" class="external">http://www.ilovemusic.com/argentine_tango.htmMany moves are danced with chest-to-chest and head-to-head contact, with smooth "stalking" steps and dramatic flicks of the leg. In sharp contrast to ballroom tango and most other social dances, Argentine tango relies heavily on improvistion, and in theory, every tango is improvised. Although there are many steps and sequences of steps that a tango dancer learns, every dancer is free to change them without the criticism that "this is not Argentine tango."
Argentine Tango is generally danced anti-clockwise around the edges of the room, and it is acceptable to stop briefly in the line of dance to perform stationary figures. It is even OK to dance against the line of dance briefly, but only if there is plenty of room to do so.
A striking difference between Argentine tango and ballroom tango is that the follower leans toward the leader and in a close embrace dances "chest-to-chest" with the leader. In ballroom tango this style is unheard of, in fact, in ballroom tango the follower shyly pulls her upper body away from the leader whenever he draws her toward him.
Another interesting difference is that in Argentine tango, the leader may freely step with his left foot when the follower steps with her left foot. This is called "crossed feet." In ballroom tango this is unheard of and consider incorrect (unless the leader and follower are facing the same direction).
A third difference is that Argentine tango music is much more varied than ballroom tango music, allowing Argentine tango dancers to spend the whole night dancing only Argentine tango. For an example of this, watch these two videos:
http://www.ilovemusic.com/romantic-bandeon.wmv " class="external">http://www.ilovemusic.com/exciting-bandeon.wmvThe videos show a bandoneon player. Notice how the first one is slow, sweet, and romantic. The second video shows the bandoneon getting excited as he plays the music to an exciting conclusion. Yet, these selection are both from the same Argentine tango piece.
You can dance Argentine tango all over the world. Most major cities of the world have Argentine tango dance parties. For starters, here are some websites you can explore to find out where to dance Argentine tango:
USA
California
San Francisco -- http://www.sftango.com Sacramento Tango http://www.ilovemusic.com/Argnetine_tango.htm http://www.argentine-tango.com http://www.sacramentotango.org Berkeley -- http://www.stellatango.comArgentina
http://www.todotango.com http://www.letstango.com.ar/Japan
http://laue.ethz.ch/cm/htm/japan.htmlThe Netherlands
http://www.torito.nl/agenda/