Argentine Tango
History

Controversy surrounds the genesis of the Tango, but it is known that the dance originated in the bars, brothels, and “barrios” of Buenos Aires and that it was a dance that echoed the mixed ethnic origins of its proponents. The vocabulary of the dance combined the rhythmic patterns of African dance with footwork that resembles the kicks and flicks of gauchos on horseback from the Argentinean pampas; sensuous, sexually suggestive and coded moves danced cheek to cheek in the brothels; and the basic turns and walking steps from European folk dance. Together these became the basis for the Tango as we know it. Further European influence came later as the international Tango craze of the twenties fed back aspects of its own vocabulary.