SurferTango with Kent Boseman

There are at least two ways to tango, according to a local dance instructor who teaches the less common style known as Argentine Tango, which offers a softer approach to the Latin American dance.

“Everything is gentle – the lead is strong and gentle,” said Kent Boseman, a self-employed stockbroker with nearly four years of dance instruction experience, including a stint at the Boiling Spring Lakes Community Center.

There are several types of Tango, but the ballroom Tango style familiar to many people involves flowers, castanets and movements in which the dancers’ joints are more locked and head turns more abrupt and rigid. In Argentine Tango (that’s continually evolving in Argentina where it originated), movements are looser and the “embrace” of the partner’s arms can be open or closed with the dancers’ chests closer together than the hips. Improvisation is central to the dance, Boseman said.

“It’s more important that you’re connected with your partner than you absolutely hit the right steps,” he said. “You have to live in the moment – the second – and you have to be able to pause and wait.”

With Tango, pauses and stylized poses are part of the dance.

“It is very close sometimes, and it is very elaborately sexy sometimes, but sometimes it’s quiet pauses,” he said.

The emphasis on improvisation is what interests Boseman, who enjoys “the ability to be creative.”

Ballroom dancing including the Tango is experiencing a resurgence, in part because of the popularity of the ABC show, Dancing With The Stars, he said, adding that anytime the public is more exposed to dance in movies or elsewhere, people’s interest in dance is sparked.

In Argentina, there’s a national holiday dedicated to Tango dancing, he said, and in Latin American countries, in general, it’s more acceptable for men to enjoy dancing.

“If you want to meet a lot of very pretty young women, it’s either Tango or Salsa” that they’re dancing locally, he added.

“They love it,” Boseman said. “It’s elegant; it’s pretty; it’s fun – it’s sexy. I mean you can literally get lost in the feeling or the passion of the music.”

Boseman’s passion for dance started with smaller steps, learning to Waltz at a now-defunct dance studio in Wilmington. He found dance to be therapeutic and continued with lessons.

“It is a way to release tension because if you listen to the music you might as well forget about everything else or you’re not going to be able to do the steps,” Boseman said.

A father of four, with two boys and two girls ranging in age from 13 to 26, Boseman has taught two of his children to dance. His other hobbies include surfing, yoga and martial arts. His sister is NC State Senator Julia Boseman, and his brother Dave owns Boseman’s Sporting Goods.

Boseman has taken an Argentine tango class in New York City and has studied in Raleigh. Locally, he said, there isn’t an established place where Argentine Tango is danced, although there are places that host ballroom dancing events and some of the patterns of Argentine Tango may be incorporated into the more mainstream Ballroom Tango.

As an instructor, Boseman’s repertoire includes the Waltz and the Fox Trot. A lifelong Wilmington resident, he’s taught at several locations besides Boiling Spring Lakes, including health clubs, ballroom facilities and nightclubs in Wilmington, as well as for a City of Wilmington parks and recreation program at Halyburton Park. He’s also performed demonstrations of the Argentine Tango with two separate partners at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington as part of programs that included a dance movie and instruction. Boseman said when the connection between himself and his partner is strong, the dance becomes stunning, prompting the audience to respond with enthusiasm.

For Boseman, dance is an all-encompassing hobby.

“It’s seeing it, hearing it, watching it because all of your senses are very heightened,” he said.

He takes a relaxed approach to teaching, encouraging his students and keeping the atmosphere positive so novices aren’t discouraged.

“The point is to have fun,” Boseman said.