Definitions sometimes are filled with contradictions...for example defining tango a folk dance is fine, in the dictionary folk dance is defined as 'a dance of popular origin'....but to oppose it to art, or dance as art does create problems...art is a 'human creative skill', it deals with creativity...does that mean that tango has not got any creativity? I do not know....

The origin of tango comes from the mingling of various cultures, among them the heirs of black slaves and the Italian immigrants in Latin America. In the suburbs of Buenos Aires tango was formed as a way to represent the melancholic nostalgia for one's own country (the verb 'to go back' is a constant in tango songs)and the sense of displacement in a society where life was changing very quickly through the process of urbanisation...

The eternal association of this dance with promiscous attitudes has been dismantled by tango scholar Meri Lao who argues that no tango song talks of prostitutes and widespread was instead the taboo according to which no swear-word was allowed in the lyrics.

I think that all the different art forms were born within their cultural milieu, classical dance reflected the ideal of the 19th century Romantic movemet as well modern dance did with the major changes occurring in the 20th century.

Nowadays we consider them as partially (if not totally) detached from the environment they came from. With tango, flamenco, bellydancing and other forms of dance, this process has not yet taken place and maybe it is better like this...

I don't know these are few ideas i came up with...

Tngo is quite difficult to perform, you are usually dancing in constant close contact with another person, your arms are placed on the other person's shoulder, torso if not their hand almost all the time, you need balance and a kind of acrobatic quality with your legs....

I feel the question of touching each other constantly makes tango such a tense dance, filled with concentration and affinity with your partner.

Nowadays people do not touch each other any more, we barely shake hands when we meet and we are seen as daring if we kiss each other's cheek....dance in general provides that medium through which touch is again experienced even if through the experience of watching a performance and a dance like tango provokes a lot of this sort of side-effect....mmmmh does this make sense?

On the repetivity of a dance like tango, I think we can say that this is due to its folkloric and popular origin.

The roots of tango reside in its belonging to the oral realm, the oral culture of popular tradition, which was and is still mainly transmitted orally. This brings out the necessity to repeat certain steps, certain combinations to better remember and transmit them...

A trace of this mechanism can be found in the lyrics of popular music where the chorus is even overrepeated sometimes. The result is that a song listened to for a couple of times, attaches itself to our memory very easily leaving us thrilled with it or tired of it, or maybe both...

Hi I wonder if anyone can help me. I am studying for a teaching exam in tap and I have to know about the tango. Sound strange for a tap exam? We have to be able to do things in a tango style. I have to know everything about it, where it originates, it's history, the music, the costume, the style of the dance etc etc. I have looked at various websites but I wouldlike to gather as much info as possible, so if anyone has aninfo that would help it would much appreciated. Also does anyone know if there is any link between tang and Flamenco in anyway. Maybe with regards to costume, music or even it's origins? Thaks in advance.

Tango developed in the early 20th century in the slums of Buenos Aires. It is a social dance. The rhythm (which is difficult to describe over the internet) is slow, slow, quick, quick, slow.

I don't think it is related to Flamenco at all, which developed in Spain.

Search for "tango" and "origin" on google.com and you'll find plenty of sources for research. Here's one, for example:

History of Tango

The author mentions the currently popular theory that the word "tango" is a corruption of an African word, but she thinks it's more likely from the Spanish musical style called "tango Andaluz."

Some of the websites are translations from Spanish, so the wording is sometimes strange.

<small>[ 21 October 2003, 09:22 PM: Message edited by: djb ]</small>

He’s been tangoed
Obsessed with the dance as much as his acting, Robert Duvall is every bit as singular as his finest screen roles, says Stephen Applebaum in The Sunday Times


After four decades of keeping it real as an actor, Robert Duvall, at 72, is in greater demand than ever. He has appeared in four films in the past year and a half, he tells me as we hide from the blazing Sicilian sun at the Taormina BNL Filmfest, where his fourth directorial effort, Assassination Tango, is screening, and he needs a holiday.

As he sits on a sofa nonchalantly chewing gum, his lively bright-blue eyes sparkling youthfully, it is obvious that life is treating Bobby — nobody calls him Robert — well.

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'I can dance a pretty good tango'
Robert Duvall is best known for his portrayal of stoic tough guys in films such as Apocalypse Now and The Godfather. But, as Michael Shelden discovers for The Daily Telegraph, he is taking his career in a new direction – thanks to a glamorous Argentine girlfriend 40 years his junior

It's a good thing for Robert Duvall that it takes two to tango. Otherwise, he might not have discovered the love of his life. Fifteen years ago, he became obsessed with the tango after seeing it performed in New York by a visiting troupe from Argentina. Between films, he began travelling to Buenos Aires, where he took dancing lessons and haunted the tango clubs at all hours.

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It takes two to 'Tanguera'
From China Daily

"Tanguera," an Argentina dance-and-musical production which opened Saturday night at the Shanghai Grand Theatre, offers a woman's perspective on the tango.

This is the first-ever tango performance to centre around a heroine, director of the show, Omar Pacheco, said during a press conference on Thursday.

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World Tango Festival
Paul Bottomer reports for Dance Today

Buenos Aires beckoned again and over 350 dancers from over 30 countries, from Chile to China and from Sweden to South Africa, took up the call to give full justification to the title World Tango Festival. And so, in the warm Buenos Aires Spring on October 5, 2003, the week long Festival began.

Buenos Aires can’t quite challenge New York in the “City that never sleeps” stakes. It can become a little dozy on a warm Spring afternoon after a mid-day visit to the parilla (grill) for a steak that looks as though only the head, hooves and tail are missing, washed Festival goers enjoy an afternoon's relaxation at an Argentinian barbeque.

down with a glass or two of excellent but inexpensive Trapiche Merlot. I knew straight off the plane and on to the city tour, included in the package, was the organisers way of easing you into the pace of life in the capital of Tango, so I’d arrived a few days early to acclimatise, fitten up and prepare for what was to come.

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Tangopolis
Best foot forward - Argentina basics
Chris Moss, for The Daily Telgraph, who lived in Buenos Aires for a decade, says that tango is the key to understanding the city.

Paradise is a dimly lit dance hall in San Telmo, Buenos Aires' oldest barrio. In front of me is a bottle of rough, deep red Malbec that cost about five pesos (less than a pound) and, drunk on romance and melancholy, I'm lost in a tango blur. Beyond the tiny nebula of the candlelight are dozens of couples locked in embrace, slaloming round the floor to the thrusting yum-ba of a live orchestra.

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Dance: You’d know if you’d been tangoed
The erotic Argentinian dance has been reborn — and it’s sexier than ever. By Mark Espiner for The Sunday Times:


The dancer’s sculpted foot, cupped in a strapped, 3in-heel shoe and wrapped in fish-net stockings, entwines with the leg of her partner. Their steps, strenuous and melting, stridently articulate that famous description of the tango: the vertical expression of horizontal desire. The crowd gawps.

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