Dancing Without Tandas

05 Jul 2019 - by Graham

For those of you not familiar with the traditional tango way of doing things, tandas are groups of tracks played together that share a common rhythmic structure, orchestra, or style. It is usual for people to dance together for the duration of a tanda, then swap partners at the end of the tanda which is signified by a 'cortina' (curtain) of so-called "undanceable" music. This is the way that most traditional milongas are organised and the only way that a lot of tango dancers have ever experienced tango. At milongas that follow the rules of tango to the letter, you are supposed to only dance with someone for one tanda per event or else you may be considered to be a fixed couple, and breaking a tanda in the middle to dance with someone else is out of the question.

But there is another way of doing things, and many Neolongas (milongas based around neotango and alternative tango music) are eschewing the concept of tandas altogether and playing track after track without a break.

For dancers who have come to tango from other styles such as Salsa, Kizomba, or LeRoc, this is completely normal. No salsa DJ would consider clearing the floor every three or four tracks just so they can change the tone of the music or play something at a different speed. They seamlessly blend the music together, working with the mood of the dancers to choose tracks that will lift and inspire them throughout the evening, until everyone eventually goes home at the end, exhausted and happy. It makes sense; you come to a dance evening to dance, not to listen to music that exists purely to hurry you off the dance floor . So why not do this in tango too?

There really is no good reason, but for dancers that come from a traditional background this can be confusing. They are so used to basing their dance plans around tandas that they feel out of their depth when faced with a complete evening of music with no breaks and no structure. You hear dancers say that they have no idea how long they should continue to dance with someone, that they don't know when it's okay to ask someone new, and that they can feel 'stuck' on the dance floor as there is no cortina to tell them when to come off.

I do sort of get this, as if you have spent your entire tango life working in one way and then you walk into a venue that does things completely differently it might mess with your mind a bit. But a lot of tango dancers also dance other styles, and yet you rarely hear anyone say that what Salsa (for example) really needs is tandas. They instinctively know that other styles work best with a continuous flow of music throughout the evening. So why can't it be the same for tango?

I came to tango through a very non-traditional route, so tandas were something I discovered a long way into my tango journey and something that never really made sense to me. All I want from a dance evening is for the DJ or band to play a selection of music that I like or that challenges me, and to get as much or as little dancing in as I feel like at the time. I don't want the evening parcelled up into neat little packages, as the chance that the cortinas will happen at the exact time I want breaks is basically zero. I want to dance - or not dance - to my schedule, and to be able to enter and leave the floor whenever I like, and I know that a lot of people who come to tango without all the traditional background feel the same. So that's what I do.

So if you come to one of my events, don't expect to hear any cortinas. Just dance for as much or as little of the evening as you want, and choose the tracks you want to dance to based on whether you and your chosen partner like them individually, not just because they are part of a group of similar stuff that you may or may not like. It's liberating.