Featured Photo: Tango dancers, Buenos Aires, Argentina

If there’s one art form that’s inextricably linked with Argentina, it’s the tango, that controlled yet sensual dance form that arose in Buenos Aires towards the end of the 19th century.  Tango most likely originated in the dance venues frequented by the young, poor toughs known as compadritos – men with few possessions to their name but plenty of macho pride. During this time Argentina was experiencing a large-scale influx of immigrants from all over Europe, who brought with them their various instruments and musical styles. Traditional European polkas, mazurkas, and waltzes blended with the Cuban habanera and African candomble rhythms to create the new style that ultimately became known as the tango. The music of tango is infused with the longing and loss these often desperate immigrants felt for the people and places they had left behind. The name tango itself is probably African in origin, referring to the place where the black population came to dance.

Although its origins were low-class, the tango was soon discovered by slumming sons of the Buenos Aires elite, and by the early 20th century, it was spreading throughout Argentina and overseas, giving rise to such immortal performers as Carlos Gardel, who died tragically in a plane crash in 1935. After a decline in the 1930s, tango experienced a Golden Age in the 1940s and ’50s, followed by another period of decline until it was revived once again in the 1980s. These days, tango is very much alive and well, both in Buenos Aires, where it is performed everywhere from dance halls to street corners, and around the world.