Social Tango and Performance Tango

The more I think about the challenges that tango is facing, the more I feel the need to draw a distinction between social tango and performance tango. People who promote performance tango often say, “Why draw a line? They are all tango. The tango is one.” But that is not true. Social tango and performance tango are different dances serving different occasions and for different purposes. They are different in almost every aspects, including appearances, embraces, connections, steps, techniques,  lead/follow methods, feelings, and philosophies. Any definition describing one dance automatically rejects the other. In fact, people who only learn one dance are not able to dance the other dance. Instead of palming performance tango off onto beginners, it would be better to tell the truth, so students know what they actually get into.

Social tango is a popular dance. It is designed for dancing in a crowd milonga for pleasure and not for show. It is a simple and user-friendly dance, suited to the tastes, needs and abilities of the general public. It is an intimate and sensual dance typically danced in a close embrace with considerable body contact between the partners to serve the need for intimacy between the opposite sexes. It is an improvised and feeling-oriented dance, danced in simple and compact steps, so the dancers may concentrate on the feelings stirred by the music, the comfort and sensation of the embrace, the communication through torso contact between them, and the harmony of movements in unison with music. Dancing social tango is an intimate, soulful and personal experience. What matters is how it feels and not how it looks.

Performance tango, on the other hand, is a highbrow dance. It is designed for performing on the stage. It is a fancy and showy version of tango involving difficult steps and techniques not suited to ordinary people, but professionals with expert skills. It is a choreographed and movement-oriented dance, typically danced in an open embrace absent of chest-to-chest contact for broader movement possibilities. Its steps are wide, gaudy, dazzling, often dangerous and requiring a lot of space to do. Safety, comfort and user-friendliness are not its concerns. It is not intended to be an intimate, soulful and personal experience, but an exhibition of fancy steps and showy movements to impress the audience. What matters is how it looks and not how it feels.

I believe it is not for the best interest of most people to learn performance tango, especially before they have mastered social tango. Not only because it’s a waste of their time and money, as very few of them will ever be performers on the stage, but also because without the foundation of social tango, it is impossible for them to be good performers anyway. Worse still, the bad habits acquired from learning performance tango, such as using arms and hands to lead and follow, the inability to use the torso to communicate, the focus on appearances rather than feelings, the disregard of the safety and comfort of others, and the showy and dangerous footwork, will not only hinder their own enjoyment of social tango, but also cause disturbances to others in the milongas.

For most people, social tango is what they should focus their attentions to in their study of tango. Because they want to dance in the milongas for personal enjoyment and not on the stage to entertain others. Because they want a simple and user-friendly dance suited to their abilities, not a complicated and difficult dance beyond their reach. Because they want an intimate, soulful and comfortable dance that serves their need for contact with another soul, not a gaudy and uncomfortable dance to show their egos. And because they want to be a good social dancer and lay a solid foundation before, if ever, they decide to learn performance tango.

In the U.S., social tango and performance tango are mixed, which is the cause of many problems in our milongas. In Buenos Aires, the two dances are separated. Social tango (Tango de Salon) is danced in the milongas. Performance tango (Tango Fantasia) is danced on the stage. Professionals, who dance show tango on the stage, will only dance social tango when they go to a milonga. Those who teach social tango will say they teach social tango, and those who teach performance tango will say they teach performance tango. They don’t hang up a sheep’s head and sell dog meat. Separate competitions are organized for each dance. I believe this is how it should be elsewhere in the world as well.