Modern Tango World N° 11 (Paris, France) | Page 40

Book Review
Alexandru Eugen Cristea
Tango Endings by Steve Darmo
This book is clearly one spectacular event in the world of tango. Not since Amenabar’s book, Tango- let’s
Dance to the Music, has there been another work on tango musicality, till now. Steve Darmo has made a
veritable tour-de-force describing one of the most important aspects of tango dancing — how to end the song.
The book is dedicated to
all the tango dancers who have ever missed the ending of a song.
He has managed to present in an easy-to-follow and
coherent description of the different endings to tango
songs used by orchestras of different epochs. This alone
is an outstanding work which deserves applause. This
book is the only available reference work on this impor-
tant subject.
The book presents the nine most common types of tan-
go song endings. Beyond that, it succeeds at describing
how to anticipate the song’s ending and musical steps for
social dancing that can be used. To understand the music,
the author has made available the music and the analysis
of various songs endings on his website:
http://www.tangoendings.com
Twenty Argentine orchestras are presented, each with
its particular endings, along with different strategies to
match the end steps to the music, the psychological as-
pects of dealing with the song endings, the follower’s role
in dancing the song ending. The author also includes tips
and tricks for the leader in case he misses the end of the
song.
This is truly a wonderful book which has already become
a classic and will forever help people in understanding
tango and dancing better and better!
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