Why the English fail at tango

If You Are An Englishman You Will Never Be Able Really To Dance The Argentine or Spanish Tango

by Ethel Gaskell, London 1925

The Englishman fails at the Tango for one reason–and for one reason only. We have always been brought up in the belief that to express passion in public–or to express any of our feelings in public, for that matter–is almost a sin. We hide all our emotions behind a veil of indifference and coldness. We are trained to conceal our feelings.

The Tango is essentially the dance of Passion.

It must be danced with intensity–not vulgarity, of course, but with feeling and romance. It must express soul and desire.

And this is where the people of southern countries score over us. Go, if you can, some time to Spain, and watch the men and women there dance, and you will turn away with a sigh and know that we shall never be able to do like them.

It was among Spaniards that I learned my Tango. Their movements were wonderful to watch–like a story being unfolded in dance steps. Ah, if only we could have more sunshine in Britain. I thought–more warmth and less coldness, more expression and less restraint!–then perhaps we too might learn to dance it.

And yet I have seen what I thought was good dancing of the Tango in England. There are thousands of English people dancing it to-day, and dancing it with considerable skill and a wonderful knowledge of the technique. But it is not skill that makes Tango: it is feeling. It is the power to forget even that you are dancing–the power to put into your movements what your heart is feeling. And Englishmen have not the power of expressing themselves in this way.

Some day, when we lose our stoicism and coldness, we may be like those children of the sun. Until then, however, there is no reason why we should not try to dance the Tango in our own way. Even from the point of view of skill, it is an enthralling dance with infinite possibilities.

Get a good teacher to give you lessons. Even the rhythm will seem strange at first to your Northern senses, but in time you will come to feel the passion of the dance, though you may not be able to express it.

In the select dancing spaces of Spain I have been thrilled with the Tango I had witnessed and had thought there could be nothing finer. But I was mistaken. The real Tango is not danced in these places. Very few visitors see the real thing. I did. I was taken to one of the most secret places in the city’s Bohemia, where the real Tango was danced, and where ordinary visitors are unable to gain admittance, unless personally conducted by one who knows.

I watched enthralled. Never before had I seen such dancing, such feeling, such passion, such abandon. Perhaps it is just as well that it is not danced like that in our unemotional country.

But to girl dancers who would like to go to Spain for their holidays let me say this: Do not go alone. In Spain it is not considered correct for a girl to sit down at a table in a restaurant alone. She will be annoyed by unpleasant attentions. The Southerners may dance the Tango to perfection, but they do not see things as we do.

Learn your Tango at home, and pick up new ideas if you like in Spain–but have an escort.

But if we English fail at the Tango, we hold our own, with interest, in the Fox-trot, One-step, and Waltz.

Don’t despair about the Tango, for a simple form–the Parisian Tango–is coming in, and the newest and best bands are going to play it to us. If we could only find another name for it, instead of calling it Tango, its success would be assured. But unfortunately the name “Tango” conjures up such visions of difficulties that many are prevented from trying. The Parisian Tango has but four steps, has little in common with the passionate dance of the Spaniard and the Argentine which I have described, and presents but few of its difficulties.

One of the things to remember is that you have to bend your knees slightly, which, in the Fox-trot, is unforgivable. The foot movement is different, an important point being that when moving sideways the feet do not point the way you are going, but remain broadside on. The French practice of including several accordions in their French Tango bands acts as a great impetus to the dance, and would contribute greatly to its popularity in other countries if it were introduced.

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