The word
"tango" has no clear etymology. It may derive from a place-name
used in African languages, or from the Spanish and Portuguese word
tocar, meaning 'to touch'. However, it is more commonly thought that
the origin of the word is from Niger-Congo origin, where tamgu means
'to dance'. The name was widely used among Black communities in Spanish
America to refer to a place where people gathered to dance. Later
the name was applied to various Black dance forms, leading up to the
development of what is now known as tango.
The dance
originated in Montevideo and Buenos Aires during the late 19th century.
The music derived from the fusion of music from Europe, the South
American Milonga, and African rhythms. The word Tango seems to have
first been used in connection with the dance in the 1890s. Initially
it was just one of the many dances, but it soon became popular throughout
society, as theatres and street barrel organs spread it from the suburbs
to the working-class slums, which were packed with hundreds of thousands
of European immigrants.
The dance
was soon found on the street, in bars, dance halls, and in the upper
class venues such as the Teatro Opera, which started organizing balls
that included tangos in 1902.
In the
early years of the twentieth century, dancers and orchestras from
Buenos Aires travelled to Europe, and the first European tango craze
took place in Paris, soon followed by London, Berlin, and other capitals.
Towards the end of 1913 it hit New York in the USA, and Finland. These
exported versions of Tango were modified to have less body contact
("Ballroom Tango"); however, the dance was still thought
shocking by many, as had earlier been the case with dances such as
the Waltz. In 1922 guidelines were first set for the "English"
(international) style of ballroom Tango, but it lost popularity in
Europe to new dances including the Foxtrot and Samba, and as dancing
as a whole declined due to the growth of cinema.
In Argentina,
the onset in 1929 of the Great Depression, and restrictions introduced
after the overthrow of the Hipólito Yrigoyen government in
1930 caused Tango to decline. Its fortunes were reversed as Tango
again became widely fashionable and a matter of national pride under
the government of Juan Perón. Tango declined again in the 1950s
with economic depression and as the military dictatorships banned
public gatherings. This was followed by the popularity of Rock and
Roll. The dance lived on in smaller venues until its revival in the
1980s following the opening in Paris of the show Tango Argentino and
the Broadway musical Forever Tango.
Carlos
Gardel, the world's most famous tango singer, will be honored with
a grand, Broadway-style production in Panama City: "Esquina Carlos
Gardel" (Carlos Gardel Corner), will be staged at the Anayansi
Theater of Atlapa Convention Center August 2.
