Tango Canyengue Dancing Style

Canyengue (sometimes called Orillero) was originally used around the early 1900s to denote a lower class or 'street' tango. Nowadays, Canyengue is used for a particular style of tango characterised by playfulness, musicality, bent knees and a lead-right-cheek to follower-left-cheek contact.

Tango Canyengue

Canyengue position (photo attributed to Tango City)

Canyengue has the following attributes:

The lead and follower have bent knees.
The Canyengue is extremely playful and charismatic - often described as "incisive, exciting and provocative"; in the old guard of tango, it was said that the dancers had the 'Canyenguero mice' in their feet.
A characteristic is for the dancers to quite often walk together side-by-side or forwards.
Generally danced in close embrace, in a V-offset.
Both lead and follower share one axis.
Dancing is done with firm contact on the ground. Steps are small, historically limited by the tight fit of the women's dresses around the 1900s.
Canyengue makes significant use of the cortes, or stops - accentuated by the knees being bent. This is combined with a steady on-off beat (2/4) of dancing.
Another feature of the Canyengue is the corrida: small, quick steps to a run or almost run.
The joints from the waist up (shoulder, elbow and head) are much more mobile than normal tango, called body dissociation.
The spine is slightly soft, not rigid.
Contact is maintained chest to chest.
The follower is significantly offset to the lead's right, with the lead's right cheek in contact with the follower's left cheek.
The man's embrace is low compared to the woman's: The lead has his arm around just above the waist whereas the follower has her arm over the man’s shoulder.
Generally the cruzada is absent.
The contacting hands are often seen extremely low compared to other styles.