TANGO COMES BACK

Southland Times, Issue 19516, 16 May 1922, Page 6

TANGO COMES BACK

NEW VERSION OF THE PRE-WAR DANCE. After standing on the threshold for many months, the tango has suddenly entered, our ballrooms once more, states Mr Philip J. S. Richardson, editor of the Dancing Times. It is already figuring on the programmes of several regular London dances, and three or four competitions have been held which have aroused a considerable amount of interest in the dancing world. It is a shorn ana chastened tango that we dance to-day, bearing very little resemblance to. the Argentine exotic that we struggled with before the war. Even the music has lost some of its Spanish tang, but it is none the less fascinating and alluring, and it will afford a welcome relief from the external syncopation of the foxtrot and one step.

Before the war the tango was a show dance—a dance of many figures and poses —a dance that even in the ballroom never entirely cart off the influence of those stage exhibitors who, in its early days', displayed its intricacies at the Queen’s, the Palace, and the then. London Opera House. It was utterly at variance with the unaffected style of dancing which is the only style to find favour to-day. To-day the tango as danced in Paris and as reintroduced to London, has discarded its puzzling figures and its apt-to-be-offen-sive movement of the hips. It boasts but four distinct movements, and these are even simpler than the four movements of the modern fox-trot. It is danced in the valse position, the only position in the ballroom that the modern dancer will condescend to use, and the dancers always progress round the room. The only movements used in Paris today are the so-called Argentine walk, the Promenade, the demi-vuelta (or turn), and the pas de la dentpile (or lace step). The steps are done in an effortless way with fairly stiff knees, and also without pauses. They are so simple that an average dancer should be able to learn them in a couple of lessons and then after one or two practices be able to amalgamate them success fully. They may be taken in any ordeand although they are only four in number the good dancer will mix these four so cleverly that to the casual observer they appear to be unending. At some of the dance clubs when the tango has been played it has been encored four and five times.—London Observer.