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8 p.m. for our Ballroom Party!

Come at 7 p.m.

for our Beg. Tango


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may classes:

• Monday: Beginner Rumba
• Tuesday: Beginner Tango
• Wednesday: Adult Ballet
• Thursday: Intermediate/Advance East Coast Swing
• Friday: (1) Foxtrot; (2) East Coast Swing; (3) Tango; (4) Samba

website updates:

• May Calendar — Downloadable PDF versions of the calendars are now available.

 

International Tango 

The ballroom Tango draws its inspiration from the Argentine Tango. This style of Tango is thought to have been demonstrated in Paris in about 1906, but it was the Argentinean playboy Ricardo Guiraldes in 1910/1911 who really caught the popular imagination.

The modifications to the dance created sharp, strong movements, which were meant to represent the dances performed by the gauchos (cowboys) of Argentina, whose leather leggings [or chaps] hardened from the foam and sweat of their horse's body, causing them to walk with flexed knees, it's not fluid like a waltz. At night they would go to the local bars and brothels, to ask the ladies to dance, but since the gaucho hadn't washed for weeks, the lady would dance in the crook of the man's right arm, holding her head back.

Her right hand was held low on his left hip, close to his pocket, looking for a payment for dancing with him. Ballroom Tango was the first dance to be codified as a ballroom dance in the 1920's, and later, additional staccato movements were added in the 1950's to produce the Ballroom Tango as danced today.

Basic steps of the Tango are walks, links, rock turns, promenade positioning.