Where Everything’s Made Up and the Points Don’t Matter

My tango games started from the first embrace. They began with the simple game of ‘Let’s find out!’. ‘If I step forward with my left foot, will I step on my partner? Let’s find out!’ ‘Will they be willing to dance with me even though I don’t know anything? Let’s find out!’ ‘Will I want to keep doing this dance? Let’s find out!’

I soon moved on to the Argentine version of a Chinese finger trap. ‘I got myself into these front ochos, surely I can figure out how to get myself out damn it!’ Each puzzle solved opened a door to ten more. First it was ‘can you remember these eight steps.’ Which turned into eight individual steps linking together in any order I wanted. ‘But can you do it in the reverse order?’  ‘How about on the other side?’ ‘But how about you lead doing the follower steps and they follow doing the leader steps?’ ‘But can you lead the reverse roles on the other side in reverse order?’  

I always had an appreciation for the sequence-based games. Show me a weird twirling whirling wrap and I’ll be entertained for hours. How many steps can I remember at once, and how quickly can I remember them? Class sequences are scored like golf. Each time you see the sequence is a stroke. Can you remember the full sequence in under par, or will you just putt along to a double bogey? You raise the stakes by putting the new move in at the milonga. How about double down and use a move you just learned in a performance?    

As I progressed in the dance, the games progressed too. ‘Can I dance with someone?’ turned into ‘can I dance every tanda?’ Which morphed into ‘can I dance every tanda with only people I really want to dance with?’ An unfortunate twist came when someone asked if I wanted a second tanda. Game on! Now it was ‘how many second tandas can I get?’ This complicates the rules for scoring far too much. Four or more two-tanda partners in a night, friggen’ Yahtzee! Someone says thank you a little too quickly after the last song ends, best take some lessons noob. But how much is one tanda each night worth compared to two tandas one night but then no tandas the next night? One tanda the first night and two the next night feels great, but somehow two the first night and one the next night feels like game over, you lose. If I can’t keep track of the points, then how can I tell if I am progressing? And if I don’t know if I am progressing, then how can I judge my self-worth?

I eventually discovered that at tango events seems to be music playing in the background. I never noticed it before, but as long as they keep playing it I may as well play some games which incorporate it. I played Red Light Green Light with the end of the phrase and the start of the next. I tried coloring between the lines to the different shades of the music. Did you know there are even rhythms other than the half notes? I started playing Pokémon with the syncopations: ‘gotta catch em all.’ Sometimes I would study a few songs at a time playing on repeat for a few days until I could tap each rhythm and follow each instrument. The easy part is getting the music in there, the hard part is how to get my body to send it back out.

The game I now play is to find the games within the game. Each game has its own rules, but the rules are made up anyways so it’s ok to break them. The games change throughout the night, vary by partner and by tanda, and several games are played within one song. Each has its own way to get points, and choosing the right game at the right time gives a turbo boost, but points don’t matter either so don’t worry too much about trying to get a high score.

Maybe I start with a ‘snuggly embrace’ game. No points for steps, but points for how nice it feels and bonus if you can breathe together to the music. Maybe move on to tango target practice. Fifty cents gets you three steps for the full phrase, so choose your targets wisely. Place all three at well-timed moments in the music and you win the big fluffy teddy bear. I start to switch between walking and turns (you can be the Bouba to my Kiki). I leave open the space for the ‘catch the piano fills’ games too. Just single player mode for the moment, but maybe I’ll join for a coop adventure later in the song.

We change to a ‘build your own sequence’ real-time strategy. What you build changes for each level of the game. Maybe this level only allows cross-system sacadas, or maybe the level does not allow the lead to take any steps. Maybe the sequence is already built from the last workshop you took but the game is fitting it into the teeny tiny space available. Maybe it is a custom level of your own creation.

The points don’t matter, but there are a few combos that can rack up the score. Well-placed repetitions score highly. Extra if you bring in compositional ideas like augmentation, diminution, ornamentation, retrograde, among others. Complex moves should be saved for the right moment. A hard move in the wrong place counts for little but stick the landing with a really cool move at the right time and it’s tens across the board. Unlock the 2x tricky bonus if you finish your flourish and the switch back to the snuggly embrace game at the same time the musical theme repeats. How do we choose the game to play? Everyone has a few they especially like, whether they know they are playing or not. The music has a voice in the choice. Our partner even more so. Sometimes I pick the game. Sometimes my partner chooses. Sometimes we come up with the game together. Next time we dance I wonder what games we will create?