Cadencia and the Flow of Tango

When we dance tango our body oscillates as the body weight shifts from one foot to the other. The oscillation can be enhanced by accelerating the motion of the body. This technique is called cadencia. It feels like riding back and forth on a swing, which has a cozy feeling for both dancers but especially for the woman, as she is the one snuggled in his arms, swayed and protected by him.

The man swings the woman's body to one side and then to the other side of him alternately. After each swing she needs to swivel her hips to allow him to reverse the swing. (See Dissociation and Gear Effect.) This, in fact, is how ocho is danced. Tango teachers often emphasize dissociation, or the swivel of the hips, when they teach ocho, but overlook cadencia, or the swing of the body. However, if dissociation and cadencia are combined, it will not only increase the elegance of the ocho movement but also produce a rocking sensation, making the movement more enjoyable.

In order to do cadencia there must be some speed, or else the body cannot swing. This is why experienced dancers like to dance in the flow. When the floor is full of experienced dancers, you can see a counterclockwise flow of people like waves surge forward in correspondence with the music, and the speed of the flow is quite fast. But if there are too many novices on the dance floor, then the speed of flow is slowed down. Sometimes it even becomes like a pool of stagnant water.

Novices who have no sense of flow often stay in place practicing steps, disregarding the people behind them waiting for them to move forward. In an empty room that may cause no problem, but on a crowded dance floor, that could obstruct the traffic. Mark Word calls such people "rocks in the stream." You drive to work in the morning and suddenly there is a car blocking your way, that is the same kind of feeling. People dancing on a crowded dance floor must not be such "rocks in the stream." I'm not saying that you cannot slow down or pause for a moment, which experienced dancers also do. But they do so only when the music tells everyone to slow down and there is enough space. If the dancers behind you are approaching, then you must keep moving to avoid causing obstruction to traffic. This is the code, which all dancers have to follow.