I was born without the spectating gene: even with activities I love to do myself, I have very little interest in watching someone else do them. It’s probably not coincidence that I haven’t owned a telly in more than 25 years.

There were three additional reasons I used to grump about tango performances, which I’ll get to in a moment. So it may seem rather strange that I have seemingly filmed 45 of them over the past few years …

My issues with tango performances

I’ve historically had three issues with tango performances during festivals and milongas.

First, there is very little correlation between social tango and the stage tango often danced in performances. So when performers do large open-embrace movements which are both choreographed and rehearsed, it doesn’t seem particularly relevant to the improvised close-embrace social dance which is done within a square metre or less at a time. If I’m going to watch performers at all, I would rather do so when they are dancing socially in a milonga.

Second, I think performances bear some of the responsibility for crimes against floorcraft. There are those leaders who try to emulate stage tango on the social dance floor, not understanding that difference, and this phenomenon is often at its worst immediately after a performance. It’s especially painful when you see someone clearly attempting to replicate a sequence they’ve just seen, without any of the technical skill required to control its size and direction.

Third, the interruption to social dance time. While the actual lost time may be short, it can sometimes have a bigger impact. There are times when it feels like there is a beautiful flow-state to a milonga and anything which interrupts it will disturb that.

The apparent irony isn’t

All that being the case, it may seem rather ironic that I’ve filmed so many of them. It actually isn’t: the most common reason for me filming a performance in the earlier days was that it gave me something to do!

When there’s a separate refreshment area, I’ve often used a performance as an opportunity for a tea break. At other times, filming them has meant that I’m not just passively viewing.

I now do considerably less grumping

Despite everything I’ve said, there have been performances from time to time which I’ve really enjoyed.

I think the main thing which has distinguished the performances I’ve enjoyed from those I haven’t is playfulness. A technically-perfect, highly-polished choreography that has been rehearsed to the millimetre and millisecond is far less interesting to me than two people who are clearly improvising, playing together and having fun.

I’ve written before about my lego block approach to tango. Since I’m not looking for sequences, then performances haven’t been inspiration for those. However, I have over time found ways to identify new movement possibilities when watching a performance video. Moments, not sequences – and those have generally been drawn from the more playful performances.

45 performance videos now online

So far, those filmed performances have mostly just been sitting on my phone. I’ve now uploaded them to YouTube.

The venues range from Salon Canning and Marabu to a church hall in Islington. The dancers include Sebastián Achaval & Roxana Suárez, Virginia Gomez & Christian Marquez (aka Los Totis), Sigrid Van Tilbeurgh & Maria Filali, Corina Herrera & Ines Muzzopappa, Stéphanie Fesneau & Fausto Carpino – and many more.

You can find them all here.

I’ll be adding more from future events, so subscribe here if you want to be notified of those.

My thanks to Amanda, Diego, Emma, Lucy, Maria, Noelia and Tina for their help in identifying performers.

Framegrab shows Rocio Lequio & Bruno Tombari in Salon Canning in 2022