Tango Is a Language (I)

Tango may not immediately seem like a language, but it undeniably is. Like any form of communication, it can be taught, learned, and mastered to express intention, emotion, musical interpretation, and the nuanced qualities of movement—such as type, size, direction, speed, and variation. Those fluent in this language converse effortlessly on the dance floor, attuned to their partner’s subtle cues and responding in perfect synchrony. Those who have yet to develop this fluency often find themselves struggling to express their intent or interpret their partner’s movements, leading to awkward and frustrating experiences.

Tango, much like any language, possesses its own alphabet, vocabulary, grammar, and composition. The body's parts—head, arms, hands, torso, waist, hips, legs, and feet—serve as its alphabet. With these, dancers construct steps, forming the vocabulary. Musicality and communication act as the grammar, shaping how movements are combined into an expressive, improvised dialogue. Choreography, which arranges these elements into a cohesive artistic performance, completes the composition.

As with any language, learning tango should begin with its alphabet and grammar. Without the alphabet, words cannot be formed. Without grammar, words cannot be used. A common issue in tango education is the disproportionate focus on vocabulary—memorizing steps—while neglecting foundational elements. We fail to embrace correctly, misunderstand the roles of various body parts, and use them awkwardly or inefficiently (see The Functions of Various Body Parts in Tango). Poor posture weakens our connection. Stiffness, heaviness, and inflexibility hinder fluidity. We struggle to dissociate the upper and lower body, leading to imbalanced and unstable movement. We neglect the music, failing to step on the beat or reflect its mood and sentiment. Communication falters—our lead is unclear, and our follow, clumsy. As a result, despite knowing many steps, we cannot integrate them into a dance that is meaningful, musical, harmonious, and beautiful.

Tango boasts a vast vocabulary, yet no dancer masters every step—just as no speaker knows every word in a language. Fortunately, fluency doesn’t require exhaustive knowledge. In Chinese, for instance, there are over 60,000 characters. The most comprehensive dictionary, the Kangxi Dictionary, contains 47,000, while the widely used Xinhua Dictionary lists about 8,500. Yet, a mere 950 characters account for 90% of everyday writing, and adding another 2,800 covers 99.9%. Most characters are seldom used.

Tango operates much like a language, with a core set of essential steps for social dancing. Fundamental movements—such as walking, salida, resolution, switching between parallel and cross systems, cruzada, pivot, dissociation, cadencia, front ocho, back ocho, molinete, giro, rock, and traspie—make up about 90% of what’s used on the dance floor. More intricate steps—like ocho cortado, sandwich, boleo, sacada, parada, barrida, corrida, carpa, planeo, lapiz, enganche, volcada, americana, media vuelta, media luna, arrastrar, and zarandeo—comprise the remaining 9%, serving as optional embellishments rather than necessities in social tango.

Then there are some steps that are rarely used in social dancing, such as giro–enrosque–lapiz combinations, calesita, castigadas, back sacadas, ganchos, high boleos, colgadas, single-axis turns, soltadas, patadas, sentadas, kicks, and lifts. These movements are designed primarily for professional performance, where they add dramatic flair. However, they lack the ease and accessibility of social tango steps. Many are difficult, uncomfortable, or dangerous to execute in a crowded milonga. Others demand excessive space, making them impractical 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 move in sync without 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 relies solely on sight rather than touch. The differences between signals are often so subtle that they become hard 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, sensation, and comfort of a physical embrace, limiting movements that require physical support. Despite these constraints, the virtual embrace highlights a fundamental 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 feet unless we can dance with our hearts.

Tango can also be danced in an open dance hold similar to that in ballroom dancing, where the dancers connect only through their arms and hands. Since arms and hands are extensions of the body, so even without direct torso contact, dancers can still perceive each other’s intentions through them. The open dance hold, also known by its fine-sounding name “open embrace,” provides greater freedom of movement, making it a favorite among action-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 using only torso connection, without relying on the arms or hands. Direct torso communication is a distinctive and essential aspect of Argentine tango, making it an intimate, deeply felt, and soulful dance. However, beginners often shy about intimacy and default to using their arms and hands to send and receive signals. To help students overcome this hurdle, tango teachers may instruct them to dance solely with torso contact, avoiding the use of their arms and hands. Some even place a sheet of paper between their chests, challenging them to keep it from falling as they move. While this exercise does not reflect how tango is typically danced, the skills it develops provide students with a strong foundation for their tango.

The most comfortable and communicative embrace is the close embrace, where partners lean into each other, chest against chest, with their cheeks touching. His left hand and her right hand meet at shoulder height, his right arm encircles her body, and her left arm drapes 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.

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 adapt the close embrace to allow for greater 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. A combination of both offers yet another option. These variations serve as a compromise between intimacy and mobility, though they demand greater stamina and offer less comfort than the classic close embrace.

Dancers often transition between different embraces as needed. For example, during an ocho, the woman may shift between a chest-to-chest embrace and a V-shaped embrace. The choice of embrace depends on several factors, including physical attributes (flexibility and stamina), dance style (movement-oriented or feeling-oriented), purpose (social dancing or performance), environment (floor density and milonga codes), music (fast or slow tempo), movements (complex or simple, large or small steps), experience (age and skill level), and genre (tango, vals, or milonga).

Each embrace offers distinct advantages and limitations. In the milonguero style, a close embrace enhances emotional communication. In Villa Urquiza, a slightly looser hold allows for refined legwork. In stage tango, an open embrace enables intricate and theatrical movement (see Three Theories on Leading).

Historically, the close embrace contributed to tango’s reputation as the “dance of the brothel,” leading to its rejection by polite society. The emergence of the open embrace style helped tango gain wider acceptance, particularly among younger dancers who embraced its potential for performance, sparking the tango nuevo movement. This evolution flourished outside Argentina—often in cultures less accustomed to physical intimacy.

As tango shifted in this direction, it began to lose its original essence. Acrobatic displays, fragmented connection, adoption of non-tango elements, alternative music, shifts in gender roles, same-sex partnering, and other experimental approaches gave rise to a hybridized form. In contrast, the old guard—Argentine milongueros—remain steadfast in preserving tango’s roots. Their style, known as tango milonguero, danced in close embrace, continues to dominate Buenos Aires’ social dance scene. Yet, the debate between traditionalists and reformers remains.