Tango in Toronto        Updated 30-Jul-10
Format: Longways duple.       Dance and Music: Colin Hume, 2010

A1: First man advance, second lady retreat; 
    reverse. 
    Gipsy LEFT, give a meaningful look then spin round [quickly!] to the right. 
    Right-hand star, transferring the hand-hold to your partner at the end. 
    Right-hand turn partner half-way; turn single left. 
    [all improper]

A2: First lady advance, second man retreat; 
    reverse.  
    Gipsy RIGHT, give a meaningful look then spin round to the left. 
    LEFT-hand star.  
    LEFT-hand turn partner half-way; turn single right. 
    [all proper - in original place]  [notice where progressed place is]

B: [Identify your progressed place]

   First corners pass right shoulder: half a straight hey.  
   [To be clear:  First corners cross set to WHILE
   second corners step back and left to line up across set;
   partners pass left shoulder,
   the partner pass is the first of three changes.)
   When first corners meet again, they gipsy right WHILE second corners do a
   slow loop left to face in, 
   finishing with same-sex neighbors facing [on improper side]

   Neighbours pass left shoulders; half hey(ish) to progressed place proper
   (second corners do only three changes, then move out to their progressed
   places and turn individually to face right while first corners pass right
   to place and face right.)  

   (UNSANCTIONED VARIATION:three changes and partners half-gypsy
   partner LEFT, 1st corners leading partner into the single file.)

   All four tight circle single file clockwise to progressed place.

   EMPHASIZE: 

     - First corners own the beginning, middle, *and* end of the hey.
     - It's not "men lead" or "women lead" in the single file circle; it's
       first corners.  So whether you lead or follow will change at the end
       of the set.
     - 

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For Karen Millyard and Bridget Whitehead, two of the organisers of the English
Country Dance Conference and Dance Weekend in Toronto in 2010.  They both
worked themselves to exhaustion to produce two successful events.  They are
also both keen on Argentine Tango, so I decided to write a tango-style English
Country Dance.  

I was staying in the apartment of Karen's grandmother who had
been a concert pianist, and wrote the tune at her beautiful grand piano.  I
know Argentine Tango does not use the stylised rhythm of ballroom tango, but I
wanted something which ordinary dancers would recognise as a tango.  The band
was Foxfire - Daron Douglas and Karen Axelrod - and I had heard them playing
tangos as Brasstown in 2008 so I knew they would make a great job of it.

At Toronto people had real trouble getting into the first hey and getting out
of the second hey, neither of which does what you expect.  At the start the
first corners are walking almost straight ahead for the first two changes,
passing each other right shoulder and then their partners left shoulder.  It
might help in the walk-through for the second corners to take a step back and
left.  It might even be better to describe it as three changes of a hey
starting left shoulder with partner.  At the end the second corners do only
three changes, then move out to their progressed position and turn to their
right as the first corners pass right shoulder into their progressed position
and also turn to their right, into the single-file circle (which needs to be
tight).  Trust me - it does work!  People responded enthusiastically in
Toronto, and asked for it to be repeated in the final dance, though Fae Fuerst
who danced it both times said:
At the moment I think passing right shoulders to start the tango hey is a
choreographic blunder, not the kind of awkward iconoclasm we'll get used to.