Back to the Home Page

Previuos chapter

CHAPTER 3. Leading and Following.

Excerpt........."When a man dances with a man it is simply not the same as dancing with a woman, although I am prepared to consider that if both men are gay then maybe it is very similar. Given that when tango began it was about male-female contact, not to mention the sublimation of sexual desires, then we should not be too surprised that many of the modern-day needs for tango demand the same sort of body shapes and ‘chemistry’ to work fully.

To this end, then, in tango, generally speaking, there is a man’s role and a woman’s role. Those who dispute this might try following without wearing high heels or lifting their heels up. It feels very odd. Similarly, try to lead with high heels. It is very difficult. I have seen female tango professionals dance the woman’s role with low heels, and it either looks strange or they raise their heels off the floor. Interestingly, put a man in high heels and he is able to follow quite elegantly because the high heel changes the body posture, most significantly by encouraging a ‘weight forward’ posture even when you walk backwards.

Commonly in tango, in Europe and the United States at least, the two roles are referred to as ‘leader’ and ‘follower’. These two terms more accurately describe the roles of the individual members of the couple than the gender, but I think this convention has yet to find much favour in Argentina. More recently, a concept has arisen that is referred to as ‘shaping’, to attempt to refine even more accurately what the man does in the dance. It is an attractive notion and attempts to get away from the image of a man ‘leading’ an animal on a halter or a small child by the hand. As far as I know, this has not caught on as a term yet, and I cannot guess what a ‘shaper’s’ partner might be called that would be suitable. I dread to think of the reaction from some quarters if it became ‘shaper’ and ‘plasticine’! To be serious, the notion of shaping is that it is the shape of the dance each couple does that the leader is responsible for; he is not responsible for the shape his partner is in! And I promised to be serious, too. For the moment, then, I propose to use the terms ‘leader’ and ‘follower’ because they have become well established."

Next chapter

Back to Contents Page