What is TANGO discovery?
By TANGO discovery master teacher Ravi Khalsa
What is TANGO discovery?
It’s a step in the evolution of teaching and dancing Argentine Tango.
Traditional Tango
In so-called* Traditional Tango, leads are provided by close contact with the leader’s torso. Followers are passive. The dance is taught and danced as a series of named steps and fixed sequences. The dance is seen as, walk—dance a sequence—continue walking.
Tango Nuevo
Although the embrace has more freedom, Tango Nuevo uses the same lead and follow scheme… the leader’s torso and a passive follower. The biggest difference is there are more moves. The dance is still learned by memorizing sequences, but there are a lot more of them.
TANGO discovery
Leaders lead by offering space, followers actively move into the space offered by the leader. The dance is based on structure (not sequences) and is created on a step-by-step basis (100% improvisation). TANGO discovery is compatible with any aesthetic style of dancing tango (as long as it works!) and borrows freely from them all.
Further reading…
- TANGO discovery Arizona website
- Tango awareness by Mauricio Castro
*A note about Traditional Tango:
Dancing tango with a close embrace has been around for a long time. To the discomfort of some true-believers, tango has also been danced with an open embrace for a long time. Today, the term Traditional Tango is mostly useful to identify a style of dancing which shuns an open embrace and the newer “moves” of Tango Nuevo.