Social dances are called “milongas”. It’s like a party or dance night. Usually it is at the same place every week (some are once a month). Every city has a website announcing the milongas. Usually there is a fee at the door (around $10) for 4 or 5 hours of dancing.

Some people dress up, others dress very casually. The milonga is a space in which you are welcome to express yourself flamboyantly with your clothing and be sexy.

We recommend that beginners attend a milonga along with a group of friends to make sure that you have people to dance with. at milongas, there is a code unique to tango which governs how people ask others to dance (these are discussed here)

Note that “milonga” has a second meaning, which is a type of music, a very fast and bouncy type of tango music.

Argentine Tango is not about flying legs and melodramatic performances of emotion. It is a social dance that anyone of any age can do, to any music or no music, to create an extraordinary level of connection with another person. It does not require previous dance experience or rhythm. (In fact one tango musican claims that tango dancers are often “atemporal”).

Practicas are an informal milonga. There is a DJ to play music and people show up to practice with whoever is there.

Some people come with a partner and do not change partners.

Many people come alone, in order to practice with various people.

Some people change partners after the tanda, others may dance together for a long time. It is more flexible than a milonga.

Unlike at a milonga, it’s ok to stop during the song and ask questions, practice a move over and over, or give feedback.

People dress up less for a practica, the lights are usually on, and it is cheaper $0-$5.

We require our students to learn both leading and following. There are several reasons for this.

1. We think it is important to dance with compassion for the difficulties of the other role.
2. It is very hard for leaders to learn if they cannot be led.
3. Some people may find themselves surprised to enjoy a different role than the one they expected to do.

All teachers focus on the fundamentals of tango, but have different ideas about what those fundamentals are. For us, the fundamentals are

• connection
• posture
• balance
• disassociation
• moving from the core (another way of talking about leading with the chest)
• musicality

We emphasize these aspects of connected moving which we believe are more fundamental than standard sequences of steps. We believe that it would be wonderful if students had the patience to just walk for one year to fully establish these aspects. However, we understand that is a bit boring, so we do continue with additional moves. We try to avoid sequences that require memorization, and we focus on quality of motion and connection.

How to ask someone to dance/the cabaceo

• The Argentine style of asking for a dance is that the leaders ask. They ask in a particular way, often from across the room, by seeking eye contact with followers. If eye contact is held, the leader nods toward the dance floor (or raises one or both eyebrows). If the follower wishes to accept the dance, they smile and return the nod slightly, maintaining eye contact. They can then meet, or the leader will come to get the follower. Having accepted a dance, the follower owes the next tanda to that leader.
• If the follower does not want to accept the dance, they look away. If a follower does not want to dance with a certain person, the follower is careful not to make eye contact with them. If a follower does not feel like dancing at all, they communicate unavailability by not making eyes available. They can watch the dancers or have a conversation.
• This method of asking and answering protects the leaders from public rejection.
• In the US, many dancers do not know or do not use the cabaceo. As a result, leaders walk up to followers and ask them verbally. Because we want to avoid making a public rejection, followers should and usually do accept a dance. To reject is to humiliate the leader. However, we encourage use of the cabaceo. So if someone asks you without using it, please make sure they know what it is and how to use it. You should expect them to use it with in the future, and don’t feel bad turning them down if they don’t.
• In some cities, followers ask leaders to dance. But this is not always accepted. There are reasonable reasons to allow the leaders to initiate dances. Since they have to structure the dance, they need to like the music, they need to feel comfortable with the crowdedness of the dance floor, and they need to be rested and feeling creative after their previous dance. It’s best to let them decide when they are ready. The dancing is better and it’s worth the wait!
• Of course this all gets a bit more complicated for people who both lead and follow. In mixed settings, men may assume all women are followers. In a gay setting, if followers ask for dances, the person they are asking may not be clear what they are asking for. For this reason, it may be best in queer settings to maintain the tradition of leaders asking for dances. If the askee does not wish to follow, they should not accept the dance. If two people who both lead and follow lock eyes, presumably the first to issue a cabaceo (nod), will be the leader for that tanda. If two followers lock eyes, there will be no cabaceo. If two leaders lock and one gives the cabaceo, the other may avert their eyes. Remember, if you accept another’s nod, you have agreed to follow.
• Once a cabaceo has been accepted you have a contract to dance the next song with each other. No matter what happens, you cannot change direction and dance with another partner. Even if someone stops to talk with you, you need to hustle to your partner. (Everyone understands this, so it’s not considered rude.)
• People who both lead and follow may swap the lead during a dance or tanda. However, in order to avoid an embarrassing and/or dangerous situation on the dance floor, they must negotiate a consensual change in leading before doing it.

We recommend that you dance with lots of different people, even if you have a main partner.

• Tango can be frustrating, and one of the best ways to reduce frustration between partners is to dance with other people.
• Also as you change partners, you must recalibrate your balance, clarify your lead, and focus your concentration. this is an aspect of practice which will improve your dancing.

At milongas and practicas we dance three or four songs with one person – this is called a “tanda”, sometimes separated with 15-30 seconds of contrasting music, called a cortina (curtain). If there is no cortina, you can just count four songs.

Tandas are usually songs of the same type. There are three types of tango music: tango, vals (waltz), and milonga. Milonga is the fast one. The tanda may also be a group of music by the same composer or in the same style or era. So you get a whole tanda of milonga music, or vals, or tango music with a certain feeling.

Leaders often wait to hear the type and style of music before deciding to dance and selecting a partner.

• Generally, once we have agreed to dance, we complete the tanda of four dances with that person. It is considered rude not to complete the tanda. We do not break the tanda because of the person’s dancing skill. There are, however, times when we do break the tanda despite the fact it is rude. That would be: if the person is running into people (or furniture) a lot and you feel unsafe or unprotected dancing with them; if they are groping you or making you very uncomfortable in a way that is not part of the common tango embrace; if they are drunk, which is considered unacceptable in tango. Generally, sweatiness and other discomforts that are simply a result of being close to another person is accepted in tango, and we do not break a tanda for these kinds of discomforts.

Close embrace tango involves touching another person with half or more of your body. This is very intimate. The codigos of tango are a set of “codes” that make some structure around this intimacy. The codes vary a little bit from milonga to milonga, city to city. We have not found a comprehensive list of the codigos in English. Although the codes are highly gendered, much of their intent is also relevant to queer people. Eventually a new set of codes will develop that incorporate the complexities and ambiguities that queer tango introduces.

We’ve written about the codigos that we encourage you to follow.

We think tango would be much more fun with gender complexity and exploration. We also feel passionately that we want gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people to have access to tango’s unique experiences of connection, healing, self-expression, and rapture. together, we join an international movement to queer tango.

The leading voices of the queer tango movement from Berlin, BA, and New York City agree that it is very hard to maintain enough teaching and milonga resources to maintain a fully queer scene. (see this interview). Taking this into account, here is our plan.

1. The first step is on a local level by creating learning spaces that are comfortable entry points for GLBT people.
2. Then, since we may not be able to build queer tango spaces, we need to build queer tango community, and go places in groups, so that we can be comfortable and supportive while using tango spaces.
3. Then we need to find teachers who will be supportive of women leading, men following, and unfamiliar gender identities (butch women, femme men, trans and genderqueer folk) in their classes. When visiting teachers come to give workshops, we will call and ask about this before promoting their classes to the local queer tango community. When attending non-queer classes and workshops, queer dancers should arrange to go in even-numbered groups, so we can at least change partners with a familiar group. (Make friends in your classes!)
4. We should organize occasional queer milongas and also women-leading milongas. these will explicitly assert space for glbt tango and for the larger community to join us in experimenting with gender roles. (For example, it would be nice to have a milonga at which straight men were comfortable following.) These should be publicized regionally.
5. There are queer tango festivals in Buenos Aires, Stockholm, and Hamburg. In Berlin is the pinktangoball. We encourage students to travel to join and expand on the concept of queer tango as a transnational culture. We put links to all these in the right hand column here.
6. Lexa is a queer leader and teacher in NYC. We plan to invite her to Boston to give workshops. You might want to read her blog. In 2007, she and her partner were the first same-sex couple invited to dance at the Mundial in Buenos Aires. Here’s the video. If you find other internet resources we should link to, please comment this article and we will add!

How do we deal with the intimacy of tango? The traditional codes help make a structure to handle these feelings:

• Maintain the tango embrace. Any feelings you have during the dance are expressed outwardly only through the quality of your dance. You do not express your enjoyment of the dance by sliding your hand to your partner’s ass, neck, breast, etc. This is a violation of the trust they gave you when they dance with you. It also could make a problem for them with their partner if they have one, and that is very disrespectful. It is common in tango to make contact with your head or cheek, but make sure if you do this that it is consensual. If you feel the other person pull away, respect their wishes not to connect in this way. It is not necessary for the dance. Also understand that many dancers are very accustomed to this contact. If you dance with someone who persists in doing it, do not be offended. It is not an inappropriate gesture.
• Whatever you feel during a dance, know that when the cortina (curtain) falls on the tanda, the curtain falls on whatever is going on with you and your partner. Say thank you, and walk away. As you walk away, the feelings end. You are not welcome to “hang out” with the person just because you had a good dance.
• We do not give last names and we do not ask personal questions in tango. It is a space of anonymity. This also means that tango is an escape from class status issues. Everyone interacts as equals.
• In order to feel safe with the intimacy of tango, it needs to be a social space in which people feel protected from being “hit on”. For this reason, it is not appropriate to ask someone for their phone number, or ask them on a date. Of course this does occur, but it needs to be very discreet. Perhaps get to know them for a while first, before asking. (At the same time we need to build community, so we can go out dancing together as a queer group. Make it clear what you are up to!)
• If you are asking someone to dance who has a partner, introduce yourself to the partner first and ask, either verbally or with a gesture, for their permission to ask their partner to dance. This does not mean you are treating someone as if they are the property of another person. It means that you are making a contract with the partner that you will respect their relationship during the dance.

http://tigerstango.blogspot.com/2008/01/t-word.html

The most important part of improving your tango is practice. We hope that you practice at least once a week in addition to your classes. If you are not learning with a partner we recommend that you invite someone from the class to meet up for a practice session once a week. your body needs to learn this dance, and that takes time.
We recommend that you find a teacher who you like and stick with them. Since every teacher has a different approach, if you bounce around too much you will get a lot of confusing information. Also, we recommend learning from teachers instead of other dancers, who may not be well trained, and who also may give you a lot of confusing information. Once you find a teacher you like, we recommend following their approach for one to two years. it’s fine to take workshops with visiting teachers, but when you have questions or problems, go back to your teacher.

After your first 6 months of dancing, we recommend taking a private lesson once per month. Here you will get essential corrections to your dance which will take you about a month to integrate.

It’s great to go to workshops with visiting instructors. These are often very interesting, draw a mix of people so you have the opportunity to meet new people, and you will get very good instruction in more difficult moves. Be sure to call in advance (or have us call for you) to make the sure the teacher welcomes women leaders and queer students. Go with a friend or in a group to make sure you have partners to change with.

As you are choosing some things from your closet or a store, here are some things to keep in mind:the sole of the shoe

• For leaders and followers, shoes MUST have a smooth sole, no rubber, no grippies.

• The best sole is suede. most shoe repair stores can add “dance chrome” (fake suede) to any pair of shoes. (Don’t wear these outside or you’ll wear out the suede fast.) At the hardware store you can buy a wire “suede brush” that will restore the texture of the suede when it gets matted.

• Many people use a leather sole. that’s fine too. It wears longer than suede, but it can be more slippery than suede. (some dancers carry leather and suede, if they don’t know how the dance floor will be.) Many current shoes have a “man made” sole that is smooth, but not leather. That will probably work fine for you now, and you could add suede later.

flexibility

• Both leaders and followers need to be able to point their toe. This means that the arch of the shoe should have some flexibility. If it is a women’s high heel, this is less important, because the shoe is essentially already pointed. If it is a flat shoe, then it must be flexible. If you are trying to figure out which shoes to bring, put them on and try pointing your toe.

• The shoes should not be boots, because your ankle is restrained and you will not have enough mobility.

shoe width

• Since our feet pass very close together it is important that the shoe be no wider than necessary. Some shoes have a sole that protrudes 1/4″ beyond your foot. that will be difficult for tango. Check out the photo below of some gorgeous kenneth cole shoes. The two on the left are narrow. But see how the sole protrudes on the shoe on the right?

pointy toes

• lately the fashion world has graced us with shoes that point an inch beyond our actual toes. some people enjoy dancing in pointy toes. before buying shoes like this for tango, try pointing your toe and changing your weight onto that foot. i think the point gets in the way of smooth movement, but this is a personal choice. and style.

dance sneakers

• Lots of people just LOVE dance sneakers.
• These are special because they “break” under the arch so you can have a lot of flexibility in your foot.

• Both of the online shops we recommend carry a good selection of dance sneakers. these feel like, well, sneakers. they are super comfortable. fortunately they’re getting more stylish too!

• Here are the selections from guaranteedfit and tango-wear.

• Dance sneakers have a special kind of rubber, with a lot of plastic in it, so that they don’t grip. they are pretty good on all surfaces.

the shoe on the left above is made by a company called Fabio which makes sneakers especially for tango. you can admire their shoes on their website. also we hear that tango-wear will be getting the entire Fabio line some time in march, 2008.

While practicing, it is likely that you will have some frustration with your partner. Here are some tips:

• When something is not working, it is VERY hard to tell what’s wrong and who is at fault, tempting though that is. When two people are moving in this way, the dynamics are very complicated.
• Share the responsibility. Don’t blame each other.
• We do not recommend trying to analyze it and talk about it. This easily leads to blaming the other person, etc.
• Each of you should worry about what you are doing, not what the other person is doing.
• Each party should just keep doing their best to remember the corrections the teachers made in the previous session and integrate those.
• Any questions or difficulties that come up should be written down and brought to your teacher. Let us figure out the problems.
• For the leader: if what you want isn’t happening, don’t say anything to your follower, just try to make it more clear, try to make it unavoidable. You will hear “it’s always the leader’s fault”. Even though it’s not true, this phrase is a good idea, because if the leader tries to solve the problem, it makes them a better leader…