Tango History

Tango history is a rich and varied path through two hemispheres and hundreds of years. It is remarkable that the same type of dance and music that was done in the seediest bars on the docks of Rio de Janiero is also danced in the poshest clubs in New York or the most exclusive competitions in Europe. The true measure of tango history lies in the people who dance it.

Like the people of the country where it first appeared, tango is a mélange of different cultural artistic forms. The Spanish habanera, the Uruguayan milonga, and elements of African dance all combined with the fusion of European music to emerge as a dance in the port towns of Argentina. It was the early 19th century, and out of all the social dances one in particular was proving to be more and more popular: the tango. Europeans were flocking to the country by the thousands, and as they learned this dance it became known as "the music of the immigrants."

The early 20th century saw the advent of the music recording industry, and tango music became the first pop craze, on over one third of all the records produced between 1903-1910. That year the German instrument known as the bandoneon (sort of like an accordion) appeared in Buenos Aires and began to be a part of the tango sound. The first tango music superstar was Juan "Pacho" Maglio, who played the music with a flute, violin, and guitar accompaniment. From 1910 to 1920, almost half of all the records released featured tango music.

Paris was the launching pad for tango to come to Europe, but the dance form soon spread to other major European capitols and by 1913 it had crossed the Atlantic again and was appearing in U.S. dance halls. Part of its popularity lay in the forbidden nature of the dance; it was considered licentious and immoral, which made it all the more attractive to the youth of the time. While efforts to control the amount of body contact were made through the creation of "International" tango in 1922, that form only lost popularity to other sultry dances such as the samba.

Several pivotal musicians and dancers have created what we now consider to be the canons of tango history. Robert Firpo, a band leader, expanded the instrumentation into a tango sextet, with two bandoneons, two violins, a piano and a double bass. He also adapted a march by Gerardo Mattos into the most famous of all tango songs, La Cumparsita.

Tango has also had a deeply sexual undertone – both in the form of the dance (face to face, embraced close) and in the words to songs such as El Choclo (the corncob, a phallic reference). Singers like Flora Rodriguez took advantage of the new recording technologies to produce hits like La Morocha (the Brunette). The feeling of melancholy and loss associated with tango was epitomized in 1917 by Carlos Gardel in Mi Noche Triste In 1921, tango first hit the silver screen danced by Hollywood star Rudolph Valentino. Since that time it has been synonymous with sultry passion in movies, whether in the titles of movies like Last Tango in Paris or simply as part of the interaction between protagonists. Leading actors such as Al Pacino, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Madonna have all used it on screen.

Now tango has come full circle, having been re-adopted as a national dance by Argentinian president Juan Peron. No longer condemned by critics as obscene, it is now featured as part of the most popular shows on TV such as Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance. The tango is used in weddings as a sign of the passion between the newlyweds, and in every major city there is probably a weekly milonga. In spite of the decline of social dance, tango history continues in the bodies of the new dancers throughout the world.

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