Tango in Buenos Aires

Looking for the culture behind the dance

Tango is often described as a dance.

That is true.

But it is not the whole story.

One of the reasons for looking more closely at tango as culture and dance is to ask what the dance was like where it grew up.

The material behind this part of the article comes primarily from interviews with older tango dancers who experienced Buenos Aires, particularly during the 1940s and 1950s. A large part of this material has been recorded and published by Mónica Paz through PractiMilongueros and by Pepa Palazón.

Link to Monica Paz's YouTube channel (opens in a new window): https://www.youtube.com/@PractiMilongueros

Link to Pepa Palazón's YouTube channel (opens in a new windows): https://www.youtube.com/@pepapalazon

These interviews are valuable because the people speaking are not explaining tango as a dance system.

They are remembering how they lived it.

They talk about where they danced, how they learned, how they chose partners, how they moved around the floor, what they listened for, and how they experienced the people around them.

Together, these stories give us a glimpse of a culture in which the dance was deeply embedded in social life.

The milonga was more than a dance floor

María Eugenia Roldán remembers tango as something that was naturally present in everyday life. She describes neighbourhood clubs and long periods of dancing, but also a social system around the dance.

There were ways of inviting someone to dance. A man who simply walked up to a woman's table and asked could reveal that he did not know the local way of doing things. Men learned from one another and learned to use the cabeceo.

The ronda was another part of this culture. Dancers were expected to respect the couples around them, move in the same direction and avoid cutting across the floor.

These things may look like etiquette.

But they also shaped the dance itself.

The way one person behaved affected everyone else. By accepting some limitations on individual behaviour, many people could share the same space and dance freely within it.

The social rules were therefore not only restrictions.

They created possibilities.

Learning by being there

Chino Perico gives us another perspective.

His memories of learning tango involve watching his brothers, copying what he saw, practising with other men and receiving corrections. Dancers observed one another and picked up movements from one another.

This was not necessarily a world without teachers.

But learning did not end when the lesson ended.

There was another kind of learning that happened by being part of the milonga.

You could learn something and then discover the rest on the dance floor.

You learned to feel when the distance was wrong, when the timing did not fit, when the floor was becoming crowded, or when your partner was asking for something different.

Not everything had to be explained.

With enough experience, the knowledge became part of the body.

The dancer simply knew.

This is important when we later look at what happened when tango travelled to Europe.

Music was part of knowing how to dance

The interviews also suggest that music was much more than something playing in the background.

Knowing the orchestras, the singers, the rhythm and the phrasing was part of knowing how to dance.

A dancer did not only need to know how to make a movement.

They needed to know how to listen.

And listening was not only about following the beat. It was about understanding the character of the music and allowing it to shape the dance.

Music, dance and social interaction were therefore closely connected.

A common culture does not mean identical dancing

The old tango world was not one single style either.

The interviews mention different ways of dancing, including Villa Urquiza, tango fantasía, orillero and salon styles. Chino Perico distinguishes salon dancing from stage performance and describes a way of dancing based on rhythm and elegance without unnecessary steps.

At the same time, Chicho's story reminds us that individuality was also important. He remembers being encouraged to find his own tango.

This is important.

A shared culture does not mean that everyone dances alike.

The culture provides a framework within which individual expression can develop.

You can have your own tango without having to create your own culture.

The dance and the community shape each other

When we put these stories together, a different picture begins to emerge.

Tango was not simply:

music + dance.

It was music, dance, relationships, behaviour, places, learning and identity.

The community helped dancers become competent.

And the dance helped create and reproduce the community.

The community did not merely surround the dance.

It helped shape the dance.

This may be one of the most important things to remember when we look at tango today.

A dancer who is only concerned with their own movement experiences a different dance from someone who is also aware of their partner, the music, the other couples and the room.

The individual is still there.

But the individual exists within a relationship.

From individual to relational awareness

Perhaps this can also help us understand the difference between individual and relational autonomy.

When we begin to learn tango, our attention naturally turns towards ourselves.

What do I do?

Where does my foot go?

How do I make this movement?

With experience, our attention can move outward.

What is my partner giving me?

What do I feel between us?

What is happening around us?

The music, the partner, the other couples and the movement of the floor become part of the dancer's awareness.

This does not mean giving up individuality.

It means that individuality is expressed within a relationship with others.

Perhaps this is one of the foundations of social tango.

What happens when the culture moves?

The Buenos Aires described in these interviews was a particular culture at a particular time.

Europe is not Buenos Aires.

When tango travelled, the dance could travel more easily than the culture surrounding it.

Some things could be taught.

Some things could be copied.

Some things could be described as rules.

But other things were much harder to transfer because they depended on people, relationships and participation.

This raises an important question for the European story:

What happens when a social dance is moved to a culture where the social system that originally supported it is no longer present?

Perhaps some of the answer can be found in what happened next in Europe.

People began creating their own milongas, communities and ways of organising tango. Later, marathons and encuentros created new ways for dancers from different countries to meet.

They were not simply reproducing Buenos Aires.

They were trying, in different ways, to create the conditions for something they had experienced.

And perhaps that is where the story becomes most interesting.

Because the history of social tango in Europe may not simply be the history of how a dance was imported.

It may be the history of how people tried to build a culture around a dance they had fallen in love with.