The Tango's Influence On Argentina

The tango is a major influence of the culture of the Argentine people and became their national dance. Now the dance is one of the ways people identify Argentina. It is important to understand how this dance became to be and the impact it made in Argentina because of it’s importance in Argentina and the influence it has made around the world. The Tango originates from the 1800s but has relevance to this day.

This topic is worthy of investigation because much of the history of the tango is laced with myth and uncertainties. It is important to understand all the different view and facts of its origin. Also, the importance of how uncertain start turned into a dance, type of music, attitude, and way of life that has greatly affected Argentina and many parts of the world, with focus on Argentina.

Plan of Investigation:

For my extended essay, I looked at a multitude of secondary and primary sources to evaluate and answer my question. I will be using twelve books, one documentary, and two journal articles. In order to answer question I must first look at the origins of the name tango and how the dance came

to be. I will understand who it was danced by, where it was danced, and the significance of how it is danced.
After I understand the beginnings and basics of the tango, I will evaluate its cultural importance. I will use different sources such as Politics of Touch: sense, movement, sovereignty to dig into how the tango affected the people of Argentina and their culture. I will also use sources such as Tango Our Dance, a documentary to get a first hand look at what people in Argentina feel about the tango and what it means to them.
There are also local aspects about the tango, it is not just a dance for people in South America and Europe. There are ties to detroit with the tango as well. In this investigation I will analyze the adaptation of the tango in America and its influence in Detroit.
The historiography of the tango can be seen in its differing opinions of the original , original origins. This investigation will look at the different sides of the origins and why there is dispute.
The sources used like, The Tango by Mónica Gloria Hoss de le Comte are of great value to my investigation because of the facts it gives. The book is very straight to the point and is sectioned off to talk about different aspects of the tango. Although it gives many facts about the tango, it is also limited. The book is not very large therefore it can only give a summary of all the details. The book also doesn’t have the direct opinion or thoughts of the people of Argentina and what they have to say about the tango. However, it does give the general feelings of the public but not directly from them. It is relevant to this investigation because of the facts it gives. The facts from this book can be used to understand the origins of the tango and who it was danced by.
The documentary that is being used in this investigation is also of great value. The movie Tango Our Dance, brings the aspect of a primary source. It is used to understand the feelings of the people and how the tango is apart of their lives.However, there are also limitations to this source.There is lack of factual data because it is more about the people. Also, the people that are being interviewed are not from around the time the tango was started. It gives the view of more modern people. The movie is from the 1980s, so the perspective is from then. However some people do talk about their parents and grandparents and their life with the tango.

The Base:
The Argentine Tango, the dance that embodies the words fierce, sexy and sharp. To understand the Argentine Tango one has to understand where the word “tango” originates from. In Latin the word tangere means to touch. Tango’s other origin is African and ment close-meeting place. Although tango is now in current times as a dance, it started of as a place. In the 18th century it was a meeting place for dancing and music that the slaves would go to. Broken down the word tan~go imitates the beat of a percussion instrument. Tango is known for being a dance where the couple is very close together, however before the tango was the tango it was danced separately and the dancers made many contortions with their bodies. The rhythm that they made when they danced was called candombe. To make fun of the slaves the compadritos, men who were known for making life a show and boasting about their fake temerity, would imitate these movements. Later, these movements were used for the tango. ts roots become lost in a tangled heritage of gaucho country rhythms, African-Argentine dance, habaneras, and underworld urban culture in Buenos Aires at the turn of the twentieth century.Some of the origins of the tango were from the Afro-Argentine but seen as bad. They saw the dances of the African origin as primitive, dirty and of lower class.
The Beginnings:
In 1870 the dance tango came together and originated in Buenos Aires. To create “ the tango” different dances and songs came together to make this one. The very popular dance at the time, that can be seen as the tangos nearest ancestor, is milongas. The other dances that were a large influence on what became the tango were habaneras and payadas. The tango can be traced to the port city bordellos were anxious immigrant men awaited their turns with the prostitutes by dancing with each other,locked in an embrace and engaging in intricate footwork. Tango started as a dance, a tense dance, in which a male/female embrace tried to heal the racial and class displacement provoked by urbanization and war. But the seductive, sensual healing was never to be complete, and the tensions resurfaced and reproduced. Tango encounters were a catalyst for further racial and class tensions augmented by the European migration avalanche. Tango helped to provoke these encounters and, at the same time,expressed their occurrence. Black men and women probably initiated the first tango steps in the Río de la Plata: flirtatious ombligadas and culeadas, bodies alternately coming close to each other and moving apart.The tango dance emerged from these racial and class conflicts and competed for a place of its own among the dances that were already being danced, pending, as always, benediction in the cultural empires of the world. Men's and women's bodies displayed tensions of the "correct" and the "incorrect," of the "civilized" and the"primitive," of the "authentic" and the "parody," and all these tensions were sexualized so as to render the conflicts natural, universal, and unavoidable. The music, the lyrics, and the dance are witnesses to this process of simultaneous deterritorialization and have been strongly tinged with the intrusive and transgressive features. Race, class, ethnic, and erotic exiles cut the tango through and through from its very roots.
As a powerful representation of male/female courtship,stressing the tension involved in the process of seduction

In the beginning, many historians say, tango was only danced in brothels and it took a long time until it entered the patios and the conventillos, and an even longer time before it went to the houses of the middle class families. Musicians played the music in brothels or academies, which were dancing halls. Musicians such as Negro Casimiro and the Mulatto Sinforoso helped the tango spread to the suburbs. Children of wealthy families went to these outlying neighbourhood to partake in the dancing. There is where they learned the tango. The youths then took is to Paris and it was greated with a frenzy of enthusiasm. Everything became tango in Paris from cloths to tea parties. Italy, Germany, England soon caught in. Argentine teachers began to expand across Europe. Then they took it to the United States. After the success in Paris the tango came back to Argentina and became socially accepted and the orquesta tipica moved from the brothels to the cabaret in the centre of Buenos Aires.
Other historians say that the tango started in brothels and it only becoming socially accepted across the country after it was successful in Paris and came back, is myth. They argue that the facts point in the opposite direction. They say different newspaper article collected, shown and concluded in books such as El Tango en la Sociedad Porteña (1880-1920), give evidence of the tango being widely popular during the time. This is a contradictory statement as compared to other historians who say that the tango only became fully accepted and popular with all classes in Argentina because it was accepted in Paris and came back to Argentina with the immigrants from Europe as the big craze. Not only do some historians disprove the popularity of it, they disprove the statement of the tango originating in brothels. Police reports from the time do not show any dancing taking place in the brothels. They claim that the brothels were not large enough to have dancing and that they did not want to spend the money on it. However, there was dancing in larger prostitution houses. These houses were also used for drinking and playing music along with the dancing. They can agree that is a dance that came from the shadows.
There were still some people who looked down upon the tango and still thought it was too raunchy. The middle class had accepted and practiced the dane, but conservative media looked down on it, and so did the nationalistic literary elite.
There were many theaters open for dancing the tango. Later the theaters introduced the tango to the middle class. After it’s introduction to the middle class bars, dance halls, and cafés opened for the tango. At the start it was danced by men while the women served the drinks. When the men danced together it was almost as if it were a battle. “When men danced together, they would mimic the pimp’s promises or reenact an actual or imagined knife fight with the country boys who strolled the streets as if they owned them- and took very little persuasion to demonstrate their skill with the short knife- the facón- that was part of the uniform of the gaucho.”( Mike Gonzalez and Marianella Yanes, 29). Some places neither the women nor the men would dance they would just listen to the tango music. The places that were most popular to dance were places that were often referred to as clubs and tango bars. At these places one could find gambling, dancing, and dancing women some of which might have been prostitutes. Many of these places had a bad reputation due to the fact that they were mainly filled with lower-class people and it came with overcrowding, alcohol, and poverty. Police often raided the place, mainly to get money from the places.

The tango started more spirited and lively, but by 1920 it became melancholic.

In 1985 tango was in Broadway Tango Argentino by Claudio Segovia.

The tango is a dance where the man holds the woman tightly. The women has to be very attentive in the movements in order to follow the mans lead. It is made up of a 2 parts of 16 parts each. For quite a while, tango went through a stage of being "forbidden music. Tango dancing was restricted to low-class and red-light districts. At first glance, tangos seem to offer women two positions: They can be either the object of male disputes or the trigger of a man's reflections. In either case, it is hard for a woman to overcome her status as a piece of passional inventory. This closeness of the dance is not like other dances where as if they are close it is usually a loose close. For the tango there is a lot of physical

attachment.

Possibly too much introduction. What should I take out? What is most important? Does the organization make sense?

Is the organization weird? Re-think it. Is there too much? Maybe take out some? Check with rubric.
A Time of Conflict:
At a time where there was extreme distress in Argentina the tango was needed. There was a need for it to help mend some of the tension between the people of Argentina. The tensions between the races and social classes. The country was in need of a unification. Unfortunately, at first the tango brought up more differences. There was the struggle of the war of Argentina with Spain as Argentina tried to gain its independence. After their independence Argentina wanted to find a new identity.
Tango As Music:
The tango at first was just a dance with instrumental music. As time went on the tango was no longer just a dance it was music. The creation of the language lunfardo takes part in the creation of the lyrics of the tango. However, the language Lunfardo was seen as a criminals language. Lunfardo was used to call someone a thief but also the language. Not only did the dance have the exotic and erotic feel to it, so did the music. Much of the lyrics in the beginning were very sexual and explicit talking of things such as pimps. The tango also had important messages and emotions. It poured out the raw emotions of the isolated feeling some felt in their own country. It sings the hardships of the tensions between the races and classes. There was also a lot of political and economic strife within the songs. Tango lyrics began to be written down and the first generation of lyricists emerged in the new world by the river, where the expanding docks also provided more work for the continuing flow of immigrants. Their lives were beginning to find some reflection in the words written by this first generation of tango poets.