The best way to understand Salon Tango is to watch it. Watch a few minutes of the video below of a milonga held at a tango retreat in Antigua. Notice how the dancers follow certain customs (The Code), such as moving in a counter clockwise direction around the floor. The codes are not complicated: They are just common courtesy. Salon tango is about dancing on crowded dance floors, staying in control, and respecting the space of others on the dance floor. This is what distinguishes it from stage or performance tango, where you don't have to worry about others on the dance floor. See Styles of Tango
Salon style Argentine tango is a beautiful dance. Below Paola Ttacchetti and El Chino Perico dancing salon style tango to "Tres Esquinas" at Milonga Del Moran in Buenos Aires.
The video below is what salon tango looks like, when performed by master milongueros, Facundo Posadas and Ching-Ping Peng Posadas.
Resources:
TANGO DE SALON DANCING STYLE. VeryTangoStore.com. Retrieved March 13, 2018 at http://www.verytangostore.com/salon-style.html.
"Tango de pista." Wikipedia, La enciclopedia libre. Retrieved March 14, 2018, from https://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tango_de_pista&oldid=104183491.
In the 50’s and 60’s, people danced respecting the line of dance. Hardly anyone was ever pushed or tried to pass the dancers in front of them. If someone didn’t dance well, people had the patience to wait until the end of the song. In those years, the codes were respected. If there is no order, it is impossible to enjoy the dance. Why do we respect the order on a highway? Not being aware of this would create a serious chaos. Well, the same applies to the dance floor. Nowadays, people don’t respect the code and produce chaos. They don’t care to follow the codes and have no clue about dancing in the place where the couple in front has left the space free. In those times, they did care about this. A good dancer (leader) must have enough resources to dance and not to let his partner (follower) to be hit by other dancers. This I call dancing well. Facundo Posadas