Argentine tango - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Argentine tango is a musical genre of simple quadruple metre

Metre

The metre , symbol m, is the base unit of length in the International System of Units . Originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole , its definition has been periodically refined to reflect growing knowledge of metrology...

and binary musical form

Musical form

The term musical form refers to the overall structure or plan of a piece of music, and it describes the layout of a composition as divided into sections...

, and the social dance

Social dance

Social dance is a major category or classification of danceforms or dance styles, where sociability and socializing are the primary focuses of the dancing...

that accompanies it. Its lyrics and music are marked by nostalgia
Nostalgia
The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...

, expressed through melodic instruments including the bandoneon

Bandoneón

The bandoneón is a type of concertina particularly popular in Argentina and Uruguay. It plays an essential role in the orquesta típica, the tango orchestra...

. Originated at the ending of the 19th century in the suburbs of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

, it quickly grew in popularity and spread internationally. Among its leading figures are the singer and songwriter Carlos Gardel

Carlos Gardel

Carlos Gardel was a singer, songwriter and actor, and is perhaps the most prominent figure in the history of tango. He was born in Toulouse, France, although he never acknowledged his birthplace publicly, and there are still claims of his birth in Uruguay. He lived in Argentina from the age of two...

, composer Mariano Mores

Mariano Mores

Mariano Martínez, better known as Mariano Mores , is a famous Argentine tango composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:...

and performers Osvaldo Pugliese

Osvaldo Pugliese

Osvaldo Pedro Pugliese was an Argentine tango musician. He developed dramatic arrangements that retained strong elements of the walking beat of salon tango but also heralded the development of concert-style tango music.Some of his music, mostly since the 50s, is used for theatrical dance...

and Ástor Piazzolla

Ástor Piazzolla

Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music...

History of tango

The main history of the tango is it started in the Suburbs of Buenos Aires

Music

Argentine tango music is much more varied than ballroom tango music. A large amount of tango music has been composed by a variety of different orchestras over the last century. Not only is there a large volume of music, there is a breadth of stylistic differences between these orchestras as well, which makes it easier for Argentine tango dancers to spend the whole night dancing only Argentine tango. The four representative schools of the Argentine tango music are Di Sarli

Carlos di Sarli

Carlos Di Sarli was an Argentine tango musician, orchestra leader, composer and pianist.- Early years :Carlos di Sarli was born at 511 Buenos Aires street in the town of Bahia Blanca, located in Southern Argentina...

, D’Arienzo

Juan D'Arienzo

Juan d'Arienzo was an Argentine tango musician, also known as "El Rey del Compás" . Departing from other orchestras of the golden age, D'Arienzo returned to the 2x4 feel that characterized music of the old guard, but he used more modern arrangements and instrumentation...

, Troilo

Aníbal Troilo

Aníbal Carmelo Troilo was an Argentine tango musician.Anibal Troilo was a bandoneon player, composer, and bandleader in Argentina. His orquesta típica was among the most popular with social dancers during the golden age of tango , but he changed to a concert sound by the late 1950s...

and Pugliese

Osvaldo Pugliese

. They are dance orchestras, playing music for dancing. When the spirit of the music is characterized by counterpoint marking, clarity in the articulation is needed. It has a clear, repetitive pulse or beat, a strong tango-rhythm which is based on the 2x4, 2 strong beats on 4 (dos por cuatro). Ástor Piazzolla

Ástor Piazzolla

stretched the classical harmony and counterpoint and moved the tango from the dance floor to the concert stage. His compositions tell us something of our contemporary life and dancing it relates much to modern dance.

While Argentine tango dancing has historically been dancing to tango music, such as that produced by such orchestra leaders as Osvaldo Pugliese

Osvaldo Pugliese

, Carlos Di Sarli

Carlos di Sarli

, Juan D'Arienzo

Juan D'Arienzo

, in the '90s a younger generation of tango dancers began dancing tango steps to alternatives to tango music; music from other genres like, "world music", "electro-tango", "experimental rock", "trip hop", and "blues", to name a few. Artists like Kevin Johansen

Kevin Johansen

Kevin Johansen is an Argentine-American rock musician. Born to an Argentine mother, Marta Calvet, and an American father, he lived most of his childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area, but moved with his family to Buenos Aires at the age of 12...

, Gotan Project

Gotan Project

Gotan Project is a musical group based in Paris, consisting of musicians Philippe Cohen Solal , Eduardo Makaroff , and Christoph H. Müller .-History:...

, Tanghetto

Tanghetto

Tanghetto is a musical group based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and one of the most important on the neo tango scene.The style of Tanghetto is a blend of tango and electronic music. Formed in 2001 by producer and composer/songwriter Max Masri . Then Max Masri asked guitarist and composer Diego S...

, Otros Aires

Otros Aires

Otros Aires is a Spanish/Argentine neo-tango group, founded in 2003 in Barcelona by Argentine musician/architect Miguel Di Genova.Otros Aires mixes the first tangos and milongas records from the beginning of the last century with electronic sequences, melodies and lyrics of the 21st century.The...

, Tom Waits

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...

, Portishead, and Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

are among those favored in alternative music playlists. Tango nuevo dance is often associated with alternative music, see nuevo tango

Nuevo tango

Tango Nuevo - either a form of music in which new elements are incorporated into traditional Argentine tango, or an evolution of tango dance that began to develop in the 1980s...

, but it can be danced to tango as well.

Dance

Argentine tango dancing consists of a variety of styles that developed in different regions and eras, and in response to the crowding of the venue and even the fashions in clothing. Even though the present forms developed in Argentina and Uruguay, they were also exposed to influences re-imported from Europe and North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. There are records of 18th and early 19th century tango styles in Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

and Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, while there is a flamenco tangos

Tangos

Tangos is a flamenco palo closely related in form and feeling to the Rumba. It is often performed as a finale to a Tientos. Its compas and llamada are the same as that of the Farruca and share the Farruca's lively nature. However, Tangos is normally performed in the A Phrygian mode.Tangos is...

dance that may share a common ancestor in a minuet-style European dance. Consequently there is a good deal of confusion and overlap between the styles as they are now danced - and fusions continue to evolve.

Argentine tango is danced in an embrace that can vary from very open, in which leader and follower connect at arms length, to very closed, in which the connection is chest-to-chest, or anywhere in between.

Tango dance is essentially walking with a partner and the music. Dancing appropriately to the emotion and speed of a tango is extremely important to dancing tango. A good dancer is one who transmits a feeling of the music to the partner. Also, dancers generally keep their feet close to the floor as they walk, the ankles and knees brushing as one leg passes the other.

Argentine tango dancing relies heavily on improvisation

Improvisation

Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...

; although certain patterns of movement have been codified by instructors over the years as a device to instruct dancers, there is no "basic step." One of the few constants across all Argentine tango dance styles is that the follower will usually be led to alternate feet. Another is that the follower rarely has his or her weight on both feet at the same time.
Argentine tango is danced counterclockwise around the outside of the dance floor (the "line of dance") and dance "traffic" often segregates into a number of "lanes"; cutting across the middle of the floor is frowned upon. In general, the middle of the floor is where one finds either beginners who lack floor navigation skills or people who are performing "showy" figures or patterns that take up more dance floor space. It is acceptable to stop briefly in the line of dance to perform stationary figures, as long as the other dancers are not unduly impeded. The school of thought about this is, if there is open space in front, there are likely people waiting behind. Dancers are expected to respect the other couples on the floor; colliding or even crowding another couple, or stepping on others' feet is to be avoided strenuously. It is considered rude; in addition to possible physical harm rendered, it can be disruptive to a couple's musicality.
Ballroom tango

Tango (ballroom)

Ballroom Tango is a ballroom dance that branched away from its original Argentine roots by allowing European, American, Hollywood, and competitive influences into the style and execution of the dance....

steps were standardized by dance studios. The steps have been relatively fixed in style for decades. However, Argentine tango has been an evolving dance and musical form, with continual changes occurring every day on the social dance floor in Argentina and in major tango centers elsewhere in the world. Argentine tango dance is, still based heavily on improvisation. While there are patterns or sequences of steps that are used by instructors to teach the dance, even in a sequence every movement is led not only in direction but also speed and quality (a step can be smooth, pulsing, sharp, ... etc.). Although Argentine tango evolves mostly on the dance floor, the government of Argentina does host an annual competition of Argentine tango dance in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

, attracting competitors from around the world.

Embrace

A striking difference between Argentine tango and ballroom tango is in the shape and feel of the embrace. Ballroom technique dictates that partners arch their upper bodies away from each other, while maintaining contact at the hip, in an offset frame.

In Argentine tango, it is nearly the opposite: the dancers' chests are closer to each other than are their hips, and often there is contact at about the level of the chest (the contact point differing, depending on the height of the leader and the closeness of the embrace). In close embrace

Close embrace

In partner dances, close embrace is a type of closed position where the leader and follower stand facing each other chest-to-chest in full or partiall body contact. The dancers usually stand offset from one another, such that each has his or her right toe in between the toes of his or her partner...

, the leader and the follower's chests are in contact and they are dancing with their heads touching or very near each other. In open embrace, there can be as much space as desired between the partners, but there should always be complete contact along the embracing arms to give optimum communication. Since Argentine tango is almost entirely improvisational, there needs to be clear communication between partners. Even when dancing in a very open embrace, Argentine tango dancers do not hold their upper bodies arched away from each other; each partner is over their own axis. Whether open or closed, a tango embrace is not rigid, but relaxed, like a hug.

Walking

One very important characteristic of Argentine tango is the walk outside of the legs of the follower. The inside walk belongs originally to the American Tango. It is seen in Argentine Tango, but it does not belong to it originally . Another difference is that the leader may freely step with his left foot when the follower steps with her left foot. In English, this is sometimes referred to as a "crossed" (e.g. "walking in the crossed system") or "uneven" walk in contrast to the normal walk which is called "parallel" or "even." In ballroom tango, "crossed system" is considered incorrect unless the leader and follower are facing the same direction . Furthermore, the flexibility of the embrace allows the leader to change his weight from one foot to another while the follower's weight remains unchanged. This is another major difference with ballroom tango, where a weight change by one partner usually leads to a weight change by the other.

The nomenclature originated with the Naveira/Salas "Investigation Group." Early on, they used 'even/uneven' to describe the arrangement of legs in the walk (or turn). By the mid-1990s, they began using 'parallel/crossed' and later 'normal/crossed'. In dance the changing of feet is named contrapaso, or "contra-step". This change can be made off or on the normal beat.

Figures

Unlike the majority of social dance, Argentine tango is not a set step, but a completely improvised dance combining various elements in a spontaneous manner, as determined by the lead.
To be able to improvise, the dancer needs to learn the lead and implementation of the different single elements of Tango, so they can be produced later by leading appropriately in space and music.
The elements are just a few as caminar (walk), cruce (cross), ochos (figure-eight), ganchos (leg hooks), giros (turns), contragiros (turns in the other direction), sacadas (displacements), boleos (this expression comes from boleadoras, balls linked with cords, thrown to hunt animals), llevadas de pie (moving foot by foot), cortes (cuts), and quebradas (breaks). Well-known and simple combinations are called figura básica (basic figures), especially when they contain just one element. Some of the elements are named as a figure.

Códigos and yeta

Argentine tango developed set of codes and superstitions throughout its history. One charming example is "cabeceo" - an eye invitation by man to a woman to dance which is practiced in Buenos Aires. Somewhat related is "yeta" - superstitions. For example, one doesn't dance to the well known tango "Adios Muchachos" as it is (falsely) believed the last one sung by Carlos Gardel

Carlos Gardel

before his untimely accident leading to his death.

Vals and milonga

Argentine tango dancers usually enjoy two other related dances: Vals (waltz) and Milonga.

Music for the Vals is in 3/4 time but otherwise very similar to tango music. Tango dancers dance the Vals much like they do tango only often with a waltz rhythm that has one beat per measure. This produces a rather relaxed, smooth flowing dancing style in contrast to Viennese Waltz

Viennese Waltz

Viennese Waltz is the genre of a ballroom dance. At least three different meanings are recognized. In the historically first sense, the name may refer to several versions of the waltz, including the earliest waltzes done in ballroom dancing, danced to the music of Viennese Waltz.What is now called...

where the dancers often take 3 steps per measure and turn almost constantly. Experienced dancers alternate the smooth one-beat-per-measure walk with some double time steps (often incorrectly called syncopated walks), stepping on one- two- or (rarely) all three beats in a measure. Vals is characterized by its lack of pauses; continual turns (giros) in both directions are not done as in ballroom quick waltz, although turns are sometimes introduced for variety.

Milonga

Milonga

Milonga can refer to an Argentine, Uruguayan, and Southern Brazilian form of music which preceded the tango and the dance form which accompanies it, or to the term for places or events where the tango or Milonga are danced...

, in 2/4 time, has a strongly accented beat, and sometimes an underlying "habanera" rhythm. Dancers avoid pausing, and often introduce double time steps (incorrectly called syncopation and more appropriately called traspies) into their walks and turns. Milonga dancing uses the same basic elements as tango, with a strong emphasis on the rhythm, and figures that tend to be less complex than some danced in other varieties of tango. Some tango instructors say that tango steps should not be used in milonga and that milonga has its own special rhythm and steps, which are quite different from tango.

Milonga

Milonga (place)

Milonga is a term for a place or an event where tango is danced. People who frequently go to milongas are sometimes called milongueros. The term "milonga" can also refer to a musical genre....

is also the name given to clubs and events specially for dancing tango. This double meaning of the word milonga can be confusing unless one knows the context in which the word "milonga" is used. People who dance at milongas are known as milonguero
Milonguero
Milonguero is a term for a person whose life revolves around dancing tango and the philosophy of tango. A title given by other tango dancers to a man who has mastered the tango dance and embodies the essence of tango....

s.

Resurgence of Argentine tango outside Argentina

France

In 1983, the dance show Tango Argentino, staged by Claudio Segovia and Hector Orezzolli, opened in Paris, France, starring dancers Juan Carlos Copes and Maria Nieves, Nélida y Nelson, Eduardo y Gloria, María y Carlos Rivarola, Norma y Luis Pereyra

Luis Pereyra

thumb|Luis PereyraLuis Pereyra is a dancer and chorographer of Tango Argentino and Argentinian folklore.- Life :...

, Mayoral y Elsa Maria, Carlos y Inés Borges, Pablo Veron, Miguel Zotto and Milena Plebs, and Virulazo and Elvira.

Britain

The huge resurgence of interest in partner dance form in Britain has been led by Modern Jive

Modern Jive

Modern Jive is a dance style derived from Swing, Lindy Hop, Rock and Roll, Salsa and others, the main innovation being to simplify the footwork - by removing syncopation such as chasse. The term French Jive is occasionally used instead, reflecting the origins of the style...

. Many dancers who start in modern jive find that as they progress they want more challenging and more connected dance forms and Argentine tango is a natural progression. As well as dedicated tango classes, practicas and milongas throughout the country, it is now common for jive venues to offer a second room with a mixture of blues and tango dancing. At such events it is common to see tango-jive fusion being danced.

The popularity of tango dancing has also been fed by Hollywood films that feature the dance and by the BBC TV programme Strictly Come Dancing.

USA

In 1985, the French dance show Tango Argentino transferred to Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. Cast members gave classes to a number of students, including Robert Duvall

Robert Duvall

Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career....

. Paul Pellicoro

Paul Pellicoro

Paul Pellicoro is a professional ballroom dancer, instructor, and choreographer. He has owned and operated New York City's largest ballroom dance studio, , since 1985, which is currently located in its new home next to the Empire State Building in Manhattan in New York City Paul Pellicoro (born...

provided a dance center for the performers to teach new students. At the same time, Danel and Maria Bastone were teaching tango in New York, and Orlando Paiva was offering tango classes in Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

. For further lessons, Duvall sought out Nestor Ray, a dancer who Duvall had seen perform in the documentary film Tango mio.

In 1986, Nora and Raul Dinzelbacher visited San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, coming from La Paz, Entre Ríos

La Paz, Entre Ríos

La Paz is a city in the province of Entre Ríos in the Argentine Mesopotamia. It has about 25,000 inhabitants as per the , and is the head town of the department of the same name....

and Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

aboard a cruise ship where they were dancing tango and chacarera

Chacarera

The Chacarera is a dance of Argentine origin. It is a genre of folk music that, for many Argentines, serves as a rural counterpart to the cosmopolitan imagery of the Tango...

professionally. Al and Barbara Garvey took tango classes from them as well as from Jorge and Rosa Ledesma from Quilmes, Buenos Aires

Quilmes, Buenos Aires

Quilmes is a city in the . It is the capital of Quilmes Partido , and has a population of 230,810. It is located south of the capital of Argentina, the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires....

; all in the style of choreographed show tango. In 1987, the Garveys traveled to Buenos Aires to discover the traditional improvisational social dance style at a large milonga (Centro Akarense) filled with older dancers in Villa Urquiza

Villa Urquiza

Villa Urquiza is a barrio or neighborhood of Buenos Aires city, capital of Argentina. It is located between the barrios of Villa Pueyrredón, Belgrano, Villa Ortúzar, Coghlan, Saavedra and Agronomía. Its limits are the streets and avenues Constituyentes, Crisólogo Larralde, Galván, Núñez, Tronador,...

. Upon returning home to Fairfax, California

Fairfax, California

Fairfax is an incorporated town in Marin County, California, United States. Fairfax is located west-northwest of San Rafael, at an elevation of 115 feet...

, the Garveys continued tango lessons and began organizing milongas around the San Francisco Bay Area

San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

. They co-founded the Bay Area Argentine Tango Association (BAATA) and published a journal.

In 1986, Brigitta Winkler appeared in her first stage performance, Tangoshow in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

. Though based in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Winkler traveled often to teach at tango festivals in North America throughout the following two decades. Winkler was a seminal influence of Daniel Trenner. Montreal's first tango teachers, French-born Lily Palmer and her Argentine friend, Antonio Perea, offered classes in 1987.

The Dinzelbachers settled in San Francisco in 1988, in response to the demand for tango teachers following a visit to San Francisco by the touring production of Tango Argentino. Nora and Raul Dinzelbacher taught a core group of students who would later become teachers themselves, including the Garveys, Polo Talnir and Jorge Allende.

In 1989, the Dinzelbachers were invited to Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...

by Richard Powers, to introduce and teach Argentine tango at a weeklong dance festival. The following year, Powers moved his festival to Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

and asked the Dinzelbachers back. Unfortunately, Raul Dinzelbacher, 40 years old, collapsed and died at the end of the third day of the festival. Nora Dinzelbacher was devastated but threw herself into her work, forming a dance performance troupe and teaching. She asked a student, George Guim, to become her assistant. They taught at a week-long dance festival in Port Townsend, Washington.

Throughout 1990, Luis Bravo's Forever Tango played in eight West Coast

West Coast of the United States

West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...

cities, increasing viewer's interest in learning the tango. Carlos Gavito and his partner Marcela Duran invented a dramatically different tango embrace in which both dancers leaned forward against each other more than was traditionally accepted. Gavito's ultimate rise to fame came from this starring appearance in Forever Tango.

In 1991, Richard Powers asked Nora Dinzelbacher to help him transform "Stanford Dance Week" into "Stanford Tango Week". The two produced the popular annual festival until the University abruptly cancelled it after its 1997 run. In 1998, with Bob Moretti, a former student, Nora began a new festival in the same vein: "Nora's Tango Week", held in Emeryville, California

Emeryville, California

Emeryville is a small city located in Alameda County, California, in the United States. It is located in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, extending to the shore of San Francisco Bay. Its proximity to San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, the University of California, Berkeley, and...

. Moretti would continue to co-produce the festival until his death on June 22, 2005, just days before that year's Tango Week.

In the first half of 1994, Barbara Garvey's BAATA mailing list grew from 400 to 1,400 dancers. Garvey places the critical mass of the San Francisco Bay Area's tango resurgence at this point. The number of regional milongas went from three per month to 30.

Forever Tango returned to the United States late in 1994, landing in Beverly Hills

Beverly Hills, California

Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...

, then San Francisco, where it ran for 92 weeks. From there the show went to New York where it became the longest-running tango production in Broadway history.

In June 1995, Janis Kenyon held a tango festival at Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

. Kenyon had attended Stanford Tango Week in 1993, where she met Juan Carlos Copes and Maria Nieves. The pair were invited to teach at Kenyon's 1995 Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

event. The next year, Kenyon moved her festival to Columbus, Ohio

Columbus, Ohio

Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...

, where she featured Osvaldo Zotto. In February 1997, Clay Nelson (a two-time attendee at Stanford Tango Week) organized his first ValenTango festival in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

; "Tango Fantasy on Miami Beach" was formed by Jorge Nel, Martha Mandel, Lydia Henson and Randy Pittman as Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

's first tango festival; and the Portland October Tangofest was launched, again by Clay Nelson. 1999 saw a split in Miami: Nel and Mandel scheduled their "United States Tango Congress" to open a month prior to the Tango Fantasy event.

Daniel Trenner has been credited with bringing improvisational social Argentine tango to the United States. Like the Garveys, he first went to Buenos Aires in 1987, where he went to a milonga in Palermo

Palermo, Buenos Aires

Palermo is a neighborhood, or barrio of the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. It is located in the northeast of the city, bordering the barrios of Belgrano to the north, Almagro and Recoleta to the south, Villa Crespo and Colegiales to the west and the Río de la Plata river to the east. With a total...

and saw the traditional improvisational style being danced. Trenner was introduced to Miguel and Nelly Balmacera, a couple who would become his first tango teachers. Being fluent in both Spanish and English he was able to study with many Argentine tango masters, including Gustavo Naveira
and Mingo Pugliese. He made video tapes of the lessons he took and translated the Spanish instruction into English. In the late 1980s, Trenner brought his newfound appreciation of traditional tango back to New York and conducted classes. In 1991, Trenner began working with Rebecca Shulman in performing and teaching tango. (Shulman would go on to be a co-founder and director of TangoMujer in New York and Berlin.) In 1995, Trenner taught for ten weeks in Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, followed by some 15 of those students accompanying him to Buenos Aires. Out of this experience, "Tango Colorado" was formed by Tom Stermitz and other tango aficionados from Denver

Denver, Colorado

The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...

, Boulder

Boulder, Colorado

Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...

and Fort Collins

Fort Collins, Colorado

Fort Collins is a Home Rule Municipality situated on the Cache La Poudre River along the Colorado Front Range, and is the county seat and most populous city of Larimer County, Colorado, United States. Fort Collins is located north of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. With a 2010 census...

, and a twice-yearly tango festival was organized in Denver. Trenner had planted the seed and moved on. In this way, Trenner has been called the Johnny Appleseed

Johnny Appleseed

Johnny Appleseed , born John Chapman, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois...

of tango.

In February 2009, the popular ABC series Dancing with the Stars
Dancing with the Stars (U.S. season 8)
The eighth season of Dancing with the Stars premiered on Monday, March 9, 2009, as part of ABC's spring line-up. The show generally followed the format of previous seasons, with 13 couples, although there were some changes, including two new dances , and an occasional dance-off between the bottom...

announced that the Argentine tango would be added to the list of dances for its eighth season, following the initiative by its British parent show Strictly Come Dancing

Strictly Come Dancing

Strictly Come Dancing is a British television show, featuring celebrities with professional dance partners competing in Ballroom and Latin dances. The title of the show suggests a continuation of the long-running series Come Dancing, with an allusion to the film Strictly Ballroom...

the previous year.

Tango canyengue

Tango canyengue is a rhythmic style of tango that originated in the early 1900s and is still popular today. It is one of the original roots styles of tango and contains all fundamental elements of traditional Argentine tango. In tango canyengue the dancers share one axis, dance in a closed embrace, and with the legs relaxed and slightly bent. Tango canyengue uses body dissociation for the leading, walking with firm ground contact, and a permanent combination of on- and off-beat rhythm. Its main characteristics are its musicality and playfulness. Its rhythm is described as "incisive, exciting, provocative".

The word canyengue is of African origin. It came into use to describe the tango rhythm at the time of the first so-called 'orquestas típicas' (including bandoneón

Bandoneón

The bandoneón is a type of concertina particularly popular in Argentina and Uruguay. It plays an essential role in the orquesta típica, the tango orchestra...

, violin and piano).

Leading exponents of tango canyengue:

Romolo Garcia (deceased)
El Negro Celso (deceased)
Rodolfo Cieri (deceased) and Maria Cieri
Luis Grondona
Marta Anton and 'El Gallego' Manolo Salvador
Roxina Villegas and Adrian Griffero

Tango orillero

Tango orillero refers to the style of dance that developed away from the town centers, in the outskirts and suburbs where there was more freedom due to more available space on the dance floor. The style is danced in an upright position and uses various embellishments including rapid foot moves, kicks, and even some acrobatics, though this is a more recent development.

Salon tango

Tango Salon does not refer to a single specific way of dancing tango. Rather, it is literally tango as it is danced socially in the salons (dance halls) of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

. Salon tango was danced throughout the Golden Era of Argentine Tango (1935 -1952) when milongas

Milonga (place)

Milonga is a term for a place or an event where tango is danced. People who frequently go to milongas are sometimes called milongueros. The term "milonga" can also refer to a musical genre....

(tango parties) were held in large dance venues and full tango orchestras performed. Salon tango is often characterized by slow, measured, and smoothly executed moves, never moving against the line-of-dance, and respecting the space of other dancers on the floor around them. The emphasis is on precision, smoothness, musicality, good navigation, and following the códigos (tango etiquette) of the salons. The couple embraces closely, with some variants having a flexible embrace, opening slightly to make room for various figures and closing again for support and poise. The walk is the most important element, and dancers usually walk 60%-70% of the time during a tango song.

When tango became popular again after the end of the Argentine military dictatorships in 1983, this style was resurrected by dancers from the Golden Era:

Gerardo Portalea (deceased)
Jose "El Turco" Brahemcha
Jose "Lampazo" Vazquez (deceased)
Luis "Milonguita" Lemos (deceased)
Miguel Balmaceda (deceased)
Osvaldo Cartery and Luisa "Coca" Inés
Pedro "Tete" Rusconi (deceased)
Ramón "Finito" Rivera (deceased)
Virulazo (deceased)
In the milongas at Club Sin Rumbo, Sunderland, El Pial and Canning

One variant of Tango Salon is the Villa Urquiza

Villa Urquiza

style, named after the northern barrio of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

where the clubs Sin Rumbo and Sunderland are located. Dancers who are current practitioners of the Villa Urquiza style of tango are:

Jorge Dispari and Marita 'La Turca'
Ezequiel Paludi and Geraldine Rojas
Samantha Dispari (daughter of Jorge and Marita)
Andres Laza Moreno
Fabian Peralta
Miguel Angel Zotto and Milena Plebs (Miguel now dances with Daiana Guspero)
Osvaldo Zotto and Lorena Ermocida (no longer dance partners when Osvaldo Zotto deceased on 8 January 2010).
Carlos Perez and Rosa Forte
El Chino Perico
Javier Rodriguez and Andrea Misse
The Misse family (Andrea, Sebastian, Gabriel, and Stella)
María and Carlos Rivarola
Adrian and Amanda Costa (students of Dispari and 'La Turca')

"Estilo milonguero" (tango apilado/confiteria style)

This style originated as the petitero or caquero style in the 1940s and 50s in closely packed dance halls and confiterías. It is danced in close-embrace, chest-to-chest, knees relaxed, back straight, with the partners leaning - or appearing to lean - slightly toward each other to allow space for the feet to move. The center line of the leader's and follower's spines are directly in front of each other, requiring that each dancer turn their head to their left slightly to find space over their partner's right shoulder. The follower's left arm reaches directly up over the leader's shoulder without resting any body weight on the leader's shoulder. The leader's left hand and the follower's right hand clasp in the same manner as other styles of Argentine Tango, with elbows pointed down (contrasting with elbows up and pointed back as in ballroom tango

Tango (ballroom)

), with little or no pressure applied by the arms or hands. The leader's right arm is held high across the follower's shoulder blades to help facilitate the upper chest connection, to avoid pulling the follower's lower torso and hips in toward the leader, thus allowing more flexibility of movement in the mid and lower spine, and better extension of the follower's legs. In the case of followers that are not tall enough to place their head over the leader's shoulder, it is recommended that the follower's head be turned to the right and touch the left side of the head to the leader's chest, and the follower's left arm may wrap around the outside right arm (although this is generally not preferred as it limits the leader's flexibility of movement, and is a danger on crowded dance floors to have the follower's elbow sticking out). It is generally not recommended for a leader to dance milonguero style with a follower that is too tall for the leader to see over the follower's shoulder since it would be very difficult to navigate around the dance floor.

The emphasis of this style is to take a minimum amount of space on a crowded social dance floor. A common mis-perception of milonguero style is that many embellishments and complicated figures of open-embrace and flexible embrace styles can not be done. The main limitation of milonguero style in executing complicated figures is the emphasis on maintaining the chest-to-chest connection, however almost all figures of other styles can be adapted to milonguero style by an experienced dancer.

Although the close-embrace style of dancing has existed since the beginnings of Argentine Tango, the term "Milonguero Style" only surfaced in the mid-1990s when the name was created by Susana Miller

Susana Miller

Susana Miller is one of the most prominent teachers, choreographers, and dancers of the old milonguero style of tango. She introduced term Milonguero Style in the mid 1990s when she was an assistant to Pedro 'Tete' Rusconi. Born in Buenos Aires, Miller continues to teach there as well as...

, who had been the assistant to Pedro 'Tete' Rusconi. Many of the older dancers who dance close embrace (including 'Tete') prefer not to use the label. These milonguero
Milonguero
Milonguero is a term for a person whose life revolves around dancing tango and the philosophy of tango. A title given by other tango dancers to a man who has mastered the tango dance and embodies the essence of tango....

s of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

refer to social tango danced in close-embrace as Tango Salon regardless of the exact technique used. Along with the resurgence of interest in tango outside Argentina in the 1980s due to the dance show Tango Argentino, the term Salon Tango had become associated with a style that more closely resembles Show Tango. Susana Miller created the term "Milonguero Style" mainly to help distinguish it from North Americans' perception of Salon Tango. This had the unfortunate side-effect of offending milongueros who would state that they consider themselves milongueros but they don't dance the way 'Tete' did or with the methods Susana Miller teaches .

Milonguero style has also been called Almagro

Almagro, Buenos Aires

Almagro is a mostly middle-class barrio of Buenos Aires, Argentina.The neighbourhood is delimited by La Plata avenue and Río de Janeiro street to the west, Independencia avenue to the south, Sánchez de Bustamante, Sánchez de Loria and Gallo streets to the east, and Córdoba/Estado de Israel avenues...

style because it was the Buenos Aires barrio that Susana Miller and Tete first taught in. 'Tete' referred to his method of embrace as apilado, (piled up, or pressed together) because of this, milonguero style is sometimes called apilado.

Since 2006, Susana Miller has hosted Milongueando en Buenos Aires events to bring the few living milongueros of the Golden Age of Tango together with students to learn. Since these milongueros each have their own unique methods of dancing tango, one may assume that Susana Miller's definition of milonguero style has expanded to include more than just the way Tete danced tango .

Tango nuevo

Prior to the 1990s, Argentine Tango was taught with a didactic method; teaching tango by have students copy examples shown by the instructor. Emphasis was not given to how or why movement was done a certain way. Starting in the 1990s in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

, the Tango Investigation Group (later transformed into the Cosmotango organization) founded by Gustavo Naveira

Gustavo Naveira

Gustavo Naveira is an Argentine tango dancer and teacher having contributed to the detailed analysis of the movements of dancing to Argentine tango.- Biography :...

and Fabian Salas applied the principles of dance kinesiology

Kinesiology

Kinesiology, also known as human kinetics is the scientific study of human movement. Kinesiology addresses physiological, mechanical, and psychological mechanisms. Applications of kinesiology to human health include: biomechanics and orthopedics, rehabilitation, such as physical and occupational...

from modern dance

Modern dance

Modern dance is a dance form developed in the early 20th century. Although the term Modern dance has also been applied to a category of 20th Century ballroom dances, Modern dance as a term usually refers to 20th century concert dance.-Intro:...

to analyze the physics of movement in Argentine tango. Taking what they learned from this analysis they then began to explore all the possibilities of movement within the framework of Argentine Tango. From the work of these founders of the Tango Nuevo movement, there was shift in all styles of tango away from teaching what to dance toward teaching how to dance.

Though widely referred to as a tango style outside of Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, Tango Nuevo is not considered a style of dancing tango by the founders of the movement. It refers only to the method of analysis and teaching developed through the application of the principles of dance kinesiology to Argentine Tango. In 2009, Gustavo Naveira

Gustavo Naveira

Gustavo Naveira is an Argentine tango dancer and teacher having contributed to the detailed analysis of the movements of dancing to Argentine tango.- Biography :...

published an essay New Tango in which he states, "There is great confusion on the question of the way of dancing the tango: call it technique, form, or style. The term tango nuevo, is used to refer to a style of dancing, which is an error. In reality, tango nuevo is everything that has happened with the tango since the 1980s. It is not a question of a style... The words tango nuevo express what is happening with tango dancing in general; namely that it is evolving." Therefore, as the Gustavo Naveira

Gustavo Naveira

Gustavo Naveira is an Argentine tango dancer and teacher having contributed to the detailed analysis of the movements of dancing to Argentine tango.- Biography :...

and other founders of the Tango Nuevo movement have said, all styles of tango, which have now been influenced by the analysis of the dance, are all Tango Nuevo.

Despite the insistence by the founders of the Tango Nuevo movement that it is not a single style, it has become an accepted term by many that it is a separate and distinct style of tango. Practitioners of tango nuevo are Gustavo Naveira

Gustavo Naveira

Gustavo Naveira is an Argentine tango dancer and teacher having contributed to the detailed analysis of the movements of dancing to Argentine tango.- Biography :...

, Norberto "El Pulpo" Esbrés

Norberto Esbrez

Norberto Esbrez is an Argentine tango dancer, choreographer and teacher.Dancer and teacher of tango nuevo. He is known as El Pulpo or octopus for his fluid and intricate leg moves. Esbrez created and named several tango movements including: ocho loco, sentada girada, elevador, or el elástico...

, Fabián Salas, Esteban Moreno, Claudia Codega, Sebastian Arce, Mariana Montes, Mariano 'Chicho' Frumboli

Mariano Frumboli

Mariano Chicho Frúmboli is an Argentine Tango dancer. He is regarded as one of the founders of Tango nuevo, and he is best known for his improvisation skills.- Biography :...

, Arne Herrem and Hanne Line, and Pablo Verón. All of these dancers have highly individual styles that cannot be confused with each other, yet are all referred to by many as the tango nuevo style.

Tango tradicional

A very pure and early form of tango, on base as walking rhythmically, not on the beat but with rhythm.

Tango con corte y quebrada

Tango which adds cortes and quebradas, cuts and breaks. The quebradas later on has been put in a more esthetic style (estilizar) and are today known as poses de tango, Tango Positions.

Tango de fantasía

This style is settled in the years 40 to 50. It refers on music, dance and dresses. The term tries to describe all tangoform, which is different of the traditional one: In dance couples added little sits and fast footwork, doing fantasies as popular people named it. The men's suit with a white border is named traje de fantasía. In music Osmar Héctor Maderna got named tango de fantasía due of his arrangements which conceiveed fancy solos. In Argentine folklore at the same time, people fix a similar expression to describe non-traditional folklore with the name folklore de projección.

Tango acróbatico

Here acrobatic movements are performed to Tango music. A way of dancing with influences further than Ballett as Modern Dance, Gymnastic, Dance on Ice, Jazz, Circus, Acrobatics and Contact Improvisation with lifts, and figuers of effect. First this form is created by Eduardo Arquimbau in Forever Tango to interpret Tango music by non Tangodancers Miriam and Sandor in the Show Forever Tango. Sandor was a member of a circus family and knew how to do circus and acrobatic acts. This Eduardo Arquimbau uses to get a new performance. The music they danced then was Tus ojos del cielo (Volumen 2 of the CD Forever Tango, on the cover the foto of Miriam). This dance form has been copied later on by many young dancers on stage.

Show or tango de escenario

Show tango, and Tango de Escenario (stage tango) is a more theatrical form of Argentine tango developed to suit the stage. Movement has to fit on stage forms as diagonals, centre, fronts, light settings, etc. Not necessary but sometimes it includes embellishments, acrobatics, and solo moves. Indeed all styles can be performed on stage, only than has to fit with stage necessities. Stage tango can be improvised in parts but in due to fit general choreographic movements a whole choreography or parts of it have to be fixed. Tango has to be led even on stage, as all forms of Argentine Tango. Otherwise the couple is missing the main principle of this dance and the tango tipic intime connection is missing. This only appears, when he is filling his role (leading) and she hers. Having a Choreography does not mean that he is free of his leading role, he has to lead in order to produce the elements and place them in space and music. This is as important on stage as in a social dance place, but often not taken seriously. Tango on stage has not been confounded with Tango de Fantasia or tango acrobatico.

Tango in culture

Argentine tango is the main subject of many films.

Tango (1913) with Lucyna Messal, Józef Redo. Short film featuring Tango dancers made in Poland.
El tango de la muerte (1917)
El Tango en Broadway (1934) starring Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel was a singer, songwriter and actor, and is perhaps the most prominent figure in the history of tango. He was born in Toulouse, France, although he never acknowledged his birthplace publicly, and there are still claims of his birth in Uruguay. He lived in Argentina from the age of two...
Adiós Buenos Aires (1938)
La historia del tango (1949) Tango documentary produced in Argentina
Tango Argentino (1969) Tango documentary produced in Argentina
Tango Bar (1988), starring Raúl Juliá
Raúl Juliá
Raúl Rafael Juliá y Arcelay was a Puerto Rican actor.Born in San Juan, he gained interest in acting while still in school. Upon completing his studies, Juliá decided to pursue a career in acting. After performing in the local scene for some time, he was convinced by entertainment personality Orson...

, Rubén Juarez, Valeria Linch, María y Carlos Rivarola

"Naked Tango" (1990) Starring Vincent D´Onofrio, Mathilda May, Fernando Rey. Choreography by Carlos Rivarola, Directed by Leonard Schrader

The Tango Lesson
The Tango Lesson
The Tango Lesson is a 1997 drama film by British director Sally Potter. It is a semi-autobiographical film starring Potter and Pablo Verón, about Argentinian Tango....

(1997), starring Sally Potter
Sally Potter
Charlotte Sally Potter is an English film director and screenwriter.-Career:Having left school at sixteen to become a filmmaker, Potter joined the London Film-Makers' Co-op and started making experimental short films, including Jerk and Play...

and Pablo Verón, directed by Sally Potter
Tango
Tango (1998 film)
Tango is a 1998 Argentine tango film written and directed by Carlos Saura and photographed by acclaimed cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. The film is an Argentine and Spanish production.-Plot:...

(1998), starring Miguel Angel Solá, Juan Carlos Copes, Cecilia Narova, Mía Maestro
Mía Maestro
Mía Maestro is an Argentine actress and singer. She is best known for her role as Nadia Santos in the television drama Alias, and as Christina Kahlo in Frida.-Life and acting career:...

, Julio Bocca, Carlos Rivarola directed by Carlos Saura
Carlos Saura
Carlos Saura Atarés is a Spanish film director and photographer.-Early life:Born into a family of artists , he developed his artistic sense in childhood as a photography enthusiast.He obtained his directing diploma in Madrid in 1957 at the Institute of Cinema Research and Studies...
Assassination Tango
Assassination Tango
Assassination Tango is a 2002 crime film written, produced, directed by, and starring Robert Duvall. It is a thriller about an assassin's discovery of Argentine tango. Other actors include Rubén Blades, Kathy Baker and Duvall's wife, Luciana Pedraza. Francis Ford Coppola was one of the executive...

(2002), starring Robert Duvall
Robert Duvall
Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career....

, Luciana Pedraza
Luciana Pedraza
Luciana Duvall is an Argentine actress and director. She is married to American fellow actor Robert Duvall, and is the granddaughter of Argentine aviation pioneer Susana Ferrari Billinghurst....

, Rubén Blades
Rubén Blades
Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres...

and Kathy Baker
Kathy Baker
Katherine Whitton "Kathy" Baker is an American stage, film and television actress.-Career:Baker began her career at San Francisco's Magic Theatre, performing in several of Sam Shepard's plays before getting her break in an off-Broadway production of Fool for Love opposite Ed Harris...

, directed by Robert Duvall
Orquesta Tipica
Orquesta Tipica
Orquesta Tipica is a 2005 documentary film that tells the story about a tango orchestra who travel all over the world playing the historical Argentinian music....

(2005), documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

about typical orchestra Fernandez Fierro, directed by Nicolas Entel
Nicolas Entel
Nicolas Entel is a filmmaker. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1975, and lives in Brooklyn, NY. His latest project is the documentary Sins of My Father, which tells the story of Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar through the eyes of his only son, as well as the sons of his most prominent...
12 Tangos - Adios Buenos Aires (2005), directed by Arne Birkenstock
El Ultimo Bandoneon (2006), directed by Alejandro Saderman
Café de Los Maestros (2008) - Interviews with the musicians and singers from the golden era of Tango.
El último aplauso (2009) - Documentary produced in Argentina

Argentine tango is featured or referred to in these films/TV shows:

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) - Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...

dances an Argentine tango in this silent film.
Tango Bar (1935), starring Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel was a singer, songwriter and actor, and is perhaps the most prominent figure in the history of tango. He was born in Toulouse, France, although he never acknowledged his birthplace publicly, and there are still claims of his birth in Uruguay. He lived in Argentina from the age of two...

, Rosita Moreno, Enrique de Rosas, Tito Lusiardo. Despite the title, tango is not a central theme of the movie. However, there is one scene featuring Carlos Gardel dancing tango.
Scent of a Woman
Scent of a Woman
This article is about the American film. For the Korean drama, see Scent of a Woman .Scent of a Woman is a 1992 drama film directed by Martin Brest that tells the story of a preparatory school student who takes a job as an assistant to an irascible, blind, medically retired Army officer...

(1992) - Al Pacino's
Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...

character, who is blind, dances the tango with a beautiful woman and is captivated by the scent of her perfume during the tango's close embrace.
Moulin Rouge!
Moulin Rouge!
Moulin Rouge! is a 2001 romantic jukebox musical film directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann. Following the Red Curtain Cinema principles, the film is based on the Orphean myth, La Traviata, and La Bohème...

(2001) - Two minor characters perform a tango while Ewan McGregor
Ewan McGregor
Ewan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor. He has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. McGregor is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting , young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy , and poet Christian in the...

's character sings "Le Tango de Roxanne".
The Tuxedo
The Tuxedo
The Tuxedo is a 2002 American comedy-action film directed by Kevin Donovan and starring Jackie Chan and Jennifer Love Hewitt. It is a spy spoof that involves a special tuxedo that grants its wearer special abilities and a corporate terrorist threatening to poison the United States' fresh water...

(2002) - Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

used a dance-double for the tango scene.
Shall We Dance?
Shall We Dance? (2004 film)
Shall We Dance? is a 2004 American film. It is a remake of the award-winning Masayuki Suo 1996 Japanese film, Shall We Dance?. The film made its US premier at the Hawaii International Film Festival.-Plot:...

(2004) - Richard Gere
Richard Gere
Richard Tiffany Gere is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol...

and Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...

dance an Argentine tango by a rain-streaked window in a darkened dance studio.
Nip/Tuck
Nip/Tuck
Nip/Tuck is an American drama series created by Ryan Murphy, which aired on FX in the United States. The series focuses on McNamara/Troy, a plastic surgery practice, and follows its founders, Sean McNamara and Christian Troy...

(2005) - In the 3rd season episode titled "Tommy Bolton", Bruno Campos
Bruno Campos
Bruno Campos is a Brazilian-born United States-based actor, best known for his role as Dr. Quentin Costa on the Golden Globe Award-winning television show Nip/Tuck.-Early life:...

and Joely Richardson
Joely Richardson
Joely Kim Richardson is an English actress, most known recently for her role as Queen Catherine Parr in the Showtime television show The Tudors and Julia McNamara in the television drama Nip/Tuck...

dance a tango while out to dinner at an upscale restaurant.
Take the Lead
Take the Lead
Take the Lead is a movie starring Antonio Banderas, Rob Brown, Alfre Woodard, Dante Basco, Marcus T. Paulk, Jenna Dewan, Lauren Collins and also features former America's Next Top Model contestant, Yaya DaCosta. The film was released in mainstream cinema on April 7, 2006...

(2006) - Antonio Banderas
Antonio Banderas
José Antonio Domínguez Banderas , better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer...

dances the tango with Katya Virshilas
Katya Virshilas
Katya Virshilas is a Lithuanian-Canadian dancer and actress.-Life and career:Virshilas was born in Lithuania to a Jewish family. She subsequently moved to Israel at age six, and to Vancouver, Canada at thirteen....

.
Another Cinderella Story
Another Cinderella Story
Another Cinderella Story is a 2008 romantic comedy directed by Damon Santostefano and starring Selena Gomez and Drew Seeley. The film was released direct-to-DVD by Warner Premiere on September 16, 2008. It was released on DVD in the UK on October 27, 2008...

(2008) - Selena Gomez
Selena Gomez
Selena Marie Gomez is an American actress and singer best known for portraying Alex Russo in the Emmy Award-winning Disney Channel television series Wizards of Waverly Place...

and Drew Seeley dance at a costume ball.

A culture developed for tango films in the Cinema of Argentina

Cinema of Argentina

The cinema of Argentina has a tradition dating back to the late nineteenth century, and continues to play a role in the culture of Argentina....

beginning in the early 1930s.
See :Category:Tango films.

Tango is also subject of many books

Nicole Nau
Nicole Nau
Nicole Nau is a dancer of Tango Argentino and Argentinian folklore.- Life :After studying graphic design Nau first worked for advertising agencies before she settled in Argentina to be formally instructed as a professional dancer...

-Klapwijk: Tango Dimensionen, Kastell Verlag GmbH 1999, ISBN 978-3-924592-65-3.
Nicole Nau
Nicole Nau
Nicole Nau is a dancer of Tango Argentino and Argentinian folklore.- Life :After studying graphic design Nau first worked for advertising agencies before she settled in Argentina to be formally instructed as a professional dancer...

-Klapwijk: Tango, un baile bien porteño, Editorial Corregidor 2000, ISBN 950-05-1311-0

Tango is subject of operas

María de Buenos Aires
María de Buenos Aires
María de Buenos Aires is a tango opera with music by Ástor Piazzolla. and libretto by Horacio Ferrer which premiered at the Sala Planeta in Buenos Aires in May 1968....

, Opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

("Tango Operita") in 16 acts; Music: Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music...

, Libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

: Horacio Ferrer; Premier: 8 May 1968 in Buenos Aires with Amelita Baltar (María) and Horacio Ferrer (Duende);
Orestes último Tango, Opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

, Music: Diego Vila, Libretto: Betty Gambartes, Choreography: Oscar Araiz. Based on El Reñidero by Sergio de Cecco which is based on Electra of Sophocles. Premiere 22. march 2002 in Rotterdam by the Wereld Muziek Theater Festival of Holland. Originalcast: Julia Zenko (Elena), Carlos Vittori (Orestes), Susana Moncayo (Nélida), Rodolfo Valss (Soriano), Luis Pereyra
Luis Pereyra
thumb|Luis PereyraLuis Pereyra is a dancer and chorographer of Tango Argentino and Argentinian folklore.- Life :...

(Morales), Jorge Nolasco (Vicente) and Nicole Nau
Nicole Nau
Nicole Nau is a dancer of Tango Argentino and Argentinian folklore.- Life :After studying graphic design Nau first worked for advertising agencies before she settled in Argentina to be formally instructed as a professional dancer...

(La mujer de la milonga).

History of tango

Music

Dance

Embrace

Walking

Figures

Códigos and yeta

Vals and milonga

Resurgence of Argentine tango outside Argentina

France

Britain

USA

Tango canyengue

Tango orillero

Salon tango

"Estilo milonguero" (tango apilado/confiteria style)

Tango nuevo

Tango tradicional

Tango con corte y quebrada

Tango de fantasía

Tango acróbatico

Show or tango de escenario

Tango in culture

See also

Culture and Community

Tutorials