Whence
Tango
Music & dance

Where does Tango come from?

Tango comes from the Río de la Plata, the wide estuary between Argentina and Uruguay. It was born in the 1880s in the poor port districts of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, and from there it became one of the best-known partner dances in the world.

Born in the port cities

In the late 1800s European immigrants poured into Buenos Aires and Montevideo. UNESCO describes how their customs merged with those of the descendants of enslaved Africans and the local criollos in the cities' poor districts, and tango grew out of that mix. It drew on the milonga, a fast local dance, on African-rooted rhythms and on the Cuban habanera. It was danced in dance halls, bars and brothels, to small trios of flute, guitar and violin.

From the outskirts to Paris

At first tango was just one of many dances. Theatres and street barrel organs carried it from the outskirts into the crowded working-class districts. In the early 1900s it was often danced by two men, because there were more men than women: in 1914 Buenos Aires had 100,000 more men than women. Dancers and orchestras from Buenos Aires then took tango to Europe. Paris had the first European tango craze, soon followed by London and Berlin, and by late 1913 it had reached New York.

Why people think of Spain

Tango is sung in Spanish, and Spain had its own song-and-dance form called tango by the mid-1800s. Britannica says that light-spirited Spanish tango merged with the milonga in Buenos Aires, and tango music has Spanish, Italian, gaucho, African and French roots. But the dance itself took shape on the Río de la Plata. In 2009 UNESCO approved a joint proposal by Argentina and Uruguay and added tango to its list of the world's intangible cultural heritage.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org › Tango ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Tango music ↗ · ich.unesco.org ↗ · britannica.com ↗

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