What sometimes is said about tango as being a love story between strangers that lasts one dance should have been said about zamba argentina.
It takes effort to learn but once you get the basic structure, you could start the real thing, improvisation, expressing feelings with movement. And here, I have to admit, since I always dance with my husband, the emotion is normally different than the one it should be when you dance with a stranger. So get yourself invited once by a real gaucho and you see what I am trying to express. The intensity of feeling is incomparable to dancing a tanda with a stranger despite the fact that in zamba partners don't touch each other. The contact is through eyes and the pañuelos which are used to represent the other person's body. In tango you don't see your partner's eyes, ever, as a woman you can just close your eyes completely and concentrate on the music and the feeling of your partner. So much different here. There is no embrace but the more is the longing for it that you can indicate with touching the body with a pañuelo. Both partners are equal and free to move and express, there is no assigned leader and follower, you both build a story as you go along and both of you lead and follow at the same time. However, of course, the gaucho courtships and the chinita, the woman, would normally be reserved in the beginning of the dance and more open towards the end. Together with the beauty of the music, you feel - well, I feel - very high. Tremendous dancing this.

When I dance with my husband, we know each other so well, but we still try to play this story again: meeting, coming together, parting, and getting together again.