TMD at 17: A Data Story
The animated data story behind 17 years of tangomarathons.com — 3,383 events, 761 cities, one pandemic dip, rebuilt natively for this blog.
/tango
44 posts · tango feed
Are we losing critical tango infrastructure?
Studios and venues are the home bases of our local tango scenes — and in Germany more and more of them are under commercial pressure. On the economics we don't like to talk about.
Murder in the Milonga: How the “Architect of Standardization” Suffocated the Street and Spawned the Apilado Zombie!
A histoforensic investigation into the “death” of an organic Argentine icon, and its terrifying, trademarked resurrection. Chapter 1: The Victim (The Organic, Street-Level Tango) Around the late 1980s and early 1990s, a “body” was discovered on the dance floors of Buenos Aires. The victim was the authentic, deeply organic social tango of the barrios. During […]
TANGO: Murder, Suicide, or Just One Hellsome Infected Zombie Dance?
A histoforensic investigation into the “death” of an Argentine icon, as reported by internet sources. PRELIMINARY FINDINGS: The Tango that Died Around the 1960s, a “body” was discovered in the milongas of Buenos Aires [100]. It was the “Golden Age” of Tango, a smooth, intimate, highly stylized victim [107]. This tango was an archetype: a […]
Traditions as Best Practices
This is a continuation of my previous thoughts on how we present tango in 2026. The initial text sparked an productive discussion on Facebook. Among the many voices, one specific comment from Matias prompted me to continue writing. Matias argued that the traditions of tango are exactly what brought tango here into 2026. They essentially […]
When the World Gets Too Much, People Need Tango
In an era that moves at a relentless pace, we find ourselves constantly overwhelmed by information overload and an endless cycle of bad news. We are navigating economic pressures, gentrified cities, and a digital landscape largely driven by outrage culture, superficial interactions, and global unrest. As a result, the modern world can often feel loud, […]
17 Years of Tangomarathons.com
You may know that I have been running TMD for 17 years now, and every now and then I look at the data, and try to make some sense of what I see. What started as a 1.5h exercise with the TMD data, VS Code and Github Copilot, is evolving still. I am learning how […]
What Are the Basics, Anyway?
Marco posted a video blog this week[1] responding directly to a comment I’d left on one of his earlier posts.[2] I’d written that from the outside, he looked like he was also just selling “the real tango” — the same claim everyone makes. He pushed back: he’s not selling anything, he said. He’s sharing his experience […]
You Don’t Own Your Tango Community (Facebook Does)
Our tango communities were built on Facebook. Milongas get announced there, groups get managed there, new dancers find us there. It’s essential. Irreplaceable. Or so many of us think. In December 2025, The Guardian reported that more than 50 organisations — abortion access providers, queer groups, and reproductive health networks — had their accounts removed […]
The Fediverse Is Just Email (But for Everything Else)
A few weeks ago, a tango friend asked me: “So what’s this fediverse thing you keep going on about?” I started explaining protocols and servers and ActivityPub — and I could see him glazing over. So I stopped. And tried something different. “You use email, right?” “Obviously.” “You’re on Gmail. I’m on my own server. […]
The Party Balancer
Tagline: Stop Obsessing Over Gender Balance. Start Solving for Role Balance. https://gemini.google.com/share/54e15f8cdb12 1. The Elevator Pitch (30 Seconds) “We’ve all been to dance events where the gender ratio is perfectly 50/50, yet people are still sitting on the bench. Why? Because Gender Balance is not the same as Role Balance. The Party Balancer is an […]
The Great Debate – Encuentro vs. Marathon (2026 Edition)
“Same tango. Different masks.” A few days ago on Facebook (link). The following text is a summary of the discussion that followed. It’s by far from complete, but brings up perspectives that may be unexpected for the naive tango dancer. It doesn’t reflect my opinion or experience fully, but I had a laugh compiling the […]
What makes tango so compelling – by Sharna Fabiano
This is a must-listen to episode for any tanguer* about our shared “ body technology” that we call tango. There are so many lines and sentences in there that should become postcards and advertisements for tango, globally. https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/17539917-what-makes-tango-so-compelling-sharna-fabiano-dan-istrate
Tango Connects Berlin Conference 2025
“A conference about communities in tango? Can it get more niche than that? I just want to dance.” You probably thought that, when or if you heard about Tango Connects Berlin Conference (which happened for the second time already this year). Well, it happened. And it was great and amazing, and we learned so much, […]
Tango Events Without the Algorithm
The Vision (2025+) Facebook is no longer the only place to learn who’s dancing where tonight. With the open web (not the closed ad-owned social platforms) you can publish once and have your milongas appear: Below is an updated guide that shows the full journey from publisher ? aggregator ? regional calendar ? dancer. 1 […]
Gemini’s overview of websites about tango culture
Here is the result of a DeepResearch task with the free version of Gemini using the prompt “Create a list with all websites that deal with tango Argentinian, and offer some insight into the culture, experience, or psychology of the dance. I am not looking for teachers or events.”. Argentine Tango: A Cultural, Experiential, and […]
Poem
I didn’t know the man.Never saw his face nor knew his name.Beautiful woman in a close embrace,And suddenly only silence and everyone’s eyes. Most of us didn’t know the guy.Everyone gave all the help they could.And five minutes felt like an hour.The milonguero fighting for his life. We all knew the man.Milonguero, traveling for connection.Finding […]
Filip’s questions – Part 2
This is part two of my response to Filip’s questions. Apps & Fediverse Oh, what a bummer this is: there are no super polished native mobile apps for most of Fediverse’s platforms and services. Why? Because creating and maintaining mobile apps is expensive, and most of these fediverse services are made by volunteers. Except, for […]
Gemini’s list of “all Tango Podcasts”
Here is the result of a DeepResearch task with the free version of Gemini about “all existing podcasts for tango”. A Comprehensive List of Podcasts Exploring Argentine Tango Argentine tango, a dance and musical genre steeped in history and cultural significance, has garnered a global following. For enthusiasts and those curious to learn more, podcasts […]
Filip’s questions – Part 1
Filip from Brnosaires reached out with some questions. Here’s my long answer: Great questions! I will answer 1, 2 and 3 below. Why ActivityPub over Nostr and Matrix? When I was researching options, the protocol was never in focus. It was the core use cases for tango: Events, Connections, Groups, Sharing, Photos. Additionally, we only […]
Tangoverse, update 2025-02-09
I am currently digging deeper into fediverse applications for the tangoverse as described before. It was a great occasion to reset my virtual server and configure it using yunohost, which allows for much more easy management and operations, I hope, than my old setup. Currently in the test bed are the social network apps Friendica, […]
How might a tangoverse ecosystem look like?
One of the big advantages of Fediverse is that many different services can interact with each other. That doesn’t mean that you can log in and use every server with the same identity, but you can follow and comment on most things you might see in a Fediverse stream in some way. Also, every service […]
2025 – is the “Alternative to Facebook” finally in sight?
It’s 2025 already, and the world is expected to change dramatically (?) this year. I am expecting more #enshittification of Facebook due to the current situation in the USA (trend towards less regulation, and more extreme populism and online sharing of hate-speech and fake news, plus AI-generated content, …). Twitter — now X — has […]
Exploring the Shift to One Tanda in Tango Dancing: A Comprehensive Look
The following is a summary of a thread on facebook with >100 comments. It aims it create a summary of the various perspectives and was created using AI. Introduction Tango, a dance rich in tradition and passion, is undergoing a significant transformation. The trend of dancing a single tanda (a sequence of dances) with a […]
The experience of flow in dance
Please note: the article below was fully written by AI, without human interaction. It is written using an application called STORM based on current research by a group of smart scientists at Stanford (paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.14207) Download: Flow, a psychological state coined by Hungarian-American psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, represents a condition of deep absorption and engagement in […]
Tango Snobbery?
A lot has been written about “arrogance” or “snobbery” in tango, especially felt by newcomers into tango scenes or travellers. “Why don’t they dance with me”? Read this: My primary hypothesis goes back to the notion of *trust* in tango, which is an absolute must when you intimately engage with a stranger in each others’ […]
Generating tango images (part 5)
Part 5 of a series. How to use Midjourney to create tango visuals.
Generating tango images (part 4)
Part 4 of a series. How to use Stable Diffusion via NightCafe to create tango visuals.
Generating tango images (part 3)
Part 3 of a series. How to use DALL-E via ChatGPT to create tango visuals.
Generating tango images (part 2)
Part 2 of a series. How to use DALL-E via Bing to create tango visuals.
Generating tango images (part 1)
Over the last weeks, I have played with different Ai models to generate pictures of tango dancers. Sometimes with good results, sometimes with not-so-good results. In general, there are two main areas of problems with the images: Cliche and Hands.
Between single-leader registrations and balancing a guest list
From the box of things organizers need to deal with, in case you wanted some insights about guest list management. Scenario A “Single leader signs up for a marathon, and gets in – of course. A few days later, he sends an email – sorry guys, I forgot to mention who my partner is”. Scenario […]
Finding what was lost: the red pill of tango.
One of the blog posts that I personally am still searching for is the last post of the series “The tango matrix”, where the author spills secrets of “what really is happening at the milonga, and once you know that, you can never go back”. The series was written by Dave Donatiu (can’t find a […]
How to get AI to generate a tango dancing couple?
Admit it: if you are a tango dancer, you have tried it. And failed to create something interesting. Usually there are issues with everything that makes tango interesting: the embrace (position, heads, arms, hands), the expressions, the pose. The AI reproduces stereotypes mostly, and doesn’t understand hands and basic dance anatomy. However, with some seed […]
Preventing memory loss for tango blogs
Once upon a time there was this great tango blog, but… I can’t find it anymore. It has been abandoned by its owner, and the content is lost forever. Wait, don’t we have https://archive.org for cases like this? Yes, and no. Content is not automatically archived. Someone needs to start the archival process. Let’s make […]
What makes Facebook so useful?
The tango network has been using Facebook for more than a decade, and many are using Facebook predominantly for their tango life, which doesn’t just include the dance as an activity, but also a great way to make friends, participate in community, or travel. Tango has been proven over and over again that it becomes […]
“How will the transition work?”
Last weekend this question came up at a milonga: If we move away from Facebook, how will that work? Certainly there would be a phase where we will need to be on Facebook still, while building the alternative? Of course, and it won’t be easy. Especially because we don’t yet really know if people (“everyone”) […]
Getting our hands dirty
Here are the current test setups for the “An alternative to facebook?” that I have set up:
An alternative to facebook?
A few years ago (2015-ish) I started a Facebook group called “An Alternative to Facebook for the Tango Community“. It was meant to attract interested community members to explore what is out there and to contain ideas and evaluations of possible options. Facebook back then was quite good and still had graph search, and wasn’t […]
Talking past each other: the individual, the collective, and the rules in between
A December 2020 essay on why pandemic arguments rarely landed: one phrase, two levels. The individual-vs-collective framing, the escalation spiral, and the 'kind adults' alternative.
Scene from a marathon: the hierarchy we co-create
At a marathon you could dance with anyone — yet many barely dance at all. About the level/hipness hierarchy we create together, and what it costs the room.
How not to receive new gigs (a field guide for artists pitching to organizers)
Over the years I received many offers from teachers and orchestras that all sound the same: no links, no demo, no sign they know who I am. Here is what is wrong with them — and how to pitch better.
Tango Photos and the Law — What I Learned (So Far)
Photographer copyright, platform licenses, model releases and GDPR at tango events — a plain-language summary of what I learned, with a standing invitation for lawyers to correct me.