Choosing your tango teacher
Tango is a beautiful, complex and constantly-evolving dance. You need to find a teacher who will help you develop the technique, repertoire, confidence and appreciation required to really make the tango your own.
We have been teaching tango together since 2004. Over the years, we have developed a teaching method that will help you to dance authentic tango as soon as possible and as beautifully as you can.
All teachers should have many years of experience and training, but much more besides. The best teachers never copy a teaching system from another teacher, a book or a syllabus, but instead develop their own pedagogy. A tango teacher should understand, in detail, how a particular movement is created, constructed, led and followed, and should have a rigorous analytical and conceptual approach to the dance as a whole. A good teacher takes his or her teaching seriously.
Obviously, your teachers should be specialists. Argentine tango takes many years (some would say a lifetime!) of focused dedication to master. For this reason, you should be very cautious about learning tango from teachers of ballroom dancing or other dances. They are very unlikely to master or convey the authentic spirit, technique, diversity and innovation of 21st-century Argentine tango.
We have been teaching tango together since 2004. Over the years, we have developed a teaching method that will help you to dance authentic tango as soon as possible and as beautifully as you can.
All teachers should have many years of experience and training, but much more besides. The best teachers never copy a teaching system from another teacher, a book or a syllabus, but instead develop their own pedagogy. A tango teacher should understand, in detail, how a particular movement is created, constructed, led and followed, and should have a rigorous analytical and conceptual approach to the dance as a whole. A good teacher takes his or her teaching seriously.
Obviously, your teachers should be specialists. Argentine tango takes many years (some would say a lifetime!) of focused dedication to master. For this reason, you should be very cautious about learning tango from teachers of ballroom dancing or other dances. They are very unlikely to master or convey the authentic spirit, technique, diversity and innovation of 21st-century Argentine tango.
What you can expect from us
We assume that you expect teaching that is clear, precise, coherent, reflective, and sympathetic to the dance and the dancer. You should feel able to ask questions, express doubts, and think things through for yourself.
Our teaching method encourages you to develop good technique and a strong basis for your own innovation within tango. We emphasise elegance, style and technical precision from the earliest lessons, because a simple step danced beautifully is as valuable as a complex one, and is attainable by everyone who learns the tango and really wants to respect its integrity.
Beyond great technique and style, though, tango is also fundamentally improvisational. For this reason we do not teach using the ‘salida’ or ‘basic eight’. Instead we encourage you from the very beginning to build your own dance from the various movements available – first in an elementary way, and later on in a more sophisticated way. One of our greatest pleasures is seeing the variety of styles danced by those who come to our classes.
Our teaching method encourages you to develop good technique and a strong basis for your own innovation within tango. We emphasise elegance, style and technical precision from the earliest lessons, because a simple step danced beautifully is as valuable as a complex one, and is attainable by everyone who learns the tango and really wants to respect its integrity.
Beyond great technique and style, though, tango is also fundamentally improvisational. For this reason we do not teach using the ‘salida’ or ‘basic eight’. Instead we encourage you from the very beginning to build your own dance from the various movements available – first in an elementary way, and later on in a more sophisticated way. One of our greatest pleasures is seeing the variety of styles danced by those who come to our classes.
Teaching that inspires...
Teaching is not simply 'training'. It is not the slavish or unthinking re-presentation of established ideas without critical commentary or good justification. It is not the regurgitation of an old formula which was undoubtedly valuable in its time but which is increasingly dated and unimaginative. Proper teaching is about standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before and reaching further, not merely passing on old ideas verbatim.
A great teacher of tango does not need to be a great performer or an athletic dancer, nice though those things may be. He or she needs to be a fully reflective, responsive, thinking teacher who engages constantly with developments in the dance, and inspires his or her students to make the dance their own.
Your tango teachers should have reflected upon the dance analytically, and have developed a clear conceptualisation of its fundamental structures. They can then teach from their own unique, considered perspective. They will not need to teach a sequence invented many years ago - unless of course they have truly examined it, concluded that it is indeed the best way, and can explain their reasoning to their students.
Teaching is not simply 'training'. It is not the slavish or unthinking re-presentation of established ideas without critical commentary or good justification. It is not the regurgitation of an old formula which was undoubtedly valuable in its time but which is increasingly dated and unimaginative. Proper teaching is about standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before and reaching further, not merely passing on old ideas verbatim.
A great teacher of tango does not need to be a great performer or an athletic dancer, nice though those things may be. He or she needs to be a fully reflective, responsive, thinking teacher who engages constantly with developments in the dance, and inspires his or her students to make the dance their own.
Your tango teachers should have reflected upon the dance analytically, and have developed a clear conceptualisation of its fundamental structures. They can then teach from their own unique, considered perspective. They will not need to teach a sequence invented many years ago - unless of course they have truly examined it, concluded that it is indeed the best way, and can explain their reasoning to their students.
Our teaching methods and 'tango nuevo'
Our teaching methodology is constantly developing as we deepen our understanding of the conceptual aspects of the dance. We design our classes so that you will try out, practise and hone the key concepts which enable tango to 'work' as a unique partner dance. These concepts relate to the individual bodies of each dancer (their poise, balance, states of tension and relaxation in different parts of the body, how they move, pivot, and express themselves through movement) and to the relationship between partners (how they 'connect' - physically and sensually, through the embrace, the music, their respective axes, and so on).
Teaching from concepts like this places us within the (recent) tradition of tango nuevo - an innovative way of understanding and teaching tango which was pioneered and elaborated by Gustavo Naveira and Fabian Salas, amongst others. We believe this is the best way to share tango with our students.
We do not teach 'tango nuevo' as a separate dance style in our regular classes. Contemporary salon tango is really a mixture of traditional salon tango and tango nuevo, so in a sense, nuevo is an inherent and essential part of good salon tango today. But we do use and develop the nuevo teaching methods which were created and are still used by these great maestros of modern tango. For more information about tango nuevo, click here.
Our teaching methodology is constantly developing as we deepen our understanding of the conceptual aspects of the dance. We design our classes so that you will try out, practise and hone the key concepts which enable tango to 'work' as a unique partner dance. These concepts relate to the individual bodies of each dancer (their poise, balance, states of tension and relaxation in different parts of the body, how they move, pivot, and express themselves through movement) and to the relationship between partners (how they 'connect' - physically and sensually, through the embrace, the music, their respective axes, and so on).
Teaching from concepts like this places us within the (recent) tradition of tango nuevo - an innovative way of understanding and teaching tango which was pioneered and elaborated by Gustavo Naveira and Fabian Salas, amongst others. We believe this is the best way to share tango with our students.
We do not teach 'tango nuevo' as a separate dance style in our regular classes. Contemporary salon tango is really a mixture of traditional salon tango and tango nuevo, so in a sense, nuevo is an inherent and essential part of good salon tango today. But we do use and develop the nuevo teaching methods which were created and are still used by these great maestros of modern tango. For more information about tango nuevo, click here.
Page updated 29th May 2022