This part includes a overall review of the origins and evolution of Tango. It tells you about the basic concepts they share and it shows you how, when combined, they become much more than two!
CHAPTER 1
Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina
This chapter is an introduction to Tango s; it tells you about their origins and evolution. You will also learn the basic core concepts, like concentration, coordination and elongation. Finally, you’ll find out the importance of the pelvis in neutral in both Tango .
Introducing Tango
The word itself, Tango, is so powerful that it explodes in the mouth. Tango is passion and power; it’s an attitude towards oneself, towards others, and towards life.
When you say you can Tango, you immediately become someone very special, and when you show it, you immediately gain presence. The best description of Tango came from Jonathan and Lynore, two friends of mine from Austin, Texas. After a Tango show in Buenos Aires, I asked them, “If you were to choose three words to describe Tango, what words would you choose?” They thought for a couple of minutes and then came back to me. ”Tamara, we’ve got it,” they said, “the three words are: sultry, smoldering and evocative,” and immediately added, “this is the reason why Buenos Aires vibrates”.
Tango has to do with controlled feelings. Tango is evocative and suggestive of deep emotions. Like a hidden fire, just about to show flames, only… not yet.
A bit of History
Like jazz, Tango originated on the wrong side of the tracks; the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina in South America. It was a popular expression of “porteños”, people who live near the port of Buenos Aires. There, at the docks, by the river, prostitutes and sailors met at the brothels to share some booze and a few hours of love. This is the origin of Tango.
But the story goes even further back.
Apparently, Tango was the name of the place were slaves were gathered and chained after leaving the ships that brought them to South America to be sold. In nineteenth century Cuba, for example, during the festivities, the slaves who used to go around singing were called “tangos”. Perhaps this is the reason why Tango’s lyrics insist on “being enslaved to a cruel destiny”.
Them Guys
In the beginning, women were not allowed to dance Tango; only men did. Men danced in a distant embrace, to the shock of the established upper and middle classes who looked down on it as a low level, prosaic music and dance.
Little by little, women —mostly immigrants— began to wet their toes in the waters of this exotic dance reserved for men only. Gradually, the view of two men dancing in a dark and foggy boardwalk by the River Plate, gave way to the picture we now know: a glamorous and trendy dance of a man and a woman, so perfectly synchronized in their movements that their bodies become one.
Sultry, smoldering, evocative, sensuous, magical and nostalgic. These are the most common adjectives that define and describe Tango.
The Milonga? The Milonga is different. It is a type of Tango that stems from African “Candombe”. It is a livelier, happier and more dynamic version of Tango. Yet, both Tango and Milonga enter in the same category of what is known as “Tango Argentino”, and both – let’s get our geography right— come from beautiful Buenos Aires.
The Three C’s of Tango
From the technical point of view, Tango can be summarized into five basic concepts which I like to call the three C’s: Concentration, Coordination and Control.
