Dance tango? Really nice and without stress?
If you want that, forget the “basic step”
Important Tango lesson. Argentine Tango is a social dance. Always dance in harmony with all the other couples. Photo: Wolfgang Sandt
Sure, when I started learning tango in 1994, my first tango teachers also taught me the so-called “basic step”.
At that time, in the beginnings of Tango Argentino in Germany, almost everyone did so.
As far as I know, shortly before Antonio Todaro, one of the most famous stage dancers of that time, while teaching in Europe, introduced this method because he (and possibly many other Argentines) believed that Europeans were unable to learn the tango in any other way.
Honestly, I can not really understand, why he assumed that this was a good method.
Argentine tango is a totally improvised dance, which all tango teachers I know are eager to confirm without hesitation.
Of course, every tango dancer will notice that there is a contradiction here. How can a dance that is completely improvised from beginning to end have a set sequence of steps?
Well, that’s a very fundamental question and one could easily ignore it if the so-called basic step did not have a whole bunch of negative effects.
In practice it´s like this. Most tango dancers who have learned the so-called “Paso di Base”, at least for a long time are unable to dance anything else than just this one memorized step sequence and therefore constantly get into trouble on the dance floor.
Why it is like that? The answers are simple.
For one thing, when dancing tango on the dance floor, there are usually many other dancers who miraculously always stand in your way the moment you want to perform the basic step or other prefabricated steps.
The consequences of this are clashes with other dancers, anger and frustration, because you just never really get to dance without hassle and finally for many the final, unnerved retreat from the dance floor.
On the other hand, the dancers, who first learn the so-called tango basic step, waste their time practicing a certain, ultimately unnecessary step sequence rather than focusing on really important things.
So what is important in tango?
To answer that, you can ask a few simple questions
1. Can you dance tango without paying attention to the music? A clear NO!
2. Can you dance tango without paying attention to your partner? Again, a clear NO!
3. Can you dance tango without paying attention to the other couples on the dance floor? If you do not want to be in constant trouble, of course not.
4. Can you dance tango without following a specific, memorized sequence? Yes, of course!
But if you concentrate on the so-called basic step, the following happens:
Most beginners are so busy practicing the step sequence that they mostly can not concentrate on the music of the tango anymore and dance completely independently of the music (expressed in a friendly way). Of course you can´t call that tango anymore.
Since one has agreed in advance on a certain step pattern, which both dance partners could in principle dance independently of each other, one places no more value on the contact within the couple.
Unfortunately, it is obvious that many teachers, who obviously have no idea themselves, do not teach their students how to dance together, how to convey invitations with their body or how to feel what the partner wants.
As a result, this means that the ladies perform memorized figures at the push of a button, whether they were led or not, like a mechanical doll.
The men who have never learned to lead their dancing partners (or better, how to seduce them to do a certain step) pull and tug at the ladies and are upset or frustrated if they don´t do what they want them to do.
In short, one of the most important things in tango, the communication between the dance partners is lost.
If you have never learned to dance tango with the music, free and improvised, but instead dance only a certain sequence of steps (in the worst case even against the line of the dance) trouble with the other couples is inevitable.
One of the most beautiful experiences in tango, the common dancing in the Ronda, the harmonious dance flow of all dancers on the dance floor, is thus made difficult and often becomes impossible.
So, my appeal to all tango dancers (and of course to all tango teachers)
Forget the basic step, focus on the really important things and start dancing
Then Tango can become a magical experience.
Do you want to know more about the magical moments of the tango? Click Here!
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