Hold your partner in a deep embrace, and walk with him to the beat of the music. Alternate your steps as he leads you through the musical sequences, and chances are you’re doing the tango. “Tango is a non-verbal dialogue. Look in to each other’s eye and follow the music, the rhythm will fall into place,” assures Stina Almroth.

In her Gulmohar Park school, Delhi Tango, a group of enthusiasts are just beginning to find their tempo as they sashay around, some awkwardly, some with consummate grace, with their partners. It’s the beginning of a four-month course that will groom these beginners in the basics of the Argentinian version of the dance.

Almroth’s passion for dance began very early when she was a PhD student at Cornell University in the US. “One particular semester I had enrolled for every possible kind of dance lessons available. It was then that I came across Argentinian tango. The energy and the vibes it gave were infectious. After that I did not want to do any other dance,” says the 50-something.

Her date with tango continued till she moved to India, and to Delhi, with a job with the Population Council in 1997. “And suddenly I discovered that there was no scope to tango anymore,” says the 50-something, “When I travelled to other parts of Asia—to Beijing or Hong Kong or Singapore, I found that there was an active tango scene there, and I would ache for a similar chapter in Delhi.”

By then Almroth’s project was almost over, and she had to take a call on her future. Almroth chose to stay back in India. “I had come to love India by then. I liked the people, liked the culture and somehow knew that I want to stay back,” she says. Once her mind was made up, Almroth got to work. In 2004 Delhi Tango took shape and she began organising Argentinian tango classes in the Capital on and off, inviting well-known tango specialists when they were in the country to drop in and teach a course or two while they were here. “It was all very informal. I thought teaching people would keep my tango skills from getting rusty, and help me pick up newer skills from these visiting professionals. Besides, I really wanted people to dance with and the only way I could do that was by teaching people how to do the tango,” she says.

It’s only in the last month that Almroth has finally got down to introducing a regular teaching programme at her school, with courses for beginners, beyond basics and practice classes. The responses so far have been pretty positive.

“Different kind of people have joined up. From a 30 and beyond crowd to students, we have a motley group,” she says. Classes are usually of a two-hour duration during week nights while some courses are slotted for the weekend. So far she has spread the news through word of mouth, but Almroth intends to have a website soon.

Argentinian tango, Almroth tells us, varies from other forms of the dance. “It’s a social dance that has impromptu elements in it and has evolved over the years in Argentina and Uruguay and parts of Latin America. There are no set patterns and that adds to the beauty of the dance,” she says. And at her dance classes you need not come in pairs, either. “I always tell people that you don’t need to join with a partner. Tango helps you meet new people, that’s why it’s such a beautiful dance. That’s why I am teaching the dance as well. I want Delhi to have a tango scene of its own,” she says.