Tango Terminology and Teaching (Part 1)

by The 8th Style

The terminology that we use in discussing tango works to shape what we believe about tango, how we learn, and ultimately how we dance. For example, “open-embrace” is a term that innately lends itself to the defining of a style. It has a certain abstract quality, perhaps coming from its oxymoronic nature, that makes it difficult to use as a physical description. The term “off-the-body”, on the other hand, has a preposition built into it, and can much more easily be used as a description of a particular spatial relationship. To “go into open-embrace” has a connotation of entering a whole new world, where the parameters may be completely different, maybe even the opposite of its counterpart, “close-embrace”. One “goes into” a cave. One “goes into” a room. One “goes into” a certain mental state. One “goes into” anything with definitive boundaries. We hope, for the sake of clarity, that the thing one “goes into” has a name that accurately describes the kind of boundaries by which one is about to be encompassed. The word “cave” immediately brings to mind darkness, stone, and perhaps a variety of different connotations for different people, but none-the-less a certain clear and definitive entity which everyone immediately understands. “Open-embrace” gives us no such peace. The verb form of our adjective “open” is quite contrary to the verb for of our noun “embrace”. Compare “to open” with “to embrace”. We may understand grammatically that we are using these words as different parts of speech, but one has to wonder exactly how much of a distinction we make cognitively.To “come off-the-body”, to “come away from the body”, or to simply “come apart”, all have prepositions that more accurately describe the physical process involved. When using this terminology as we learn the dance, we cognitively practice identifying this physical process and enacting it when necessary. Using terms like “open-embrace” or “close-embrace”, we practice making vague categorizations, that, in my opinion, limit our ability to adjust our proximity as necessary.In the first four years of my teaching I never used “open/close-embrace” terminology, as I hadn’t yet been exposed to those terms. I knew of Salon,Milonguero, Elegante, Fantasia, Canyengue, and the then emerging style of modern Salon, which the tango world now calls “Nuevo”. After a summer living and teaching in Portland, and the subsequent winter spent in Denver, I adopted the generalized “embrace” language and proceeded to teach classes that were specifically “open style” or “close-embrace” for the next four years. It gradually began to occur to me that a concept which was at the very foundation of my dancing, that tango is a dance that is very close, opening occasionally to express some epic feeling intricately tied to the music and space on the floor, was completely alien to my students. To separate three or so inches from one’s partner to make space for momentum or rotation is not conceptually difficult. It’s not even physically difficult. To have to transition between two different styles of tango is another matter altogether, especially when one considers the two styles diametrically opposed to one another (which is bound to happen with any simplification down to two categories).I have since been making an effort to rework my language and teaching to reflect general and useful processes in the dance rather than stratification of style, with hopes that students will find their own way of connecting and sharing the music and movement with each other through the use of the tools that I give them. It’s a move toward creating individual style through the use of these tools, rather than enforcing my own values concerning how I think people should be dancing. Tools not rules. It’s a tricky business, however, attempting to instill a standard of quality without a clear yardstick by which to judge against that standard. More often than not, I find myself telling students to hold their head at this specific angle, and to turn there foot out just so. I suppose that’s human nature; and the creative will be creative, the copiers will copy, and it’s our job as teachers to give them the material to do so well, by their own standards, to their own satisfaction, the end being that we all enjoy tango as an art, a hobby, a community, or whatever it may be to us.

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