Tango is a partnership dance in which leader and follower collaborate in expressing musical ideas in movement. It’s an urban folk dance which originated in the streets and bars of Buenos Aires. 150 years or so ago East Africans and European sailors developed a music and dance to gladden their hard lives in the port city. Initially considered low class and unattractive by Argentines whose sons emigrated to Europe and the US for studies, Parisians and New Yorkers embraced it and Argentina rediscovered it. Now tango music and dance is found in every country. Paris, New York, Boston, Halifax, Montreal, Tokyo... there are tango clubs the world over. Tango is unique in its music, the movements and the wordless dialogue between the dancing partners. The leader invites his partner to move, she responds, he follows her. Every step is led. Each move involves invitation and response. Endlessly innovative, the couple will
express the same music in different ways each time they hear it. Tango is jazz in motion.

John and Donna Dancey, after several years of ballroom dance instruction from James & Cindy Boulter, were persuaded by friends Norval Balch and Cosmos & Donna Voutsinos to ‘try tango’. Teaching videos (supplied by Cosmos after a trip to Buenos Aires) and a workshop at Tangueria in Montreal followed. It became clear that in order to learn to tango, a local club would be necessary. OuiTango! came to life in Fredericton after a meeting of interested folk in the early Spring of 2003. Becoming instructors (they only wanted to learn) required a push from James Boulter and patience on the part of charter members. Lily Palmer (Montreal); Daniel Trenner (Northhampton MA); Andrew McCollough (Eugene OR); and Margaret Spore, Tomas Howlin (Montreal) and Hsue-tzs Lee (Boston) in Halifax have contributed knowledge of the dance and teaching methods over the ensuing years. OuiTango! alumni have kept the flame alive in Saint Andrews-by-the-Sea. Margaret Spore (tangonova, Halifax) leads workshops in Fredericton and in Saint Andrews.