Unknown Facts About the Tango

Unknown to many people, the dance of the tango had extremely humble beginnings in the slums of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Several theories exist concerning how the tango evolved into the sensual, romantic dance that people currently know and love. One theory states that some of the tango's unusual movements originated among the gauchos of Buenos Aires, who wore their smelly, hardened chaps into the city's congested nightclubs. As the story goes, when a gaucho began dancing with a girl, she placed herself in the crook of his arm with her head thrown back in order to avoid the smell and her right hand was positioned close to his pocket as a demand for money in exchange for her hospitality. Such a theory is difficult to prove true or false; however, it is an interesting example of the colorful history of this intriguing dance.

Historical Highlights

In the early 1900s orchestras and dancers from Buenos Aires traveled to the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe where eventually the dance became wildly popular in cities such as Berlin, London and Paris. After this, the first American tango craze took place in New York. By 1914 several authentic tango styles were introduced in many nightclubs including unique variations such as Newman's Minuet tango.

The Many Faces of Tango

Many individuals are unaware of the fact that the dance of the tango has many variations and each has something special to offer both spectators and participants. These variations include the Tango Canyengue, which is a rhythmic style tango that follows a percussion rhythm as opposed to the traditional instruments used in tango music. Introduced by the younger generation in the 1980s, the tango nuevo features complex positions and more fluid movements rather than the classic rigid lines of the traditional tango. Ballroom tango emphasizes leading and following skills as well as the characteristic head snaps and staccato movements seen in competitive tango dancing. Many other variations of the tango exists and some dancers enjoy trying them all one by one for an exhilarating experience.

Healing Characteristics

Tango from the Rio de la Plataregion was used in a clinical trial for persons suffering from Parkinson's disease. The study provided evidence that dancing the tango was helpful in healing this debilitating neurological disorder. Parkinson's sufferers who participated in tango classes demonstrated a marked improvement in coordination that was not present in the second group of Parkinson's sufferers who participated in traditional exercise. Medical scientists state that while dancing in general may be beneficial, tango dancing was even more so due to the fact that the dance features several types of movement especially relevant for those with Parkinson's disease. These include walking backward, moving at various speeds, initiation of movement, turning and dynamic balance.

The Tango In Buenos Aires

In 2009, Uruguay and Argentina stated that the tango should be placed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List and this became a reality that same year in the month of October. Throughout the years, tango has enjoyed a brilliant sequence of popularity booms and subsequent declines. The tango leads a continuous life throughout Buenos Aires where both the music and the dance have been developed so thoroughly that the tango has attained a level of perfection in Argentina that is not seen in other parts of the world. The tango is a timeless dance and those with a strong interest in an authentic tango experience should visit the enchanting city of Buenos Aires where the tango was born and will live on eternally.

Cecelia Owens loves to travel and she does freelance writing for the top South African travel comparison website, where she also wrote the blog post "Tango Festivals in Buenos Aires" which you can read here.

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Tango Policing and Politics

Tango communities across the world are beleaguered by authenticity debates. Different communities define 'appropriate' or 'real' tango through a variety of means, usually determined by the specific characteristic of the community and how tango has evolved within it. Often, the authenticists claim that close embrace dancing emphasizing intimacy is the only way to move around the floor as it focuses partners in the embrace as well as the emotional character that makes tango a unique and special dance. According these tango police, those who move between open and close embrace, actualise dynamics in their dance, boleo above the knee, and enganche are corrupting the close connection of tango, not to mention hogging the floor at milongas, showing off, and otherwise committing gross crimes against the 'real' meaning of tango.

These authenticity debates are repeated globally and function to divide and marginalise particular dancing cohorts. Instead of enriching the calibre of the dancing they serve to limit and frame what is acceptable on the dance floor. This ethic can only demoralise and deconstruct the potential for community development within a tango culture.

Tango is an evolutionary dance. It is a dance of the street, mobilised by the disempowered, the poor and the disenfranchised. Composers and dancers made tango what it is today by breaking rules. Tango has always moved, changed and altered. Tango is filled with myths, legends, folk tales and popular memories. This is part of what makes it such an innovative dance, that it allows dancers the space to work, encode and connect to the steps, the music and the embrace in ways that are conventional and unconventional, challenging and rebellious. Understanding these creative histories enriches the way in which we dance tango today, whether we label ourselves milonguero, salon, nuevo or any number of other arbitrary categorisations we impose on ourselves and others. These categories do not serve the creative ethics of dancing communities. Instead they function to stifle innovation and limit the extent to which the energy and commitment of dancers can be harnessed.

Pablo Inza once said 'there is one Tango and it is very generous. It gives to everybody regardless of which way you approach it.' (http://tinyurl.com/68fvfe5) We need to be generous with each other as dancers and cultivate tango communities that support diverse, dynamic, and dangerous tango. Move beyond mythic notions of the authentic. Hail the past, respect tradition, and allow tango communities to breath, grow, challenge and change.

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