The Tango

The Tango

Argentina is known for many things, but most of all, the Tango. Buenos Aires, Argentina is where the social dance of the Tango originated (Wikipedia). The tango has a rich, colorful, and mysterious history behind it in the Argentine culture. "Tango" also refers to the musical form that usually accompanies the dance (Wikipedia). The "authentic" tango is the first recorded form of the tango danced in Argentina (Wikipedia). The "authentic" tango is where it's "history" begins.

The Tango originated in the lower-class districts of Buenos Aires and Montevideo (Wikipedia). The music is derived from the fusion of European, South American Milonga, and African rhythms (Wikipedia). In the early years of the twentieth century, dancers and orchestras from Buenos Aires traveled to Europe, and the first European tango craze took place in Paris, soon followed by London, Berlin, and other capitals (Wikipedia). Towards the end of 1913 it hit New York in the USA, and Finland (Wikipedia). In the USA around 1911 the name "Tango" was often applied to dances in a 2/4 or 4/4 rhythm such as the one-step (Wikipedia). Tango music was sometimes played, but at a rather fast tempo (Wikipedia). Instructors of the period would sometimes refer to this as a "North American Tango", versus the "Rio de la Plata tango" also called "Argentine Tango" (Wikipedia). By 1914 more authentic tango stylings were soon developed, along with some variations like Albert Newman's "Minuet" Tango (Wikipedia). In Argentina, the onset in 1929 of the Great Depression, and restrictions introduced after the overthrow of the government in 1930 caused Tango to decline (Wikipedia). Tango again became widely fashionable and a matter of national pride under the government of Juan Peron (Wikipedia). Tango declined again in the 1950s with economic depression and as the military dictatorships banned public gatherings (Wikipedia). The dance lived on in smaller venues until its revival in the 1980s following the opening in Paris of the show Tango Argentino and the Broadway musical Forever Tango (Wikipedia).

The Tango has a variety of different styles. These styles include the Argentine Tango, Ballroom Tango, and the Finnish Tango. Argentine Tango consists of a variety of styles that developed in different regions and eras of Argentina and Uruguay (Wikipedia). The dance developed in response to many cultural elements, such as the crowding of the venue and even the fashions in clothing (Wikipedia). The Argentine Tango styles are mostly danced in either open embrace, where lead and follow connect at arms length, or close embrace, where the lead and follow connect chest-to-chest (Wikipedia). The different styles of the Argentine Tango are Tango Canyengue, Tango Liso, Tango Salon, Tango Orillero, Tango Milonguero (Tango Apilado), Tango Nuevo, and Show Tango (also known as Fantasia) (Wikipedia). These are danced to several types of music, the Tango, the Vals (the tango version of waltz), the Milonga (a related dance that has a faster tempo), the Tango Nuevo, and the Alternative Tango (Wikipedia).

Ballroom tango, divided in recent decades into the "International" and "American" styles, has descended from the tango styles that developed when the tango first went abroad to Europe and America (History of Tango). The dance was simplified