In the late 1800’s, millions of European immigrants arrived on the shores of the Rio de la Plata in South America, in the two port cities of Montevideo, Uruguay and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Most of them were Italian and Spanish, and the vast majority were single young men looking to make their fortunes in America. They brought their music: the sweet sounds of the violin, the driving flamenco guitar, the strange mournful wail of the bandoneon – and their dances: the waltz, the mazurka, the polka – and mixed them with the Argentine folk music and dance, with the Cuban habanera, with the African candombe rhythms from the freed slaves’ street parties. With very few women around, many of these young men found themselves looking for excitement in the bordello districts of the burgeoning port cities. The tango dance arose in these seedy waterfront areas from this turbulent mix, becoming a “mating dance” between barmaids and their customers in shady nightclubs. Shunned by the upper and middle classes in Argentina, it nevertheless became a sleazy fixture of urban nightlife in Buenos Aires. Young men in neighborhood gangs would practice the steps with each other in order to become skilled enough to win the attentions of a woman. A beginner would often dance the follower’s part for six months to a year before being shown how to lead.
As Argentina became very wealthy around the turn of the century, the sons of rich families would often look for adventure and excitement in the rougher parts of town, and learned the tango as part of their escapades. Some of these young men of privilege would show off the tango as a treat for their friends on their sojourns to Paris, then the cultural capital of the world. The Parisians were shocked and titillated by this raw, sensuous dance. This led to a “tango craze” that swept all of Europe, and reached America in the years just prior to World War I. New York newspapers in 1916 feature ads from over seven hundred tango establishments. While the original tango was disturbing to many arbiters of good taste, a heavily sanitized version of tango found its way into the European and American dance academies, where it remains a fixture in ballroom competitions today.
But in Argentina, the blessings of the tango-mad people of Paris led to an acceptance of the original homegrown tango in all classes of society. Tango musicians found themselves elevated from roughneck street performers to respected and adored composers. The tango dance became the courtship ritual of the middle class. In the ’40’s, the “Golden Age” of tango, every night found half a million people dancing from midnight until 3 or 4 in the morning. The best tango orchestras would be booked for more than a year in advance. Each neighborhood would feature its own variation of tango, and intense rivalries often turned dance competitions into riots ended by the police. Elaborate unwritten codes of behavior in the “milongas” or dance gatherings became as much a part of tango as the dance itself.
Influenced by the rise of repressive military dictatorships in Argentina after World War II, tango dancing slowly declined in the face of curfews and clampdowns on public gatherings. Tango music developed a rich new concert-hall tradition, more and more removed from the dance. The culture of late-night dancing went underground, and nearly all the regular milongas closed their doors.
Accompanying the return of democracy and social liberalization after the Falklands War of 1982-83, a groundswell of interest in learning to tango surfaced throughout Argentine society. A younger generation of dancers and teachers began reclaiming their tango heritage while re-examining the structural underpinnings of the dance they had inherited. Simultaneously and independently, the Paris debut of “Tango Argentino”, a large tango touring stage production, brought the dance back to worldwide awareness. In theatrical reviews reminiscent of the shocked Parisians of two generations before, Broadway, London, and Paris again became enraptured by the smoldering passion in this exotic dance and music, cultivated in far-off Buenos Aires. A new generation of Argentine tango dancers, tango teachers, and tango musicians found receptive audiences for their country’s primary cultural export. Audiences first enraptured by the stage spectacle of the big tango shows discovered for themselves the passionate pleasures of the social dance connection, available to anyone willing to invest a minimum of time in learning the silent vocabulary of the dance. Today, major cities around the world (including the Denver/Boulder metro area) feature active tango communities where strangers and acquaintances can once again meet to share the sweetness of “the three minutes that can last a lifetime.”
Copyright (c) 2006 Brian Dunn & Deborah Sclar, Dance of the Heart – All Rights Reserved
Oh thanks for this wonderful website!Without it I can’t write a introduction for my elementary schools performance.I am a fourth grader.
You are so welcome…we appreciate hearing from you! We’d love to come to your school to teach you and your classmates to dance Argentine tango! Talk to your teacher or parents about booking us to provide an educational presentation that could include some history about South America, a demonstration of live Argentine tango music and dance and especially a class for you and your fellow students!
Deb! Come to my school!
Well, let’s talk! Where is your school?
Im guessing this helped a lot of people because i am in the 8th grade. im taking an advanced english one class and the just help me get an A that was worth 80{c178f97d4d2a73e35feb35eea3294bd75372c1dfd70bfadf1fc56885974cf26d} of my grade
hahahaha i am in college and this helped me
Lmao same. This was the basic outline of one of my papers. Amazingly helpful Great job!
This also came handy for me for my school project. I’m a fourth grader too
Same! You saved me from failing the assignment!
Without this i could not have done my project. Thank you.
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Thanks for the website! It really helped with some research I was doing
Thank you. This totally helped with my Spanish class.
Me too. 🙂
Thank you for creating this lovely, informative website. Your website helped my classmates and I with our advanced chemistry project. May the force be with you! *BEEP BOOP*
i like this website because i can learn about dancing from back then
In Albania is a newborn for our culture!Thanks for this amazing site!
THIS REALLY HELPED ME WITH MY SPANISH ASSIGNMENT. I am in year 7
You are so welcome…we appreciate hearing from you! We’d love to come to your school to teach you and your classmates to dance Argentine tango! Talk to your teacher or parents about booking us to provide an educational presentation that could include some history about South America, a demonstration of live Argentine tango music and dance and especially a class for you and your fellow students!
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You should include more about how the Tango was used in combat. Anyway, it was a really great source of information. CIAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :):):):):):):):):):):):):):
Thanks for the background of this beautiful courtship dance…I love the 3 minutes that can last a lifetime poetry to go with it.
Thank you so much! This helped me very much for my dance assignment! <3 this website!
This helped ALLOT with my dumb progect but it made it easer
i thoroughly enjoyed this article i found it amusing and helpful
This really helps everyone, I’m in year 9 and it helped me too. this is kinda funny
Renascimento: Escritores do Renascimento
I believe this article is full of the misinformation and legends woven around tango’s early days. A more fact and research based history of tango can be found in Alberto Paz’ Gotta Tango book.
Hi Patricia,
Thanks for responding. I’ve read Alberto’s book, and while it’s very fun to read, it is not at all “fact and research-based” in any normal sense sense of the word. His chapter on the history of tango is sixteen pages long, and contains *only one* citation, footnote, quotation, or reference to anything else except his own very strong opinions, which I grant you are expressed in a very entertaining fashion.
If you are truly looking for facts and research about tango, I recommend Beatriz Dujovne’s “In Stranger’s Arms”, Robert Faris Thompson’s “Tango – the Art History of Love” (with 29 pages of footnotes and citations), Gustavo Benzecry Saba’s “The Quest for the Embrace” (fewer footnotes, but extensive crediting of other’s opinions in interviews and quotations) and Christine Dennistons’ “The Meaning of Tango”.
Hi,
I agree with the above books (Beatriz Dujovne’s “In Stranger’s Arms”, Christine Dennistons’ “The Meaning of Tango”) but, also I highly recommend, Polly McBride’s Tango Quest and Tango and Life. Polly McBride and Beatriz Dujovne know each other personally and live in Portland, Oregon. Beatriz is originally from Buenos Aries and continues to return and dance at the milongas.
This website helped me a lot with my ballroom dancing essay. It was very informational and had many details.
I have loved the Tango , am looking to learn.
The lessons are $100.00 each
I hear the closest place to dance, is New York City
I am getting flustered
So I watch it on Utube all nite
Hello Nony – We’d love to help you! Where are you located?
Thank you so much! I am a fifth grader and I am having a ballroom dance performance, and I had to make a SA for if I get chosen to speak about one of the dances we are preforming. This helped so much. Thank you.
thanks so much for the help i am an 11th grader and it helped me put together my presentation for my Spanish class, i will be teaching them the dance myself and i wish you guys could teach us instead.
Hi,
I’d like to include this summary in our newsletter to get people interested in Tango. I would of course site the source. Is that ok?
Regina