This past July, our group's Parkinson's dance program offered 20-minute sessions of Argentine tango with guest teacher Martina at the end of their Wednesday class. We learned how this dance might enrich our lives and, perhaps, improve our balance and ease of walking. I studied and danced the Argentine tango several years ago, and have started to take some classes "out in the real world" again. It's certainly given me joy and a boost to my confidence. (David here and Olie, two of the enablers of the tango experiment)

Providing some context, background and tips for these classes should give you a better idea of why tango is being taught in Parkinson's communities, and, hopefully, help to learn the dance.

Two recent developments make it easier for PWPD (People with Parkinson's Disease) to approach social tango. Tango nuevo, the dancing and teaching style (as opposed to the music called tango nuevo), a structural analysis of the dance to devise a method of analyzing the complete set of possibilities of tango movement, defined by two bodies and four legs in walks and circles. Though the technique and style of the dance are what makes it beneficial, traditional steps can be adapted to our abilities.

While Argentine tango emphasizes the intrinsic concept of partner connection, leading and following, musical interpretation, and the classic aesthetic, organic tango centers on the silent discourse between partners, both sharing in the responsibility of listening and reacting to each other, and to the other dancers. Both developments promote dynamism and innovation, but with respect for the past. Women can dance with women, and men with men, as they did in the early days of the dance. Partners can exchange lead and follow. 

It's a world apart from the rose-in-the-teeth head-snapping ballroom tango, which you've seen in competitions or as danced in ballroom classes, many of which also offer the Argentine form. The Argentine tango is a living social dance, originating in Argentina and Uruguay, and  spreading to Europe in the early 1900s (a relative, who lived in Germany, remembers dancing the tango during the 1920s). After a nearly 40-year slumber, it was revived in the 1980s, as professional tango troupes became huge hits on stage. It has continued to be danced all over the world. The Wikipedia has a very good history and survey of the distribution of the Argentine tango around the world. One intriguing variant is the Finnish tango, more dour than the Argentine. There's also a gay tango.

Just as the variety of styles of Argentine social tango are differentiated, there's a distinction between the social (salon style, milonguero style) and show (fantasia) tango. The first is, of course, the social form which can be done by anyone who follows at least a few of the basic rules of etiquette and technique. Salon tends to refer to the more traditional style, and milonguero-style--close embrace--to the one-axis style preferred by many younger dancers. Fantasia is done by highy-trained performers--lifts, high kicks, lots of moves you'd never attempt at a milonga (dance gathering or party).

Allied with the tango are the milonga and the vals, dances done to music with a more regular beat. Most milongas, also most recordings of the tango masters, will include both dances. I've studied and danced tango for several years, mostly in the past, and I love both of these dances, but it can be disconcerting to be dancing the tango when everyone around you is doing the jauntier milonga. Another distinction to mention is that the music is NOT the same as ballroom tango music, which, actually, makes the Argentine tango more difficult to dance. See Resources for music and video recommendations

Certainly not fantasia, nor ballroom-style.I hope to continue the class, perhaps as a special interest group, and we'll be doing the basic steps of social tango, particularly the special tango walking and partnering. In Health Benefits you can read some medical research studies on the healing powers of this dance and read about the benefits that many ascribe to it In How and Where I’ll suggest how to approach  it from a health, as well as a social, perspective.