Discover Tango

Learn Argentine Tango, the Magical Improvisational Dance. Discover the Sensations, Music, and Culture that Enthralled the World for a Century.


What makes Argentine Tango Special?

To learn Argentine Tango is to learn to feel and to create. Argentine Tango is first and foremost a social, improvisational dance: once you internalize the principles, you can create happy accidents with complete strangers. The video to the right is just how we felt in the music.

This differs with performative dances like ballet, folk dances, or ballroom (and that includes ballroom tango). In performative dances, a choreographer has the vision and the dancers rehearse to make that vision real. Performative dances value perfection, embody top-down team-work, and often fosters competition.

Argentine Tango is thus closer to Salsa, Kizomba, or Swing, but with two major differences. The first is how the couple signals to one another. Many dances are based on visual patterns; adept tangueros communicate to one another entirely by touch. The subtle leans and shifts, elasticity in the embrace, gentle foot brushes: in Argentine Tango, the outwardly invisible and what we feelings we create for the partner are what matters.

For followers, the 3-min of Tango is an intensely concentrated yet fully relaxed meditative state. Leaders, sculpting the action in the ever-changing river of music and shifting dance floor, often feels an exhilarating sense of accomplishment as he skillfully creates the reality from imagination.

The second difference between Tango and Salsa/Swing is the genre of music that can be danced to. Tangos (the music) are not all sad and melodramatic! From lyrical to rhythmic, classical to electronic, tangos music spans many sub-genres. The dance, co-evolving with the music, also developed expressive styles. The principles and techniques of Argentine Tango let you dance with everyone to almost any music.

Characteristic footwork (gancho and voleo), with Martin Ojeda.
Playful dancing to rhythmic music.

How do I Learn Argentine Tango?

We love Tango and we always want to help introduce it to the curious! Our Discover Tango course is designed to give complete beginners their first taste of what Argentine Tango is about. We run this 4-week course every month, with sessions available on Tuesday evening, Friday evening, or Sunday afternoon.

In this compact 4-week course, you will learn the basic principles, ways of moving around around the dance floor, common figures such as the ochos, and parada, tips for comfortable leading/following, and essential dance floor etiquette.

Different people learn differently, and many people also are fascinated by the cultural aspects of tango, music, and Argentina. Our Discover Tango in-studio course is thus accompanied by online Companion to Discover Tango material and “class notes” for preview and review as needed.


About me

I came from Buenos Aires, the home of Argentine Tango, in an artistic family of musicians and dancers. I have been studying Tango for more than 30 years (I can’t believe it!)

In these years, I danced with the Argentine National Academy of Tango, performed with different artists all over the world, and presented Tango at World Expos on behalf of my country. I judged international tango festivals and championships.

I taught at the largest tango school in Buenos Aires, and started teaching in Europe, Australia, and East Asia since 2000. My distinctive gift is helping my students discover what they need, and then move with them there.

Eli y Sisi in Argentina soccer shirt

Argentine Tango, for me, is a form of art that is intrinsically worthy of study and explore. I appreciate all the styles, from traditional to tango nuevo; and after all these years as a professional, I still think of myself as a student with very much to learn. My ongoing projects (Finite Tango, Infinite Tango, and Tango in Layers) are, in some way, vehicles for me to engage deeply with Tango.



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