From the belly of the underworld, Tango is said to have emerged from a lifestyle developed when immigrants from Europe, Africa and ports unknown, landed on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina; taking refuge in the slums of during the 1880s, many immigrants began to feel nostalgic and came up with a symbolic and artful way to honor what they left behind.
The word "tango" may be candidly African in origin, meaning "closed place" or "reserved ground." Or it may have resulted from the Portuguese (and from the Latin verb tanguere, to touch) and picked up by the Africans on the slave ships. Such like its origin, the word "tango" attained the customary meaning of the place where African slaves and free blacks gathered to dance.
Launched in diverse low-life establishments, where dancing took place: bars, dance halls and brothels. It was there that the African rhythms met the Argentine milonga music (a fast-paced polka) and soon original steps were invented and took hold. The Tango Dance originated as an "acting out" of the relationship between the prostitute and her pimp.
In effect, the titles of the first tangos referred to characters in the world of prostitution and were considered very taboo by society. From the blend of immigrants that came from Africa, Spain, Italy, Britain, Poland and Russia and the originating institutions, time-honored polkas, waltzes and mazurkas were intertwined with the admired habanera from Cuba and the candombe rhythms from Africa.
The spread of Tango came in the 1900s, when wealthy Argentine’s made their way to Paris and introduced it to an eager desperately waiting for innovation and completely open to the risqué nature of the dance or dancing with youthful, prosperous Latin men. By 1913, the tango had become an international trend in Paris, London and New York. At this time, the Argentine elite who had rejected the tango were now obliged into accepting it with national pride.
Tango Dance Styles
- Salon-Style Tango: Also known as tango de salon, salon-style tango is typically danced with an upright body posture with the two dancers maintaining separate axes. The embrace can be close or open, but it is typically offset and in a V.
- Milonguero-Style Tango: Milonguero-style tango is typically danced with a slightly leaning posture that typically joins the torsos of the two dancers from the tummy through the solar plexus (in an embrace that Argentines call apilado) to create a merged axis while allowing a little bit of distance between the couple's feet. The embrace is also typically closed with the woman’s right shoulder as close to her partner's left shoulder as her left shoulder is to his right, and the woman's left arm is often draped behind the man's neck.
- Club-Style Tango: Club-style tango has the rhythmic sensibilities of Milonguero-style tango, but it uses the posture, separate axes and embrace of close salon-style tango. Club-style tango is danced with an upright posture with the two dancers maintaining separate axes while embracing closely in an offset V.
- Orillero-Style Tango: Orillero-style tango is an older style of tango whose name suggests that it may have had its origins in the streets of poor outlying tenements in Buenos Aires. Later it came to refer to the man dancing around the edge of the woman. In either case, Orillero-style tango was not considered acceptable in the refined salons of central Buenos Aires during the golden age of tango. To the extent that Orillero-style tango is still danced it has become more like salon-style tango.
- Canyengue: Canyengue is a historical form of tango that was danced in the 1920s and early 30s that may or may not be accurately captured by its current practitioners. The embrace is close and in an offset V, the dancers typically have bent knees as they move, and the woman does not execute a cross. At the time Canyengue was popular, dresses were long and tight. Consequently, the steps were short and frequently executed in the ric-tic-tic rhythm that is characteristic of the tango music. Nuevo Tango:
- Fantasia: Fantasia is danced in tango stage shows. It originally drew from the idioms of the salon- and Orillero-styles of tango but today also includes elements of Nuevo-tango. Fantasia is danced in an open embrace with exaggerated movements and additional elements (often taken from ballet) that are not part of the social tango vocabulary. These balletic elements integrate well with salon-style tango because the way a couple relates to each other's space in salon-style tango is very balletic in nature, even though tango movement is more grounded like modern dance.
- Liquid Tango: Liquid tango is an emerging approach to dancing Argentine tango that is danced with an embrace that shifts between close and open to allow the integration of various styles of tango, particularly the Nuevo and club styles. It is probably premature to consider this a separate style of dancing because the approach is largely compatible with Nuevo and doesn't have an identifiably separate group of adherents.
- Nuevo Milonguero: Nuevo Milonguero is a relatively new approach to Argentine tango that adds some Nuevo movements such as cadenas, and volcadas to Milonguero-style tango. It would probably be a stretch to regard Nuevo Milonguero as a separate style of dancing because the approach is fully compatible with Milonguero-style tango and doesn't have an identifiably separate group of adherents.
 |
