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.