Marina Bair Dance 460 Cathy Black 3-10-12 The Development of the Tango For having such a short life the Tango has a lot of history. It has only been around for a little over a hundred years, which may seem like a long time, but when one compares it to the Waltz which has been around for over two hundred years it makes the tango look pretty young. In that short time the tango has gone through many years of development not only in Argentina, but also Europe and America. From the moment of its birth the argentine tango had people hypnotized with its exotic sound and shocking movement. When the tango was brought to Europe it spread like wildfire and quickly traveled to America. It was at this time when the international and American tangos developed and a change in fashion occurred. These three styles, Argentine, International and American, are at once similar and very different. The latter two stemmed from argentine tango so obviously there are a lot of similarities to their original source, but have three main differences. The three styles differ in music, hold and overall style of movement. These differences were highly influenced by the Argentinian, European and American cultures. Argentine Tango developed from many sources. It was highly influenced by what was happening in Argentina at the time and by the transatlantic slave trade. In the late nineteenth century there was a huge influx of immigrants to Argentina. It was mostly due to advertising by the Argentinian government. Argentina was really wealthy in resources, but had a shortage of workers. So, people came from all over the place seeking their fortunes. They came from many places including Italy, Spain and England. The immigrants were mostly men. The immigrants

outnumbered the natives and according to one source the men outnumbered the women fifty to one (Tango Argentino 7)! The immigration had a huge influence in the development of tango and its music. Men went to Argentina seeking their fortunes and then intending to return home. For the majority of immigrants that did not happen. They became part of the working class, some very poor, with a shortage of women to court. The world they left behind was vastly different from the one they found themselves in. Back home they were probably very respectable in society and followed all the social norms. The 1800s was a time where people had rules of etiquette for about every situation. It was around the time of Jane Austen the novelist. At this time women did not have a political role in society they did not really have a voice in society. They generally did not own property and they could not visit gentlemen unless it was on matters of business. In the ballroom there were also very strict codes of behavior. Women could not dance with men they had not been introduced to, they could go hardly anywhere without being escorted and they had to wait for a man to ask them to dance. Now the situation most immigrants found themselves in made them change some codes of conduct; dancing being one of them. During this period there were contradances, quadrilles and the increasing popular waltz. Excluding the waltz, these dances used very little physical contact between the couple. They would not touch much more than fingertips. However, the waltz was a shocking dance where the gentleman actually had the lady in his arms! There was still space between them, but position was more intimate than it was before. In Argentina the working class of immigrants had to find ways of attracting the women. And one of those ways was through dance. According to Christine Denniston, author of the meaning of Tango, the only socially acceptable way to meet a girl was through dancing. So the men only had this one way to impress the girls and to get them into their arms. If a girl did not like dancing with the guy then she would not do it again and the man would have a hard time getting another partner, because the girls would have seen his

dancing and the girl would probably tell her friends. Therefore, the men would have to be really good and comfortable with their dancing before they even stepped into a milonga. A milonga is a dance hall where they dance tango. What were the men to do? How could they get good without dancing with a girl? They had to go to a practica. A practica is a place where the men practiced the tango with each other. Since the men had to practice together the argentine tangos development was primarily because of them. The music and the dance developed around the same time and each influenced the other in its development. Tango music was not made strictly for the dance. There is some tango music that is meant to be listened to not danced to. However, as the argentine tango grew in popularity musicians found work composing music for that dance. The development of the danceable tango music was heavily influence by the Cubans, African slaves and the immigration of the late nineteenth century. There was a type of music that was born in Cuba and entered Argentina; it was called habanera. It has been suggested that this kind of music was influence by the contradances in France. The habanera has a very inspiring rhythm that drives people to dance and is the prelude to milonga and tango dance. The creatively named song Habanera from the play Carman is an example of a habanera song. The Africans in Argentina latched onto the habanera. They took it and mixed it with their own rhythms and made the milonga. This is not to be confused with the other milonga which is the name of a dance hall. This milonga is both a type of song and dance. It has a fast and energetic rhythm. Soon many people were dancing to it. Thompson says the milonga is a, reconciling of cultures until the pieces all fit. There were many different cultures in Argentina including multiple cultures from the different African tribes. The milonga reconciled and fused all of these cultures together. The milonga dance is similar in movement to the tango. It uses a similar hold and style. In milonga the two people lean into each other so their bodies make an A. In the tango the

couple is not leaning into each other quite as much. They have their weight over their own feet, but they still do lean in with their head and have their upper body touching. One will see tango dancers sometimes using the A hold but is not the normal position. That being said the argentine tango is highly improvised and is not codified so there is no set way of dancing it. Therefore, people have used both the A hold from milonga and the other more common hold. The argentine tango and the milonga both have a somewhat gliding quality about them. They are both very smooth dancing with a lot of rotation in them. The difference in the styles is that milonga has fast footwork. The argentine tango footwork is not necessarily slower just different. Instead of taking fast little steps like the milonga the tango uses more leg flicks and hooks. The movement can be either slow or fast. The immigration had its influence on the mood/sound of the music by means of the instruments and lyrics. The instruments originally used were the guitar, piano, violin and flute. It was a little later when the instrument that came to characterize the tango was introduced. It was made in Germany and brought over by the Italians that loved it. It was the Bandoneon. This instrument gave the tango its, intense, dramatic and brooding, quality (Tango Argentino: The Technique 2). The lyrics were often nostalgic which added to the quality. Many immigrants went to Argentina expecting to make their fortunes and then return home. For most of the men that did not happen and their songs reflected their sadness and longing for happier times. The tango lyrics reflected this. They had a, fatalistic view of their deprived social circumstances. This was sometimes coupled with the shame of betraying social class, family or friends and a nostalgia for lost times and lost loves, (Tango Argentino: The Technique 2). For the men getting a girl was serious business. They worked for a very long time perfecting their technique before they danced with a woman. In Christine Dennistons book The Meaning of Tango she talks about how men learned the tango. According to her when a man

wanted to begin his education on the tango he would go to a practica, find a master at the dance and begin learning the followers part. A beginner would have to practice the followers part for about nine months before he was allowed to try leading. After he mastered that he would begin work on leading for about two more years before he even got a woman into his arms. The argentine tango gets a bad rap for being connected to prostitution. It is true that some used it for that purpose, but whether it was originally for that reason or whether they simply used it as another way to meet clients I cannot be sure. It is as Thompson, author of Tango, said, Some danced for sex; some danced for art; some danced to show off their bodies. New steps could hardly have emerged, however, had the best not been dancing for dance. Tango was not all about prostitution though some used it for that purpose. And unfortunately that seems to be the only thing anyone relates tango with which is one reason why it was not universally accepted. Even within Argentina the tango did not have universal popularity. It was in the working class where it was very popular, but in the aristocracy of the time it was by no means accepted. The tango was considered by the upper class aristocrats to be vulgar and for less savory people. Considering the culture of the upper class it is not surprising. The aristocrats of Argentina considered themselves to be proper well-bred people who were in fashion with the latest from Paris. They followed the proper etiquette of the period and thought the close embrace of the tango inappropriate. The waltz was a popular dance, but the position was much wider than the tangos. The dress worn by the women were also thought to be vulgar, immodest and inappropriate. The dress went to about mid-calf and the dress was overall looser. This was at a time was showing above your ankles was deemed immodest. However, once the dance was taken to France it seems that the world was ready for a change in some things. International and American tango developed because the people had certain values and ideas of what a dance should look like. Dancesport competitions also had a key role in the

development of international tango. The tango was born around the 1890s and became very popular in the city of Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires is a port city which allowed the merchants to interact with the people, learn the tango and take it back home. When they brought the dance to Europe it spread like wildfire. The tango was introduced in Paris in the early 1900s. It was first danced by the merchants and the Argentinian bachelors visiting France. From France the tango spread throughout Europe, America and back to Argentina. It is here in Europe that the tango made its first big transformation toward international tango. Credit has been given to French dancer Camille de Rhynal for bringing the tango to France and for making it suitable for the ballroom (Buckman 171). Before the tango could be taken to and accepted by the English it needed to be changed to fit their cultural ideas of what a ballroom dance should be. First the dance needed to move in a circle counterclockwise around the floor and second it needed to be tamed. The original Argentine tango did neither of those things. The Argentine tango developed on crowded floors so the dance uses little space. It is more of a dance that revolves around its axis rather than a dance that moves around the floor. To accommodate the need for the dance to move around the floor they added long traveling steps. The tango needed taming because the close contact, chest to chest, was considered too close and very sensual. And the close faces with eye contact were considered improper. Therefore, the hold changed to an open position with arms touching with no body contact and their heads were a part and facing away from each other. Paul Bottomer, author of Tango Argentino: the Technique, describes the changes made this way, The smoldering passion of the authentic Argentine Tango had been dragged from its mysterious and seductive intimacy to be paraded around the ballroom floor in a style which was more fiery than smoldering, more angry than amorous, and more ostentatious than intimate (4). Enough changes had been made to make the tango very popular in England, but the changes were not complete. The dance was fixed to fit the values of the English people, but now

there were further changes made to make it fit for ballroom competitions. The popularity of the tango grew rapidly and it soon became a part of competitions. But before it would be allowed the dance needed to be standardized. The Argentine tango is mostly improvised and has a variety of variations in the style. Improvisation and the variation did not suit international competitions, so they set out to standardize it. Now the tango is a part of every Ballroom dance curriculum and competition. Although the style of the international tango has changed little by little over time the majority of it has remained the same. It was not until 1935 when a couple of unique characteristics to the international tango developed. It was a German Ballroom dancer by the name of Freddie Camp who first introduced, the sharp, staccato movements and the flick of the head from side to side at the Blackpool competition in 1935 (Denniston 88). Throughout the years there have been slight changes in the hold and connection. Now there is a strong connection through the body and the overall shape of the hold has become bigger and more dramatic. The tango came to America next thanks to Vernon and Irene Castle. When they were in France they began doing dance exhibitions in a place called Caf de Paris which according to Carlos G. Groppa, the author of the Tango in the United States is, the most famous, elegant supperclub in France, (43) and It was a meeting place for the Argentineans living in or visiting Paris (43). The Castles were in the right place to learn the tango and to take it back to the United States. And thats what they did. They first did the Tango in a play called The Sunshine Girl. After its premiere the tango and the Castles gained popularity pretty quickly. The tango came at a time when the dancing in America was becoming more lax in its standards. The people were starting to dance closer and there was more freedom of movement in the dancing which may be associated with the womens rights movement that was happening around the same time. Even with all of this going on the tango still received a lot of flak because of where it originated

and the close embrace it used. This is where the Castles come in again; they are known for not just dancing the tango, but for taming it. They made pretty much the same changes that were made to the International style along with a further change. American tango allowed a couple to break hold and dance side by side. That was not allowed in International or Argentine tango. This added to the variety and freedom of movement allowed. The greater freedom in movement was in line with how Americans general view freedom. Remaining in closed position like Argentine and International tango was looked upon as too restrictive. Americans did not want to feel restricted in anyway which is a further reason for the changes. The music had a huge influence on the development of tango; from Argentine tango to international and American. When the tango became popular in Europe many musicians started creating their own tangos. The major change these musicians made in their music occurred in the base line. The underlining beat went from a subtle background beat to a throbbing overwhelming base (Tango Argentino: The Technique 4). Argentine Tango has the potential of expressing more musicality through the dance than the international style, because it can be danced to the melody or the beat of the base. Whereas, the International tango is danced to the base beat. Anyone who has danced international tango can feel how awkward it would be to try to dance to the melody. In many international tango songs the melody is almost completely overwhelmed by the base. It would be hard and uncomfortable to try to stray away from the pull of the base. This change in the music is perfect for international tango, because it fits with the changes made in the dance that allows it to move around the floor with staccato marching walks, (Tango Argentino: The Technique 4). There is no record that I have found that explains whether it was the music or dance that changed first. More likely the music and dance developed together. As the tango became more popular in Europe the European musicians would begin writing more tangos. It is likely that the music and dance worked and developed together

until we get the international tango dance and music we have today. The music would not only influence the technique and the musicality of the dance, but also the feel of it. With the new throbbing beat the dance changed from being very intimate and subtle to being this dramatic, grandiose event with quick head changes. The argentine tango did not only have an impact on the dancing world, but also in the world of fashion. Before the tango women were wearing the full length, small bustle dresses. That was not very conducive to dancing a tango which needed the woman to have a larger range of motion. In Argentina the women who danced tango were wearing shorter, looser and lighter dresses. These dresses came to about mid-calf. When the tango became to rage in Europe the everyday fashion began mimicking the style one would wear to dance tango. The dresses became shorter and there was a more flexible corset that developed to allow more freedom in movement. Womens pants also became fashionable at this time. These pants were very loose and looked like a skirt when the legs are together. Whether this change of attire was also true in the English ballrooms is hard to say. In dance competitions today the tango is danced in a full length dress just like all the other dances are. The American tango uses the same kind of music as the International style even though American tango is danced differently from International tango. The main difference between American and International tango is in the variety of movements that the American style allows. It can be danced in closed position or apart. When danced in close position the American tango uses the same hold as International tango although dancers in American tango can and sometimes do use a hold similar to Argentine tango. The variety of movement makes this kind of tango more theatrical and expressive. The music used in American tango is the same as International tango except that American tends to use songs with a stronger melody. In American tango music the base is still prominent, but it is a little more balanced with the melody. International and

American tango can be danced to any International style song, but American tends to use songs with louder melodies. The argentine tango grew from a melting pot of cultures. The different cultures had their influence on the music and the mood that sets tango a part from other styles. And the circumstance Argentina found itself in, namely the huge imbalance in the population between men and women, influenced the development of the intimate movements and style of the tango. Perhaps the reason for its explosive growth in popularity, apart from the tango being a new and exotic dance, was because it was touched by so many different cultures making it a somewhat multicultural dance. Italians had their influence through the music/lyrics and instruments, the Africans with their rhythms, the habanera brought from Cuba which was possibly influenced by France and the Argentinians through the movement. Whatever the reason for its popularity, tango quickly spread throughout the world. It was met with some resistance, especially by religious and military figures, but it was generally accepted especially after some alterations made by people in England and by Vernon and Irene Castle. These alterations changed the argentine tango making it more appropriate according to the culture that was dancing it. In Europe they changed the Argentine tango in several ways. They took out provocative movements, made it a traveling dance, widened the hold and faced the heads away from each other. Later on they added the sharp and dramatic head switches. In America the same changes were made to the Argentine tango with the addition of being able to break hold and dance side by side. The overall style of the movement changed from being intimate and small like in the Argentine tango to being dramatic and big like in the International and American tangos. The music changed along with the dance when it went to Europe and America. The base became to focal point, whereas, in Argentina the tango music had a nice balance between base and melody. Although American and International tango stemmed from the Argentine tango they have

become three very distinct dances. The effect the tango has had on people throughout history has been impressive and it gives me hope that we will move back to an age of greater social dancing. I believe we are beginning to see peoples interest returning to dance through the popularity of television shows like Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance. The argentine tango being done on stage is different than what is done in its natural environment, but at least it is getting peoples attention. The argentine tango done on stage has retained its intimate flavors and smooth quality of movement, but it has become showier. There are more tricks and overall it takes up more space than one would see in the crowded dance floors in Buenos Aires. There are some dances that die off after a while, but looking at the history of the tango and seeing its effect of people back then and now I do not think that will happen. The tango had a decline in popularity during the 1930s, but there was a revival in the late twentieth century. And although tango was not universally accepted in Argentina originally it has now been embraced as their dance. The tango is a dance that has survived and will continue to survive the test of time.

Works Cited Bottomer, Paul. Tango Argentino: The Technique. Toton, Nottingham, England: Sounds Sensational, 1990. Print. Bottomer, Paul. Tango Argentino. New York: Lorenz, 1996. Print. Buckman, Peter. "The Dance Band Years." Let's Dance: Social, Ballroom, & Folk Dancing. New York: Paddington, 1978. 171-72. Print. Collier, Simon, and Ken Haas. Tango!: The Dance, the Song, the Story. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997. Print. Denniston, Christine. The Meaning of Tango: The Story of the Argentinian Dance. London: Portico, 2007. Print. Gift, Virginia. Tango: A History of an Obsession. [Charleston, South Carolina]: urge, 2008. Print. Gregory, Katie. "Argentine Tango." Dancing Times 97.1159 (2007): 113-15. Print. Groppa, Carlos G. The Tango in the United States: A History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &, 2004. Print. Kirk, Mary Ann. Tango Dress History. eHow.com. Web. Apr 13 2012. Rayner, Nicola. "The Tango." Dance Today 56.123 (2011): 42-46. Print. Thompson, Robert Farris. Tango: The Art History of Love. New York: Pantheon, 2005. Print.