[Tango-L] The spread of tango

[Sergio Vandekier]

Argentine Tango was introduced to Europe in the early 20th century, and later to North America by wealthy young Argentines that traveled with their families to study in London, Paris, Rome and Berlin.  Those families had homes both in Argentina and in the European cities.
 
They danced and taught A.T. to the European aristocracy .  Their tango had already been purified of certain steps and movements, as it was danced in Buenos Aires by families of all social classes.  It preserved the characteristics that it still has today and that were never abandoned . 
 
 Asymmetrical foot work, the man does figures that are different from those that he leads the lady to perform, improvisation, pauses and freedom to dance at different speeds,  intense feeling and connection with the music and the partner.
 
Those characteristics made A.T. different from Ballroom dancing. Ballroom dancing was done for fun rather than for feeling, it was symmetrical, both partners do the same foot work, one the mirror image of the other except in certain rare figures and turns.  It is danced using a short number of figures that are repeated in sequence rather than improvising chaining hundreds of small links and uses the music following a certain steady rhythm.
 
Eventually A.T. was modified in Europe (probably in London) to make it more like the other ballroom dances.  This adaptation gave birth to the European Tango also known as International Tango.
 
The European Tango was further modified in the USA to create the American Tango.
 
Finish Tango (the danace) seems to be a form of European tango as well.
 
Many musicians of different countries wrote beautiful tangos. 
 
Tango with different proportions of both the Argentine and the European characteristics became very popular in all the European and American big cities and in many other areas of the world.  Especially in Paris, London, Berlin, Rome, Tokyo, Istanbul, and in Eastern Europe.  There are hundreds of beautiful German, Polish, Turkish and japanese tangos.  During my trip to Ankara had the opportunity to see pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk dancing tango.
 
The second spread of tango was initiated in the late 1980 and early 90s. First by the show Tango Argentino, and then by Argentine Tango instructors brought to the USA, Europe, and Australia by different promoters .
 
Almost all the great and not so great tango dancers of that period were sooner or later promoted by different organizers. Many Argentine tango dancers settled abroad to teach tango.
 
This in time caused large numbers of Tango tourists to make frequent trips to Buenos Aires to learn or improve their dance.  This process continues even today, with the addition of many foreign instructors that teach tango in their own countries or traveling abroad.
 
Best regards, Sergio