Wonderful video with Sharna Fabiano and her partner Isaac Oboka about the roles of leading and following. I really dislike the terms leader and follower, but agree very much with everything that they say in the video.

My feeling is that the term follower is much to passive. Tango should be a conversation with two voices not just one person 'telling' the other person what to do. Women need to be active in the dance. Of course, there are limits where she can become too active and starts to interfere with the dance. As with everything in Tango, there is a delicate balance to be found.

To be clear, I am not saying that the word follower is a negative word.. we all lead and follow in life.. we can't all be leading all the time... I would agree that the man is leading in Tango... I just feel that the woman is doing something slightly different than just following.. it is more active than that.

I prefer the terms Man and Woman, because I think that a unique attribute of Tango is that it allows a Man to be a Man and a Woman to be a Woman on equal terms. I feel the term leader makes it sound like I am making her do something and as I often say in class, "In Tango, just as in real life, we can't MAKE women do anything.. we invite them and see what the response is and go from there."