Fardad Michael Serry's philosophy on teaching Tango.

Tango dancing means something different to each dancer. Some people like to dance only socially, some like to dance more seriously than others, and a few people aspire to dance for exhibition, including on stage. I teach private lessons thoroughly tailored to each dancer and partner couple, according to their strenghts and inherent movement and musical preferences. This is a powerful approach that steers each dancer into a different direction from each. As a result, when my students dance, they look different, each from each.

My goal in group classes is to help each tango dancer develop the musical and movement skills (s)he needs to express, in his/her own langauge, the feelings and emotions that each tango, in each milonga*, with each partner evokes. My philosophy in teaching tango dancing is best described in this articulation of the goal, which I present to all my students and encourage them to adopt it:

Make the dance your own. Become your own best teacher!

(* The word "milonga" has several meanings. Here, it means an Argentien Tango Social Dance party. Milonga is also a dance and musical form that preceded the tango.)

To become your own best teacher may sound obscure, but it means to start understanding your own strengths, which may be unique, and to choose what makes sense for you to do, and to choose teachers that can take you to where you can best flourish as a tango dancer.

Social tango dancing is supposed to be improvised and personalized. This, to me, means that each dancer must first learn the alphabet of tango dancing, rather than "learning" other dancers' tango equivalents of words, phrases, and paragraphs. It is a little bit like this: You can learn well the letters of the tango alphabet little by little, and the skill (technique, connection, and musical sensibility) to put them together in infinitely-many ways, with infinite freedom to EXPRESS yourself through the movement of the bodies (your own and your partner's). Or you can learn 10 or 20 or 30 tango words, or phrases, or sentences of others which you did NOTHING to create, and put them  together according to some specific prescritions, pretty much the same way every time, with every partner, and every tango, so you look just like thousands of other couples on the dance floor. From New York to LA and Montreal to Miami, that's what I see most of the time when I observe dancers at milongas: Imitations and copies.

Alberto Paz, Master Teacher of Argentine Tango says: "in Tango, imitation is the worst kind of flattery."

Which one would you like to learn? Would you like to learn to ENJOY speaking the language of the tango with your own sentences, in your own accent, with your own inflections, in your own tone; or would you rather let someone teach your body the tango equivalent of phrases in handy little pocket books for tourists that teach how to ask where the toilet is? It makes no difference which world-class tango dancer you learn that from; It is NOT tango dacing; it is at best being what I call a "tango tourist".

The difference, as far as teaching is concerned, is like that between handing someone a fish, or teaching someone how to fish. This is infrequently explained to tango dancers, and dancers suffer from it in the long run, not in the least because they become frustrated with lack of progress despite hours and hours of classes and practice and hundreds if not thousands of dollars spent. Instead, tango dancers are too often taught steps and figures out of context ... before they are taught how to ENJOY finishing a whole tango in a peaceful yet dynamic embrace, without losing balance, or pulling their partners off balance a dozen times. Before they are taught what it means to navigate or embelish your way around the floor according to logical, meaningful ideas, commensurate with the musis and floor traffic conditions.

The teachers have no malicious intent, but there are two reasons that I have identified why this situation is prevelant in many tango communities in the U.S.

One reason is that teaching how to fish is not nearly as easy and lucrative as handing out fish; you hand somebody a fish today, it's likely that (s)he'll be back from another handout tomorrow. Tango is an easy dance to learn but difficult to teach properly. So, even the best intentioned teachers who start doing the right thing by their students often end up so tired ot the hard work that they gradually shift to "handing out fish". The situation goes from bad to worse when fish handouts are priced at loyalty, so that a tango culture devlopes around one or two people whose main interest is not developing a healthy, thriving tango community, but a cult that caters primarily to the wishes and the ego of the few. Sorry, don't look for politically-correct agenda's here; there are plenty of those around, and that's what limits the growth of tango everywhere.

The second reason is that not every great tango dancer is a half-way decent tango teacher, let alone a good teacher. Here's  question you may consider asking a teacher that may have taught you or will try to teach you the 8-count basic: Where did the 8-count basic originate?

The tango is a dance that has evolved into an art form of considerable subtlty. But not everyone has to be an artist to ENJOY dancing tango. The enjoyment in a tango class must start from the very beginning, and it does in the hands of capable teachers. Yet, everyone who wants to dance tango well and ENJOY dancing it his or her own way, everyone who wants not to be shackled down by the "8-count basic" and other such "tools", everyone who never wants to be concerned with "was that step number 5 or 6", must have some patience and develop a solid command of the fundamentals, and an understanding of what makes tango dancing different from other partner dacning.  (S)he must stop thinking that every well-intentioned, world-class dancer who passes through town is also by default a decnet teacher, let alone a good teacher. Many of them simply do not have the talent for teaching that matches their talent for dancing. Many of them also do not have the time to develop the skills for teaching that matches their skills for dancing.

Do you remember, can you dance, the figures that you think you learned the last time you attended a class taught by a world-class dancer couple from ANYWHERE? If you do, when was the last time you tried it at the local milonga with someone other than your regular partner if you have one, and not bumped into at least one couple before (if ever) you finished the figure? Statistically, most of what students learn in encyclopeadic approaches to tango is a waste of time and money, and by far the great majority of some 70 teachers from whom I have taken classes teach tango in this style: the encyclopeadic style. (To learn more about the encyclopeadic versus the structural approach, please see "A Structural Approach to the Tango" on this page )

This problem is largely created by tango dancers, not by tango teachers! If tango dancers who enjoy watching professionals dance tango on a wide open dance floor treated those performing professionals with the dignity and the respect that they deserve, by paying much more than the price of a couple movie tickets to see them perform ... those professionals would not be forced to teach tango for a living! The performing professionals would then do what they train to do, what they love to do, which, with notable few exceptions, is to dance--not to teach! But when they are forced to teach, then the social dancers will learn what performers can teach best: performance-flavored tango dancing. It takes them thousands of hours to dance the way they do. What makes a reasonable person think that they can teach and a student can learn a portion of that material, out of context (a performance) in 2 hours, in 5 hours, or in 10 hours? And what makes a reasonable person believe that that material, no matter how well taught and how well learned is appropriate for dancing at a milonga?

The next time you spend your time and energy "learning" to duplicate patterns from a teacher from anywhere, try what you think you learned on the floor of a local milonga with a partner with whom you didn't dance before.  Try it with someone who "looks good" dancing tango. Surprises are often in store!

I avoid "teaching" patterns, especially to beginners, unless the "teaching" of a simple pattern helps make a fundamental point or technique issue or a musicality concept or navigation more clear to the dancers. I also avoid imposing or emphasizing stylistic preferences, because these are choices, not imperatives. It is a waste of the student's time, money, and talent to teach them figures and embellishments, down to the quarter-inch foot positioning,  without first establishing a clear and solid set of fundamentals. It is unfair to categorize tango dancing students as "Beginner", "Intermediate", "Advanced" by their ability to memorize steps and figures.

I like to teach dancers who can think for themselves, and who want their individuality and identity remain intact as they learn to dance tango. I do not handout fish. I like to teach dancers who think for themselevs and ask good questions and don't let a teacher off the hook when the answer does not make sense.

I instead focus heavily on the fundamentals at first, including fundamental technique, connection to the partner, navigation blueprints, and musical sensibility. I then try to identify, in the way each dancer moves, those expressive preferences that make that dancer unique. I encourage each dancer to trust his/her body's wisdom in CREATING figures and patterns and embellishments, rather than memorizing them. I think that dancers who are serious and attend classes regularly should be able to feel confident to get on the floor of a milonga and dance, simply (but elegantly) at first. That they should not feel that they have to become "good" before dancing at a milonga with a partner they do not know. Being "good" is a matter of knowing what the partner is there in your arms for, it is a matter of technique, connection, musicality, appreciation and respect for the strenghts of your partner, and of dancing clean--not complex--in a way that your partner and yourself can communicate beyond what words allow you to.

I believe that after the fundamentals are in place, showing patterns and complex figures can be helpful in teaching, but most often when it stimulates the imagination and creativity of those dancers that have a solid command of the fundamentals.

And that's tango to me. It is politically incorrect; it is unorthodox; but the tango world does not need another fish salesman; there are plenty of those around.

Now, if you like your time and money be treated with respect, and if you like to learn to dance tango well, then give me the pleasure, and come dance with us.

We are waiting for you!


Fardad Michael Serry