Tags
Argentine Tango, Cobble Hill, community, Duncan, Lyn Johnson, Milonga, Social dance, Tango, Tango in the Temple, Vancouver Island Tango
Floor Craft 101: One of the many tango fundamentals inherent to good 
dancing. Every Tango community has to address this issue and each community has their own revised version. New contributor to Tango Corazon, Lyn Johnson, writes Vancouver Island Tango’s version of Floor Craft 101.
Argentines have been dancing Tango for more than a century. This has given them time to figure out what works and what doesn’t in a social dance environment. We need to heed their ways if we want to enjoy ourselves!
After only a few Tango lessons, most beginners know that couples move counter clockwise around the dance floor and stay in a line of dance. Easier said than done!
Floor craft is challenging. It takes some time and experience to get good at crafting your dance. And since Argentine Tango is always growing, there will always be people learning their floor craft as they go.
It helps to have guidelines to follow … rules of the road, so to speak. Traffic travels in lanes and dancers stay in their lanes. The experienced dancers typically dance in the outside lane and beginners move to the inside.
DANCE WITH THE ROOM
Endeavour to dance with an awareness of all of the dancers around you. Do not allow gaps in the line-of-dance in front of you to form as this will cause a pileup of dancers behind you. When the music begins, start dancing when the majority of other dancers do.
DON’T MONOPOLIZE THE SPACE
Adjust your dancing to the space available and don’t take more than your share. Do not impede the line of dance. In a crowded space keep your feet close to the floor to avoid kicking or stepping on anyone. Stay aware of who is around you at all times. Look for erratic movements in your peripheral vision and keep a distance from those who might be unaware of how much space they are using.
AVOID PASSING
Tango is not a race. If the dancer in front of you is advancing more slowly than you would like, alter your dance so that it is more circular and less linear. Learn to dance well and happily without much forward advancement.
NEVER ZIGZAG
Cutting in and out of line-of-dance is very poor form and disturbing to the dancers you are cutting in front of. If you choose to dance in the center of the room, remain there throughout the song. If you dance in a given lane, finish the dance in that same lane.
DO NOT TAILGATE
Do not get closer than 3 feet (or the size of a back step), to the couple ahead of you. Give them room to back up. No one is supposed to back up but everyone does even if only to avoid collisions, so stay clear. You’ll be surprised how much this can reduce collisions and improve your dance experience! Always look before stepping back – HINT: rounded back steps with good contra-body technique are much more milonga friendly.
DON’T TALK, DANCE
Talking while dancing is distracting and creates a lack of presence in the moment … for your partner as well as those around you. Save the conversation for when the music stops. Teaching or correcting your partner is particularly inappropriate on the dance floor at a milonga. Save it for a practica or step outside of the milonga space to review, if need be.
We encourage everyone to follow these simple rules … for safety and to provide an environment conducive to the quest for the ‘transcendent experience of tango’.
Relax and take it slowly. You don’t need to demonstrate your tango prowess on the social dance floor. Less is more. Too much energy disturbs the flow of the whole crowd. You are not alone in the room, learn to feel the whole space as you dance.
You are not entitled to do as you please; we are, after all, a community of dancers.
(Every Tango community has to address floorcraft at one point. The above is my own version, order and emphasis … but based on various web articles on this subject).
Tango Corazon 
Excellent summary for the dance floor. How do you get all the stage performers to incorporate this into their teaching? Even though you claim to dance tango de salon throw out the rules when they dance exhibitions. It’s all about impressing others.
It is common to be close enough to touch other couples on the floor in Buenos Aires. That’s never been a problem for the milongueros who learned to dance with little space in the downtown confiterias during the 1950s. There is no one teaching these skills today except a handful of milongueros.
Good question Jan. (And I assume you mean ‘they’ instead of ‘you’.) I think performance moves and social dancing should be defined as such and that teachers have a responsibility to differentiate between the two if necessary. Salon tango to me is elegant social dancing, no stage stuff, doesn’t take up a lot of space and does not impede the LOD.
Yes, that’s what I meant. They (the teachers) throw out the rules of conduct on the social dance floor when they teach. Most who attend classes are there as social dancers who want to progress in their improvisational skills, not learn choreography for stage. Organizers should hire teachers with social dance skills rather than performers who only know and teach choreography. They are the root of the problems on the dance floor.
There are young couples training to have careers in tango in BsAs. There are few places for performers on stage, so many are giving exhibitions and teaching. The problem is they have no experience on the dance floor and bring their choreography to the classes instead of improvisational skills. Most choreography requires space and disregards the line of dance, etc. Dancers are so accustomed to watching exciting exhibitions from their teachers, and they copy what they do for the social floor. The result is chaos.
Agreed. I have seen such chaos in other communities; communities that bring in a lot of visiting teachers. It may be ‘boring’ to learn the fundamentals and how to navigate, but wow, does it ever make a difference. Here is to no more chaos!
This is a wonderfully concise description of floorcraft and much appreciated by a beginner. I notice that I am often passed on the dance floor by some of the most experience members of our community who are otherwise thoughtful and helpful. I would understand if my partner and I were holding up the line of dance but that usually isn’t the case. Does not everyone support this convention?
Our group is still in its infancy in regard to floor craft. If the awareness is on group dynamic then no one passes, if the awareness is on how to dance then floor craft becomes secondary, unfortunately. It is all a process and reminders are needed. I think as a whole that everyone is doing very well, you included.
Nice. I’ve been on many VERY crowded dance floors and people survive – and have fun! – by being courteous, generous, and using common sense (pretty much what you’ve described here). Practicing LOD etiquete is critical to a good dance experience; moving together gracefully becomes much more important than figures/speed the more I dance.
Having said that, I’m still learning how to do much of this with grace, and it seems to take me a while to learn some things (I see this resistance mirrored in my kids as I try to instil practices of etiquette etc that seem out-of-date/old-fashioned!).
I’d add this: in every dance hall (ballroom, milonga) I’ve been too with some “organization,” the LOD is actually more like a large traffic circle, with slower dancers in the middle and faster dancers on the outside. If you’re doing figures, please move to the centre where there is little traffic and what is there is moving slowly, instead of taking up scarce and useable floor space on the outside edges. If you’re moving slower than some other dancers, edge into the centre and leave the outside lane open for those who – because they’re more skillful or simply nuts about speed – move faster.
Happy dancing!
ps. It’s not clear who is writing / responding on this blog – I believe Lyn wrote the post? Is it Lyn or Kirra who is responding to questions?
Lyn wrote the post and Kirra (that’s me) is responding to any and all posts/comments.