El cabeceo is the traditional technique of selecting a partner from a distance at milongas in Buenos Aires which can add excitement and intensity to the atmosphere of the dance. It is a non-verbal way of asking a lady to dance Argentine Tango with your eyes, head movement, and body posture. If a lady doesn’t wish to dance, she can look away and then no one else has to know that the man’s invitation was rejected.

Using the cabeceo during the interval between tandas takes on an added poignancy. If the partners know each other well it is a reassurance, if they do not know each other well or it is the first time then there is electricity in the mutual stares. It avoids the embarrassment for a leader of a face to face refusal after crossing the floor.

In some tango communities, the better lady dancers almost always insist upon being asked el cabeceo. They spend time and money to attend tango festivals and take classes with famous instructors. Often these ladies have been to Argentina to dance and they want to emulate the Argentinean style and customs of tango at home. Is there justification to encouraging this etiquette at our milongas and practicas or is it too much for casual American sensibilities?

At Argentine Tango dances a class system often develops among the leaders and followers. In other dances, ladies are often just happy to dance, but in tango it often happens that the more skilled ladies only want to dance with the best. They do not wish to dance with tango leaders beneath their skill level.

Wrongly, many ladies use the cabeceo as a ruse to repeatedly only accept dances from the best tango leaders in the room. They will quickly jump to their feet when an advanced tango leader looks their way and reject advances from less skilled leaders. They use the cabeceo as a shield against the less experienced leaders, so as to avoid making a commitment to dance the tanda.

El cabeceo is the traditional way one asks a lady to dance in Argentina, but it is often misused in American tango communities. This is unfortunate as Argentine Tango should be most of all about having fun and not taken so seriously. Followers should be a little more accommodating in their tango communities dancing with the less skilled leaders at weekly dances. Followers with an elitist attitude will not go unnoticed by the community and they will become less desirable as tango partners to both the advanced and less skilled leaders.