangxi Dictionary—contains 47,000 characters. The popular Xinhua Dictionary lists about 8,500. Yet, just 950 characters make up 90% of what’s used in everyday writing. Adding another 2,800 covers 99.9%. Most Chinese characters are rarely used.

Tango is similar. Only a limited number of steps are essential for social dancing: walk, salida, resolution, switch between parallel system and cross system, cruzada, pivot, dissociation, cadencia, front ocho, back ocho, molinete, giro, rock, and traspie. These basic steps form 90% of the steps used in social tango dancing. More complicated steps, such as ocho cortado, sacada, sandwich, boleo, rulo, parada, barrida, corrida, carpa, planeo, lapiz, enganche, volcada, americana, media vuelta, media luna, arrastrar, zarandeo, make up the other 9% less common, optional and dispensable steps in social dancing.

Then there are 1% steps primarily used in performance tango: enrosque, giro–enrosque–lapiz combinations, calesita, castigadas, back sacadas, ganchos, high boleos, colgadas, single-axis turns, soltadas, patadas, sentadas, kicks, and lifts. These are the domain of professional performers, added for dramatic effect. They lack the friendliness of the social tango steps, are difficult, uncomfortable, dangerous, or requiring a lot of space to do, therefore are not suitable for social dancing (see Social Tango and Performance Tango).

It’s unwise to focus on what is rarely used while neglecting the fundamentals that truly matter. Yet many tango students do exactly that. A better approach is to focus on tango’s alphabet, grammar, and core vocabulary instead of jumping into big fancy words without a solid foundation. Frankly, for most people, the basics are all they need to enjoy social tango. Once you understand that, tango becomes a simple and accessible dance. Those with special talent and interest in performance can pursue that path—but only after mastering the fundamentals, and certainly not at a milonga, where even professionals dance socially and respectfully. (See Tango Is a Language (II).)

Driving and Synchronization

Raul Cabral is a master of tango—an insightful thinker and renowned teacher of the milonguero style. On his website, http://www.raultangocabral.com.ar, he published a series of essays that delve deeply into the essence of tango. The following is a brief summary of his key message about achieving synchronization through a proper embrace.

The most important qualities of a tango dancer have nothing to do with steps. For the leader, what matters most are musicality and the ability to drive or guide the follower. For the follower, it is to move with lightness and to synchronize fully with the leader.

In tango, the leader is the driver—he uses his body to generate the movement of his partner. Each of his steps should transmit to hers, or be expressed through her. Driving does not mean that he moves first and waits for her to follow. Tango is synchronization: moving together, at the same time. In this light, the word “follow” is misleading, as it implies a delay—even the smallest lag breaks synchronization. A better metaphor is that the follower steps into the moving car of the leader, allowing herself to be carried along with him on a shared musical journey.

The magic of tango—the unique experience of two bodies moving as one—is made possible through the embrace. It is the embrace that allows the body to communicate intention, energy, and emotion. Many people, through tango, are beginning to discover the importance of the embrace, which takes us back to the first years of our lives, the earliest experiences of human connection, and the protective warmth of a woman’s chest. It is this deep need for connection that draws people to tango and gives it universal appeal.

Driving and synchronization are made possible through the quality of the embrace. Since the beginning of tango, there has been only one true form of communication in the dance: corporal, from body to body—not from arms to arms. The partners connect through their torsos, each leaning slightly forward, balanced over the entire foot, including the heels. Each dancer maintains their own balance. The man opens his chest and offers it to the woman, welcoming her into his space. He holds her firmly but without pressure—his body is relaxed, never tense or rigid. He leads with his entire body, especially through the chest, from which he communicates everything: feeling, direction, step size, timing, cadence, pauses, and more. He maintains uninterrupted contact with her, never breaking the flow of communication.

The woman settles into the embrace, molding herself to him as if he were wearing her. She leans slightly forward, aligning her chest to receive every subtle message from his torso. Her upper body extends from the waist like the string of a violin, ready to vibrate at his slightest signal. She remains soft and relaxed. Through this relaxation, her extremities—legs, arms, and head—become light and almost immaterial, while her chest becomes the center of perception. This attunement allows her to feel the leader’s intentions and move in perfect unison. Her weight is centered on the inside ball of the foot, with the whole foot—including the heel—anchored to the floor. Her arm rests gently and weightlessly on his shoulder. She doesn’t hang on him or use the embrace for support; she holds her own balance, making herself light. She is supple yet toned, soft yet without looseness (such as in the hips). Her presence is felt through the subtle but assured pressure of her chest against his. She does not retreat or break the connection, knowing that any separation will cut her off from his signals. She remains continuously attuned to the messages that come from his chest. Until the music ends, her chest remains in constant contact with his. This is the most precise path to true synchronization.

Tango Embrace

Tango can be danced in a variety of ways. For example, it can be danced in a virtual embrace, where the two partners dance at a distance without any physical contact. The man leads with visual signals to indicate movements, while the women interprets these cues to execute each step. A visual lead is difficult to perceive because it cannot be felt and must be seen. The differences between signals often are so subtle that they are difficult to discern with the eye. It's quite a challenge for the man to send a clear visual signal and for the woman to apprehend it. Also, a virtual embrace lacks the physicality, touch, sensation, and comfort of a physical embrace, disabling movements that require physical support. Despite these, the virtual embrace highlights an essential distinction between leading and following: one is ploting the dance, and the other is beautifying the dance. It also underscores that leading and following are not purely physical but deeply psychological, requiring mental focus and understanding. This awareness is crucial, as we cannot dance well with our legs unless we can dance with our hearts.

Tango can also be danced in an open dance hold like that in ballroom dancing, where the dancers connect only through their arms and hands. Arms and hands are extensions of the body, so even without direct torso contact, dancers can still sense each other’s intentions through their arms and hands. The open dance hold, also known by its fine-sounding name “open embrace,” provides more space for dancers to maneuver, making it popular among movement-oriented dancers who enjoy performing elaborate figures. It is arguable, however, that in an open embrace dancers still lead and follow with their torsos as they theoretically should. In reality, the absence of torso contact often leads dancers to rely on their arms and hands for signaling, which is not as seamless as leading and following with torsos. Also, the open embrace lacks the intimacy, comfort, and soulful quality of the close embrace.

Tango can also be danced with only torso contact, excluding the use of arms and hands. Direct torso communication is unique and essential to Argentine tango, making it an intimate, feeling-oriented, and soulful dance. However, beginners often shy about intimacy and adhere to the habit of using their arms and hands to send and receive signals. To help students overcome this hurdle, tango teachers may ask them to dance with only torso contact, without using their arms and hands. Some teachers even place a piece of paper between the students' chests, instructing them to keep it from falling as they dance. While people don’t actually dance tango this way, the skills developed through this training provide students with a solid foundation for their tango.

The most comfortable and communicative embrace is the close embrace, in which partners lean into each other, chest against chest, and cheek touches cheek. His left hand and her right hand hold at shoulder height, his right arm wraps around her body, and her left arm hooks over his right shoulder. This close embrace provides the most intimate connection and effective communication, making it favored by feeling-oriented dancers who enjoy the intimate, cozy, and soulful interactions between the partners more than gymnastic movements. This close embrace is the most common embrace used in social dancing in crowded milongas where space is limited.

Beginners may find close embrace restrictive, but this is simply due to inexperience. Dancing in close embrace requires a different skill set from that used in the open embrace style. This includes dancing in a compact way, using small, simple, rhythmic and synchronized steps, the command on dissociation, the mastery of cadencia, the ability to do spot dancing, the knack in floorcraft on a crowded dance floor, the focus on feelings rather than steps, and the emphasis on the elegance rather than flaunt of the movements, ect.

Experienced dancers may also use some variations of close embrace to expand movement. One is the V-shaped embrace, where only one side of the torso remains in contact, allowing more freedom on the open side. Another is increasing the body’s forward lean to create space between the legs. The combination of the two is yet another option. These variations serve as a compromise between intimacy and mobility, though they require more stamina and offer less comfort than the classic close embrace.

In practice, dancers may transition between different embraces as they see fit. For example, during an ocho, the woman might alternate between a chest-to-chest and a V-shaped embrace. The choice of embrace dependends on many factors, including physical conditions (flexibility and stamina of the body), dance styles (movement-oriented or feeling-oriented), purposes (social dancing or performance), environment (floor density and milonga codes), music (fast or slow tempo), movements (complex or simple, large or small steps), maturity (age and experience), and genres (tango, vals or milonga). Every embrace has its strengths and limitations. In the milonguero style of tango, close embrace enhances emotional communication. In Villa Urquiza style of tango, a looser embrace facilitates elegant legwork. In stage tango, open embrace enables intricate performance (see Three Theories on Leading).

Historically, the close embrace contributed to tango’s reputation as the “dance of the brothel,” prompting its rejection by polite society. The emergence of the open embrace style helped tango gain broader acceptance. Many younger dancers embraced its potential for performance and launched the tango nuevo movement, which flourished particularly outside Argentina—often in cultures less comfortable with physical intimacy. As tango moved in this direction, it began to lose its original feel. Acrobatic displays, antisocial behavior, broken connection, adoption of non-tango elements, shifts in gender roles, alternative music, role swap, same-sex partnering, and other experiments gave rise to a hybridized form. In contrast, the old guard—Argentine milongueros—continue to defend tango’s roots. Their style of tango, known as the milonguero style danced in close embrace, remains the dominant form in Buenos Aires today. Still, the battle between traditionalists and reformers continues.