Tango Is a Language (I)

You might not consider tango to be a language, but in reality, tango is indeed a language, which can be taught, acquired, comprehended, and employed to convey intentions, emotions, feelings, musical interpretations, as well as aspects of movement such as type, size, direction, speed, variations, and more. Those who know this language can effectively communicate with each other, discern the intentions and feelings of their partner, and dance together harmoniously as a unified entity. Those who are unfamiliar with this language find it challenging to express themselves and respond to others, and they feel awkward and frustrated in dancing together.

Similar to other languages, tango has its own alphabet, vocabulary, grammar, and composition. The various body parts, including the head, arms, hands, torso, waist, hips, legs, and feet, can be seen as the alphabet of tango. We use these elements to make steps, which are the vocabulary of tango. Musicality and communication are like the grammar, according to which steps are improvised to form a dance. Choreography, which combines various steps into a coherent and artistic performance, is the composition of the dance.

Like studying any language, learning tango should start with the alphabet and grammar. Without using alphabet, we can't spell words. Without understanding grammar, we can't put words into proper use. One of the problems in our tango learning is that we focus only on studying vocabulary and don't pay nearly enough attention to the alphabet and grammar. We don't embrace correctly. We don’t understand the functions of verious body parts and often use them incorrectly in dance (see The Functions of Various Body Parts in Tango). Our posture is ugly. Our connection is broken. Our body is stiff, heavy and inflexible. We are unable to dissociate the upper body and the lower body. There is no balance and stability in our movements. We don't listen to music. We don't step on the beat. We don't follow the sentiment and mood of the music. We don't communicate well. Our lead is unclear and follow is clumsy. As a result, although we've memorized a lot of steps, we can't put them together in a meaningful, musical, harmonious and beautiful way.

Like any language, tango has a large vocabulary. No one can do all the steps in tango, just like no one knows all the words in a language. The fact is, we don't need to memorize the entire dictionary to speak a language. For example, in Chinese language there are more than 60,000 characters. The Kangxi Dictionary includes 47,000 characters. The official Xinhua Dictionary includes 8,550 characters. Among them only 950 characters are the most frequently used, which cover 90% of the total characters used in popular literature. An addition of 2,800 characters of the second highest use frequency increases the coverage to 99.9%. Most Chinese characters are rarely used.

Tango is the same. There are only limited steps that are essential in tango, such as 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, calesita, enganche, volcada, americana, media vuelta, media luna, arrastrar, zarandeo, etc., form the other 9% less common, optional and dispensable steps in social tango. In addition to the above are steps used primarily in performance tango, such as enrosque, giro-enrosque-lapiz combination, high boleo, castigada, back sacada, gancho, colgada, single axis turn, soltada, patada, sentada, kick, lift, flip, etc. These steps are mainly used by professional performers for special effects only. They lack the friendliness of the social tango steps, are difficult, uncomfortable, dangerous and requiring a lot of space to do, therefore are not suitable for social dancing (see Social Tango and Performance Tango).

It is unwise to put your time and money on stuffs that are of very little use, but neglect the essentials that can benefit you most, and it is affected to use professional jargon to carry out a daily conversation. Unfortunately, that is what many tango students are doing. A much better approach to tango is to focus on the alphabet, grammar and basic vocabulary of tango 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. If you understand that, then tango is really a simple and easy dance. Those who are particularly talented and want to become stage performers can go further to learn performance, but that should be pursued after they have laid the foundation, not before, and certainly not at the milonga where even the professionals dancers dance sociably. (See Tango Is a Language (II).)