Is Tango a Dance or a Music Style?
When you hear the word “tango,” what comes to mind?
If you’re like most people, you probably think of Argentine tango, the sultry dance often associated with romance.
However, tango is also a musical genre that originated in Argentina.
Some people think about the tango dance first, and some think about the tango music.
Either way, it’s easy to know that it’s tango when you hear or see it. But if you really go deep into history,
what is tango? Is it a dance or music?
Naomi Hotta, an Argentine Tango dancer, said,
Warning: tango contains highly addictive ingredients, such as pain, pleasure, passion, excitement, connection, freedom, torment, and bliss. In seven out of ten cases, it takes over a person’s life.
Another take about tango is by Argentine tango dancer Carlos Gavito:
When you dance with a partner you are close and the dance is very suggestive, but it is not personal…
Close is what the music inspires you to become. The embrace looks personal, but what we are actually embracing is the music.
The way tango dancers describe tango makes it seem like tango is really a dance, but then El Flaco Dany Garcia sees it in another way:
“The music goes in my ears, is filtered through my heart, and comes out through my feet.”
It seems that not even tango experts can lead us to the same conclusion. After all, tango holds a long history that points to many developments and evolutions of styles.
When we say tango, we inevitably mean the dance and the music.
Tango the Music
Osvaldo Pugliese, Julio de Caro, and Miguel Caló are just three of the biggest names in Argentine tango music.
Tango music has been one of Argentina’s cultural exports since the early 20th century and has become a world-renowned genre. Argentine tango music is often played on the bandoneón, which is a type of concertina.
The Argentine tango sound is distinctive and often melancholy — and its history is just as fascinating.
History
European immigrants in Argentina and Uruguay experimented with music in the mid-nineteenth century.
They combined European salon music and dance traditions in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Montevideo, and Uruguay, where the genre was fostered.
The origin of tango music sees Rosendo Mendizábal as the first tango musician.
Vicente Greco introduced the tango sextet ensemble as one of the first tango bandleaders. Finally,
with the song “Mi Noche Triste,” Carlos Gardel popularized singing tango in 1917.
All these beginnings led to the genre’s Golden Age.
Carlos Gardel became the biggest tango music star, and his untimely death started the Golden Age of tango music.
It began in 1935 when tango emerged after being kept in musicians’ circles and underground venues.
Tango grew as popular music until 1952, surviving even World War II.
More U.S. bandleaders began to recognize and appreciate tango, ushering in the genre’s next generations.
It was also during the Golden Age when bandleaders developed new styles, influenced by others.
The world was introduced to more musicians like Juan d’Arienzo, Rodolfo Biagi, Osvaldo Fresedo, and Carlos di Sarli. Many bandleaders also experimented with the music genre, allowing it to evolve into one of the world’s most popular genres. Musicians like Astor Piazolla pioneered tango nuevo or new tango, which further brought tango into U.S. culture.
Year after year, tango developed more styles and introduced more musicians.
Now, the genre stands on its own in an endless list of music genres all over the world, making Argentina and Uruguay brim with pride as its origin.
Characteristics
As mentioned earlier, it’s easy to recognize tango when you hear it.
Tango has a 2/4 or 4/4 time signature with an angular, staccato rhythmic emphasis.
According to Master Class,
tango music has strong European classical dance music influences, so you’ll hear hints of the polka, mazurka, flamenco, contradanza, and minuet. Combine these with Argentine and Uruguayan folk music, and it’s definitely tango music!
Dance Facts specifically describes tango music:
[It] holds the 2/4 or 4/4 beats per measure with two upbeats and two downbeats, with frequent use of accented notes, nostalgic lyrics, sudden changes in dynamics, use of slides (glissandi), often use of staccato (march-like phrases), intense but melancholic mood and freedom for improvisation that is fueled by its old jazz origins.
Tango with nostalgic lyrics
Instrumental tango music is common, but there is some music with Spanish lyrics. Generally, tango music features the following instruments:
Double bass
Guitar
Bandoneon
Violin
Flute and clarinet
Piano
Vocals
Hearing Tango
If you’re not familiar with any of the folk music that influenced tango, it might be difficult to recognize that it’s tango that you’re listening to.
There’s another way to identify tango when you hear it — how the music makes you feel.
Tango Northside describes tango music as something that gives off lyrical feelings.
Lyrical feelings connect your movement to the music.
In tango music the melody rises and falls; it opens and closes in phrases; it pulses, pauses, gets quiet or loud; and the sounds of the violins, bandoneons, and singers project emotion and speak to our emotions.
Tango music makes you feel like you want to slow down and pause, turn or walk, rock, and rise and sink. The genre has always been known to instantly and deeply connect with anyone who hears it. Moreover, it’s not tango music if it’s not romantic. As said by Tango Northside,
Romantic feelings are like tender feelings. They are like loving feelings. They can have sexual feelings mixed in, but that’s a different issue.
Romantic feelings connect with tango lyrics in that tango lyrics are often about a certain subset of romantic feelings, including feelings such as nostalgia, heartbreak, longing, and loss.
Tango music envelopes you into waves of emotions the moment it plays and reaches you. It fills you and spreads throughout your body until you want to move. That’s how you know it’s tango.
Tango Dance
Beginners and experts can recognize tango dancing immediately by the close hold and low center of gravity.
Dancers move stealthily, and the staccato feel and major dramatic attitude are always there. It’s not tango if it’s not cat-like!
Just like tango music, the dance holds a long, legendary history.
Dancers move stealthily, and the staccato feel and major dramatic attitude are always there. It’s not tango if it’s not cat-like!
Just like tango music, the dance holds a long, legendary history.
History
Buenos Aires and Montevideo witnessed the birth of tango dance.
In the 19th century, working-class districts developed a social dance that combined the Uruguayan candombe, Argentine milonga, and the Spanish-Cuban habanera.
Eventually, the dance expanded to the middle and upper classes until it spread abroad to Europe.
The dance wasn’t easily welcomed by society as it was — at some point — considered scandalous because of its close hold and movements. Central Home said that
the dance was banned by the Pope and Kaiser Wilhelm 1, not allowing officers to dance and ultimately banning it from all state balls.
Still, the tango survived and continued to evolve, bringing in notable famous dancers like El Cachafaz and Casimiro Ain, who performed for Pope Benedict XV.
Master Class said that as tango spread across the globe, different cultures developed distinct styles, pushing the popularity of tango music as well.
as tango spread across the globe, different cultures developed distinct styles, pushing the popularity of tango music as well.
In 2009, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named the dance one of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Now, tango is known as a ballroom dance danced to tango music.
Characteristics
When you see a group of people dancing in pairs, you could think they’re dancing the waltz, foxtrot, quickstep, cha-cha, or rumba.
Many dances are danced in pairs, but tango has distinct characteristics you can quickly identify.
Tango dancing has a lot of improvisation. Unlike other partner dances,
tango allows dancers to combine various steps and movements while on the dancefloor.
The intimacy in the dance is also incomparable, having dancers move in either an open or close embrace. Lastly, tango is slow.
Unlike other ballroom dances like rumba, tango is slow and steady — though it utilizes quick footwork every now and then.
It’s also vital to know that tango dance has (at least) three interpretations: Argentine, ballroom, and North American.
The Argentine tango is the traditional tango, which allows for more playfulness from the dancers.
Ballroom tango originated in Europe and has been codified for international competitions. The North American tango — which is primarily a social dance — differs from the two with its slightly faster tempo to popular songs that are not necessarily tango music.
Another thing that makes tango distinct — regardless of the dance style — is its clear leading. Apart from the footwork that always seems perfectly calculated, it’s always easy to spot the leader. According to Sophia in Sapphire,
As the leader takes walking steps forward, the feet articulate through rolling the foot heel to toe. In terms of hold, the leader’s arm is lower and farther around the follower’s back as opposed to other types of dance.
Dancing the Tango
If tango music makes you feel certain emotions, the dance does the same.
As a spectator, tango as a dance makes you feel dramatic, intense, and on edge. The dance has so much dramatic flair in every step and movement,
using — as Bella Ballroom says — “‘stalking’ and ‘sneaking’ walking characteristics that separate it from the other ballroom dancing styles.”
Combine sneaking and stalking with sensual emotions, and you’ll know it’s tango.
It’s impossible not to feel the connection of dancers through their closeness and how they carefully fall and rise, glide and slide, and snap like they are one. Sophia in Sapphire describes tango as a fiery, dramatic, fascinating, and sensual dance:
“Tango is the dance of two lovers. It embodies a full gamut of human emotion, where grace meets passion.”
For beginners watching a pair dancing the tango, the dance may seem like it’s not for the faint of heart. The dance requires so much from dancers, physically and emotionally; tango feels like dancing with your soul.
Tango: Listen and Move
Tracing the origins of tango music and tango dance takes us to the same century.
We can picture festive districts in Argentina and Uruguay with people dancing close to each other while intense music fills the halls. If we look at the characteristics, styles, and effects of the two works of art, we can point out similarities like drama, intensity, and romance
— so do we dance to tango music, or do we play certain music to express the tango dance?
It could feel like tango music runs through your body and comes out through tango dance.
Every snap is led by every note, and every motion is brought by the melody.
But it could also be the dance demanding music, with every movement composing a series of notes.
Perhaps,
tango is both dance and music, and it’s impossible to dissect it and its parts.
Argentinian Eduardo Arquimbau said:
“People talk about styles of tango, but there is only one tango. It accommodates itself to every place and every era.”
This applies to both music and dance, which evolve nonstop and make us further question what tango really is. But tango dance and tango music always accompany each other no matter where you find them. Dance Facts said,
The tango is known as one of the most versatile musical and dancing styles in the world, being able to morph quickly with the changes in musical styles, social environment or even changes in clothing fashion!
In milongas, we hear the tango and watch people dance to it. In tango classes, lessons happen only to tango music. The two can’t exist without each other, and it’s also natural for enthusiasts to wonder which of them really leads the other.
Did tango only become a dance because of music, or did tango music rise because of how the dance expresses it?
Perhaps neither is more dominant than the other since tango prods people to feel something in their souls in both its dance and music forms. Tango is an art; we are all mere vessels that play, listen, and move.