What are the Tango Practices?

The origin of the prácticas belongs to a distant past, as dancers would get together to practice amongst themselves, or at the “academies”, since the early days of the tango.

The prácticas, as we know them today, emerged in the 90s when certain teachers organized lessons and people stayed after the lesson to dance and experiment. One of these is Gustavo Naveira who organized in Cochabamba 444.

Over the years others followed in his footsteps, organizing their own prácticas and maintaining the enthusiasm of the search and of creativity. For various reasons, however, the phenomenon has only recently been recognized as such.
Various factors generated the rise of the prácticas, a main factor being the economic crisis of 2001 that, despite all the bad, brought about an awareness in the Argentine population regarding the effects of the decade of the 90s, as well as a strong wave of tourism.

Since then, more and more people have become interested in culture and the arts, and in the tango, which in addition is part of our cultural identity.

The favourable exchange rate meant that a lot of tourists started coming to Buenos Aires, which began to generate a higher demand for services, among these, tango shows, milongas, tanguerías, classes and teachers, clothing, etc.
Job opportunities brought many young people to the tango. However, as the milongas are not the best spaces for receiving the newly initiated, they didn’t feel ready for this space. What’s more, the effects of tourism filled up the main milongas of Buenos Aires, and adding to this the closure, in December 2004, of various premises after the government of Buenos Aires had maximized the security laws for fitting out dance venues, the situation provoked that many people began to attend the prácticas.

Consequently, groups of dancers started getting together in different spaces, in order to practice, experiment, and develop their dance. Over time, these prácticas became more frequent and drew in more people, until they finally became what they are today and having their own characteristics:

The prácticas are characterized by being affordable places, dance halls where you can dance non-stop (i.e. without the break after four songs), they take place at more normal hours, it’s an accessible environment, easy to integrate into, there’s more space on the dance floor and you can dance as you like, it motivates a diversity of styles, it’s informal and this makes it easier to establish links.

Today a lot of people converge at the prácticas. Those who attend them are people who, because of their occupation or for other reasons, can’t go to dance at the milonga, since these begin late. Or they may be professional dancers who seek an environment of free play and exchange of ideas on the dance. They may also be intermediate dancers who need to improve their dancing skills, or tourists who come to visit and learn in Buenos Aires.

In response to public demand, they started teaching at most prácticas, which brought along more people and also allowed the student to continue practicing what had been learned in class. If we add to this possibility the technical and pedagogical development that the tango has achieved so far, the result is an increasing number of people who begin to dance in less time, as well as a boosting of the tango community in Argentina and abroad, since organizers from other countries visit these places and interchange ideas with local organizers.

Despite it all, the growth of the prácticas did not affect the development of the milongas, which continue to open more and all have people, partly thanks to the fact that more and more people can join the dance floors with greater ease. In fact, most of the prácticas are situated in the vicinity of the most important milongas, thus enabling the public to make the most of their dancing time every night by going first to a práctica and then a milonga. This práctica-milonga circuit is a symbiosis, as they strengthen each other and generate different and complementary opportunities, providing a valuable contribution to the tango.