Tango Show, Buenos Aires (Photo Credit: Tourist Board of Argentina)
The Argentine Tango was developed in the late 19th Century in Buenos Aires as a social dance style of the unprivileged with elements of sensuality, nostalgia, sadness, and closeness. The period from 1930 to 1950 is considered the golden age of tango with orchestras and countless ensembles playing around the city at salons, cafés, cabarets, confiterías, and social and sports clubs. They also began playing around the country and traveling internationally.
The Argentine Tango uses a 2/4 or a 4/4 Rhythm consisting of 2 upbeats and 2 downbeats. Argentine Tango music is known for its sudden dynamic changes and melancholic but intense mood. Argentine Tango lyrics focus on nostalgia, sadness, and passionate expression of lost love. The Argentine Tango orchestra typically consists of guitars, violins, double bass, flute, clarinet, piano, and most famously the Bandoneon. The Bandoneon is a reed-free musical instrument, like an accordion. It consists of expanding and contracting bellows, with buttons to create expressive sounds.
Traditional Argentine Tango is performed anti-clockwise in dance pairs in lines that flow across the dance floor. The basic elements of the Argentine Tango are embrace, walking, and figures.
The most important figure in an Argentine Tango is the Ocho, which is Spanish for eight. The Forward Ocho consists of a front cross step followed by a half-turn pivot to repeat a front cross with the other foot in the opposite direction, creating a figure of eight on the floor. The Gancho is a dramatic and stylised step of the Argentine Tango involves one dancer hooking their leg around their partners leg. Embracing and Walking are the fundamental parts that creates connection and feeling whilst dancers glide smoothly across the floor.
Check out this Argentine Tango from Strictly Come Dancing 2023 performed by Angela Scanlon and Carlos Gu here. Can you spot any of the dance moves you have learned?
Here are 5 Effective Benefits of the Argentine Tango for your Physical and Mental Health
Improvements In Posture
Practicing the Argentine Tango regularly can greatly improve your posture and body alignment. By having your head aligned over the shoulders and hips whilst engaging the dorsal muscles and lengthening the spine. Argentine Tango movements engage core muscles, including the rectus abdominis, obliques, and transverse abdominis having a strong core is essential for great posture in dance as well as daily life. Enhanced posture from dancing the Argentine Tango can help reduce back pain, improve breathing, and increase overall body confidence.
Increases Endurance and Stamina
The Argentine Tango gives you an effective cardiovascular workout resulting in increasing your cardiovascular endurance and stamina. The dance raises your heart rate and increases your blood flow. The intensity of the Argentine Tango can be modified to ensure that it is an endurance exercise. The dynamic movements and varying pace increase heart rate, offering a vigorous cardiovascular exercise. In Argentina, Dr S. Comasco and Peidro have even found that in a hospital setting, Argentine Tango can be used to improve cardiovascular fitness in persons who have had a cardiac incident or a heart attack.
Reduces Depression and Anxiety
Engaging in the Argentine Tango can lower cortisol (the stress hormone) levels while promoting relaxation. A study by Rosa Pinniger, Rhonda F Brown, Einar B Thorsteinsson, and Patricia McKinley was conducted to determine whether tango dancing is as effective as mindfulness meditation in reducing symptoms of psychological stress, anxiety, and depression, and in promoting well-being. They concluded that Argentine Tango can effectively reduce symptoms of depression and is as effective as mindfulness meditation in reducing depression levels. The combination of exercise, social interaction, and intense focus in the Argentine Tango can alleviate anxiety and depression symptoms.
Enhanced Focus
The Argentine Tango requires intense concentration of the present moment with the focus required being a form of meditation that can increase mindfulness. The dance demands full attention to the music, steps, and partners. Learning Argentine Tango steps challenges mental engagement and improves cognitive flexibility keeping the mind alert and engaged throughout. Regular Argentine Tango dancing can improve concentration and attention making it a great way to improve your focus and clear your mind of any distracting thoughts.
Improvements in Dual-Task performance
The Argentine Tango requires dancers to simultaneously focus on multiple tasks, such as maintaining posture, navigating space, and staying in sync with a partner or group. Dancers must make split-second decisions while considering multiple factors, activating various brain functions simultaneously. Researchers Jacobson and McKinley demonstrated that tango enhances the ability to do two things at once, like spatial navigation and partner synchronization. This improvement can have significant benefits for overall cognitive function and daily life activities, especially for older adults and those with movement disorders.
Xpress-Yourself Dance CIC run weekly Keep Dancing classes, suitable for older adults across, Birmingham, Solihull, Walsall, Sandwell and online. Keep Dancing will teach you dances from around the world with no need for a dance partner. Find your nearest Keep Dancing class here.
Xpress-Yourself Dance CIC also runs classes to support carers in Birmingham thanks to Funding from Forward Carers CIC. Find out more about our Keep Dancing for carers here
If you enjoyed reading 5 Benefits of the Argentine Tango for your Physical and Mental Health, you might want to consider reading 5 Effective Benefits of Charleston Dance for your Physical and Mental Health
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