Dancing with Hips

Dancing tango requires skillful rotation of the hips, especially for women. This is because in tango the man typically dances around the dance floor and the woman dances around the man. Since her torso is attached to his torso in the embrace, the woman needs to rotate her hips in order to step on either side of the man or dance around him. This technique, known as dissociation, works best on a woman because the suppleness of her body makes her more suitable for dancing around the man, rather than the other way around. The flexibility of a woman's body also makes her dance more appealing, hence the gender role division of men leading women and women beautifying dance.

In practice, the hips don’t need to be turned much. A 45° rotation of the hips is sufficient for her to place her right leg on his right or her left leg on his left, although some movements, such as molinete and back sacada, may require a greater rotation of the hips. From an aesthetic standpoint, however, exaggerated hip rotation can better express women's gender characteristics and femininity. As a result, in certain styles women deliberately turn their hips wider for enhanced expression.

In addition to display the flexible beauty of a woman’s body, hip rotation can also increase the range and possibility of her movements. By skillfully rotating her hips, a woman is able to navigate agilely around the man, fine-tune her position in relation to him in complex movements while maintain good connection during the interplay. A well trained woman can turn her hips more than 90°. This way she can step wherever she wants around the man, even move backwards with the front ocho, or move forward with the back ocho. The proficiency in hip rotation also allows her to exhibit a sense of grace and fluidity in her dancing, making her performance captivating. Women who excel in tango and stand out on the dance floor are invariably those who possess a remarkable ability to maneuver their hips with finesse.

Swiveling the hips and pivoting the lower body while keeping the torso relatively still against the partner's body takes some practice to master, but it is a fundamental skill that a tango woman must develop. A woman's tango can be truly stunning only if she can execute hip rotation flawlessly. This is also true for men, as the competence to swivel the hips helps the man to maintain good physical contact with the woman and enhances his ability to use his torso to lead her. The first rule of tango is that your torso must always face your partner's torso, no matter which side of you she or he is on or moving to. Therefore all tango dancers must be proficient in this technique. (See Dissociation and Gear Effect.)