I was asked a very simple question by my father when I told him that I dance tango: “So what is tango? How do you characterize it?”. And I realized that every time I tried to formulate an answer or a definition for tango, I would come up with another form or meaning of tango that would contradict what I was about to say. You can do this thought experiment for yourself. Just think of what you believe “tango” means to you, and see if you can come up with a one or two sentence description that really captures whatever your feelings are on the subject of tango. I bet you will find this exercise entertainingly futile!
I will tell you about my thought experiment, or rather the thought explosion or thought disaster that I underwent:
My first thought was Tango is the style of dancing that originated in brothels of Argentina in the late 1800s and became popular through out the world in the early 1900s. Now, although this statement is superficially almost correct, every part of it is wrong at some level. Let’s start at the beginning: tango is “a style of dancing”. WRONG. Tango is not just a style of dancing.
tango figure
Tango is also a genre of music. Okay, so tango is a style of dancing AND a genre of music associated with this style of dancing (or the other way round), right? Of course not! Tango is also a type of rhythm with this genre of music. Besides, when we refer to tango music, as a whole, we include many many things in it: tangos, milongas, tango waltzes, tango candombes … the list goes on. And while we are thinking about the music, tango music didn’t even originate in Buenos Aires only. Uruguay has also played an immensely important role in the birth and history of tango. For those of you who don’t know where Uruguay is, it’s the country sandwiched between brazil and Argentina (officially known as the Oriental Republic of Uruguay), whose capital Montevideo is perhaps as important as Buenos Aires as far as tango history is concerned. It was in Uruguay that the most famous tango of them all “La Cumparsita” was written.
As such, tango dance and tango music both are pretty young. According to Wikipedia and also this website, the earliest records of tango styles are 19th century Spain and Cuba, which is pretty recent if you compare it to waltz which has been around since the 16th century. What is considered traditional Argentine tango, is the music and dancing that evolved between 1910s to 1950s in Buenos Aires and Montevideo among the European immigrant population (mainly Italian, Spanish and French) of these cities, greatly influenced by African and Creole music. But I digress. Let’s just keep aside what is tango music… That would be a subject for another powwow. So let’s focus instead just on what is Tango dance ?
Even here, we can’t give a succinct answer. Of the top of my head, I can think of at least a bunch of things that would fall under the umbrella title of “tango dance”: the Argentine tango, Tango Canyengue, Nuevo Tango, Tango Candombe, Tango Milonga, Ballroom tango (okay may be that’s stretching the definition :). And after checking the Tango wiki, I can add: Uruguayan tango (also known as Tango Oriental) and To My Great Amazement: Finnish Tango - something I had never heard of till now. Everyday I discover something new about tango. I had no idea that Finnland had anything to do with tango.
Anyway, Wikipedia lists a bunch of more styles. Here is the list:
* * Tango Argentino
* * Tango Oriental (uruguayo)
* * Tango Canyengue
* * Tango Liso
* * Tango Salon
* * Tango Orillero
* * Tango Milonguero (Tango Apilado)
* * Tango Nuevo
* * Show Tango (also known as Fantasia)
* * Ballroom Tango
* * Finnish Tango
You can read the nuances of each of these styles by googling ‘tango’ and going to the wiki article. Well, there goes any hope of explaining to my father what tango is! As we kept talking, I ended up mentioning a lot of jargon like ganchos, boleos, close embrace, traspie, cadence and lots other things that made him even more confused. We drifted again into tango music and tango instruments, bandoneons the soul of tango and Francisco Canaro and Carlos Gardel and the revival and Por Una Cabeza from the movie “Scent of a woman”. At some point I realized that I am talking about comme il faut and neo tango shoes and I knew that I should stop. I even tried to resort to inappropriate humor (the cliched and ultra-limited “vertical expression of a horizontal desire”) but to no avail.
So I took a break… I went for a walk and a coffee. And I thought of the best tangos I’ve ever danced, and I thought about my favorite tango music, my favorite milongas and my favorite tango places and my favorite tango partners… Then I thought some more… and felt some more…
When I came back I told him this: Tango is all about communication without words. Tango is communication with your body. And it’s not a digital communication, unlike in other dances like swing or salsa (at least the way it’s danced in the US). You don’t give an “instruction” to the follower, and wait and watch while she does her bit and then give the next instruction… Tango is led continuously, every fraction of every second. Dancing tango is giving a visual, corporal form to the words and the music, giving body to “quejas de bandoneon”… It’s like making a moving painting of the melody and rhythm.
My bad: Now he is asking me what’s swing and salsa and how’s bandoneon different from an Accordion!
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