Dancers on two continents

Having recently returned from my first European tango marathon, I’ve been musing on some of the differences from Buenos Aires which struck me: in atmosphere, personal interactions and dancing style. The marathon dancers had come to Dublin from a variety of places around Europe: London was well represented (though few of the dancers were British), as was Sicily, but there were also dancers from an assortment of European countries which included Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and France. Of course, my remarks will be generalisations and therefore subject to many and various exceptions. But I’d like to explore a few tentative suggestions and offer a few starting points for discussion. I’m hardly an expert on this topic, so I’d particularly welcome feedback from my readers.

I’ll begin by talking about the technical, stylistic preferences of the marathon dancers, identifying two styles in particular: one based on tango nuevo and the other a variation on tango milonguero (see the glossary,  A Question of Style and Young Conservatives for my attempts to define the main styles of tango). I’ll then go on to muse on the sexual politics that permeate many Argentine milongas and the relative lack of sexual tension at the tango marathon here in Dublin. If you are reading this, but are not a tango dancer, you might want to skip the first half of this post, which constitutes a rather geeky discussion of dance styles.

I have the distinct impression that there are at least two very European — or perhaps even marathon-specific — dance styles which are a little different from the style in which I am most often led in Buenos Aires. This is in no sense a criticism. One of the things I most love about being a follower is that every man dances differently. I would not want to dance classic Villa Urquiza style exclusively, even though it is my favourite flavour of tango.

First, many of these European dancers, for me, have a tango nuevo feel. There were many signature nuevo moves in evidence, too: ganchos between leader’s legs; volcadas and colgadas; jazzy little walks in which the leader and follower take steps intentionally out of synch with each other. And the dancers spend much longer in open embraces than I am used to from BA, where most people, whatever their style, walk in a close embrace, opening up only for specific moves that require more space (in particular giros). Part of this may not be a stylistic preference, but simply the result of the fact that many European men are so much taller than their partners and certainly much taller than me: looking out at the dance floor, I had an impression of many long, slender, moving columns of maleness. A comfortable close embrace is much more difficult to achieve when there is a big height difference within the couple.

The other stylistic current that I noticed was a kind of amped-up milonguero style: faster, more dissociated, twistier and more dynamic than the classic version but, to me, still milonguero in spirit, since the couple remain in close embrace, chests touching or almost touching, throughout the dance. I have encountered this in Buenos Aires, but it’s uncommon. And at the marathon I saw several people dancing it, my personal favourites being a couple I’ll call The Vikings. 

I learned the hard way, however, that the leaders at the marathon generally preferred not to have their style defined. The term tango nuevo, in particular, seems to have fallen into disfavour. It used to be a badge worn with pride. But now I elicited a few wrinkled noses when I used The N Word. In Buenos Aires, by contrast, many people identify with tango as part of a tradition. They are therefore more likely to happily label themselves as salón or milonguero dancers, just as they declare themselves River or Boca fans. The European dancers, however, see themselves more as individuals experimenting with the dance, rather than as part of a group. They are keen to lay claim to an untrammeled — and therefore undefinable — creativity and originality in their dancing.

The combination of high spirits and a more spacious style of dancing led to a few gentle collisions on the first night which provoked murmurs of irritation from a couple of my partners (though, as usual when I am following, I was blissfully unaware of navigational problems). In some of the Buenos Aires milongas, the dance floor resembles an intricate moving jigsaw and there is a strong sense of the leaders’ awareness of each other and a respect for the style danced at that particular milonga. I find this particularly striking at the more traditional milongas like Cachirulo and Sunderland. That kind of floorcraft is more difficult if your emphasis is on cultivating your own individual styles. And, if London is typical, European milongas generally offer dancers a lot more physical space than many of the porteño equivalents, which can be full to bursting point at peak hours, forcing leaders to learn how to negotiate a very crowded floor.

Not only did the dance floor look different from those I have become familiar with in BA, but the social interactions were quite distinct too. For the Argentines, the milonga – and, often, the práctica, too — is a multi-purpose space: for dancing, but also for catching up with friends, drinking mate or Quilmes, listening to the music or seducing women. I find this frustrating at times, since I myself am plagued by an almost constant and insatiable desire to dance. But tango is such an integral part of many porteños’ lives that they don’t compartmentalise, don’t separate the social and sexual from the dance.

One small way in which this is reflected is in the chamuyo time at the beginning of each tango. Both the pauses between the songs and the first bars of the tango are usually spent in small talk or flirtation before the dancing begins. At the marathon, the DJs played the tangos back to back, with almost no pauses at all. I danced a Biagi tanda, in which, almost comically, the final, punchy bandoneon chord of each track was immediately followed by the first beat of the next number — as if we were dancing to one single, fifteen-minute-long, continuous tango. We scarcely loosened the embrace between tangos, to maximise the dancing time, since in any case we were not flirting. Actually, even though we were two of the few single people at the marathon, to flirt would have felt bizarre and inappropriate, even to me (and I am an incorrigible flirt).

In Buenos Aires, by contrast, the dance floor coquetry can be intense and many sexual predators stalk the scene. As a result, there is a great deal of jealousy. I suspect many tiny dramas play out as goateed Lotharios deliver invitations to “breakfast after La Viruta” or “coffee at my place” sotto voce into the captive ears of their dance partners, while their girlfriends watch slit-eyed from the side of the floor, burning with jealous suspicions. There are some Argentines who will happily dance with me — but only when their girlfriends are not around. “It’s for your own safety,” they joke. And my female friends are always alerting me to potential sexual pitfalls. “If you dance more than three tandas with someone,” one warns me earnestly, “everyone will think you are sleeping with him.” “You need to think of your reputation,” another cautions. “Remember, these guys are dancers second. But men first.”

At the Dublin marathon, I had no sense of any of this. If anyone was flirting or arranging clandestine liaisons, I congratulate them on their discretion. I’m pretty sure no one was mentally counting how many tandas I danced with any particular individual. Many people came to the marathon in couples. I find it odd and not entirely unproblematic when I stop to reflect on how much time I spend on the dance floor in the arms of other women’s boyfriends and husbands. (It seems just a trifle parasitic to ‘borrow’ other women’s boyfriends to dance with when I don’t have my own nice dancer-boyfriend to lend them in return.) But thankfully, in Europe, there seems to be an unspoken code that prohibits jealousy of your lover’s dance partners.

A friend who is familiar with the BA scene remarked on how “comfortable” the marathon felt. “I’ve never really experienced that laid-back feeling in Buenos Aires,” he said. And I think I know why. Often, as a foreigner in BA, the air seems thick with unspoken cultural and gender assumptions and hidden ulterior motives. As I am a socially gauche person, I am always unwittingly breaking taboos and offending delicate sensibilities. I still struggle with the politics of the milongas. But in Dublin things were simpler. We were just there to dance.

I spent a leisurely late breakfast one morning discussing all these issues with my fellow marathoners. As I was putting my tray away afterwards, one of the men hovered by me, feeling the need to make a few final points. “The thing is,” he told me, fixing me with a pair of earnest blue-grey eyes, “I have a girlfriend, who isn’t always with me when I travel to marathons. So I have to be careful. Tango can be dangerous.” He paused for a moment, then added, “Though of course it doesn’t have to be. The important thing is the connection. You can have wonderful, intense connection with complete strangers when you play classical music together [for example] and there is no sexual element involved. Actually, I never feel anything sexual when I am dancing tango.” This is a statement I cannot imagine any Argentine man of my acquaintance making. “Never?” I pressed. “Well,” he conceded, “almost never.”

PS Spanish speakers may like to compare these accounts of Argentine versus foreign female and male dancers and their customs, written from an Argentine perspective.