Would you please help me?

What is the name of the figure the couple starts dancing on minute 0.50?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVFHmcZ-noA

Thanks a lot

It was barely recognisable as tango, but I think that it was probably meant to be an open reverse turn (lady outside) with an open finish.

This looks like more of an Argentine flavor of Tango, so the terminology will be different in Argentine circles than it will to a ballroom dancer. At any rate, in ballroom terms, the dancers are doing a type of Open Reverse Turn at 0:50.

The Open Reverse Turn is shown in detail on this website in both International and American Tango.

American:
http://www.ballroomdancers.com/Dances/info.asp?sid=249

International:
http://www.ballroomdancers.com/Dances/info.asp?sid=268

Note that in the video you posted, the lady is doing a slight variation toward the end. On step 6, rather than stepping back with her LF, she's stepping forward & across with her LF in promenade position. In American style we would call these last 3 steps a Cross-Body Lead.

Unfortunately we don't have a video for the Cross-Body Lead by itself in American Tango. It's on our "to-do" list for the next video shoot. In the meantime, you can look at a video and technical details for the Waltz Cross-Body Lead, which has very similar foot positions:

http://www.ballroomdancers.com/Dances/info.asp?sid=116

Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com

It is an ocho...as it is called in Argentine Tango terminology. You can do a reverse ocho or a regular ocho and it is one of the most basic steps....you learn it right after you learn the basic.

By the way they are doing a regular ocho. It isn't tricky.

Belle

No it isn't - not if we're referring to the same movement. They have just finished something else, in which pivots clearly feature, but then they move into a pretty basic open reverse. I wouldn't share Waltz123's charitable assumption that the woman's unexpected forward step was intended, though. It just looks as though she hasn't got a clue what she's doing, and has not been led to complete her rotation and step back, as normal.

The clips were a bizarre collection of bits and pieces - some of them a sort of woeful pastiche Argentine Tango, and the rest, Ballroom Tango, but all with a standard of execution and characterisation that made me laugh out loud when I watched it.

at 50 seconds the first female dancer does it...they clip into a second dancer doing the same move. That my friends is a horribly executed ocho.

I've seen the worst of the worst do it and she is terrible. There should be a forward step commencing on the woman's right she should bring her feet together and slowly pivot her body in one movement at the end of the rotation, commencing on the left foot she should repeat...back and forth until the lead determines he is tired of her doing ochos. She is off balance...doesn't bring her feet together and gets none of the characteristic movement but it is an ocho. At 52 seconds they begin an even more terribly constructed basic in which she doesn't even do the cross. Those three outside steps should have led her into a cross but the lead is subtle and she doesn't cross her feet at the ankles change weight and continue as she should which throws off the rest of the step.

I dance Argentine and I lead Argentine and I know the steps. I've seen this version of it from beginners for years...it is an ocho followed by a modified tango basic.

I'm afraid that I can see no form of an Argentine Tango 'Basic' in what she is doing, but I remind myself that Argentine Tango isn't a standardised dance, and has no basic steps, really.

I think we can agree that it is dreadful dancing, at least.

Agreed...dreadful dancing.I can't imagine why anyone would have compiled it and put it on the net nor why anyone would want to emulate it.