Tango Dance Notation

The primary elements of tango dance are steps, sequences, or the location of movement on the ground (hence interval, or distance), duration (hence rhythm, tempo), posture or tone colour, and volume (hence stress, attack). In practice, no notation can handle all of these elements with precision but cope with a selection of them in varying degrees of refinement. Some handle only a single pattern—e.g., a sequence, a combination.

Tango dance notation, or tango ideogram, is a visual record of heard or imagined tango dance, or a set of visual instructions for the performance of tango. It can take written or printed form and is a conscious, comparatively laborious process. Its use is occasioned by one of two motives: as an aid to memory or as communication. By extension of the former, it helps the shaping of a composition to a level of sophistication that is impossible in a purely oral tradition. By extension of the latter, it serves as a means of preserving tango dance sequence (although incompletely and imperfectly) over long periods of time, facilitates performance by others, and presents tango dance in a form suitable for study and analysis.