[cryptonector]

As a one-time avid Tango dancer, while I believe all the motions/steps can (and have been) be sketched out, named, and notated and put to paper, that which can be written down is necessarily insufficient to make it easy for people who understand the syntax but not the dance to replicate the dance easily. Let alone beginners. There's a great deal of unspoken communication in the embrace, in the way the partners' center of gravity is shifted about, in the music and song, in the timing, in their understanding of each other's abilities, and in their personal connection. Those details would have to be rediscovered by those reading the notation.

Some things are just hard to write down with fidelity. Think of tastes: we can have cookbooks, but its hard to reproduce the exact ingredients of grandma's cooking, or that one restaurant. Smells are even harder to express in words. Dance is kinda like that.

None of which is to say that one shouldn't do it, or try. Quite the contrary. It's a good challenge! Even if you could write it all down, leaving a bit of mystery/mystique would be a good idea, but I don't fear that mystique will be lost.

[virtualritz]

> As a one-time avid Tango dancer, while I believe all the motions/steps can (and have been) be sketched out, named, and notated and put to paper, [...]

This is obviously untrue. For simple math reasons.

If you believe that, I suggest reading an intro to combinatorics.

Or just doing the math in your head for a combination of two steps. Leader does forward step towards follower's forward cross.

Just in one system (cross or parallel) and considering how deep the step is (outside, sacada, deep sacada/behind/in front) and where the leader steps (behind free foot, next to outside, next to inside, in the middle between legs, next to to standing foot inside, next to outside, in front), we can reasonably say we have 21 possibilities. Now multiply by system and that's 42. Now multiply by combinations of systems on one side and that's 84. This still makes a lot of simplifications but we're talking one step. Furthermore, if we mirror, we can't just assume the same observations apply, as tango has an open and closed side, etc. etc.

The endeavor is also not about capturing the essence of a dance but about exploring a motion space; structurally and kinesiologically.

Tango, specifically, will elude documenting on so many levels, otherwise, it's not even worth talking about.