HISTORY OF TANGO DANCE
Brought to you by Tangueros
In the early part of the nineteenth century social dancing was done standing opposite to each other. These types of dances were generally called "Contradanza".  The Viennese Waltz and the Quadrille drove the contradanza out of the ballrooms.
The Viennese Waltz was the world's first popular dance to use the actual closed hold, the Polka was the second dance in Europe to use this scandalous new hold. European society had an ambivalent feeling about this somewhat immoral way of dancing which was taken with them as they moved to Argentina.

The “portenos”, “gauchos” and African immigrants are considered to the be the first to introduce and experiment with the tango, or more specifically milonga, its first form.  In fact, the word tango itself is considered to have its origins in the African language.  The periphery of Buenos Aires saw lonely men spending time in bars, gambling houses and brothels “romancing” women and experimenting with new steps despite their “bade taste” or obscenity.  However the women of the brothels had to be paid, so in order to practice men would simply dance together so as to have new steps to show off later to attract women.

The mid to 19th century saw an influx of European men to Buenos Aires as the city began its growth.  

The inner city of Buenos Aires was filled with “conventillos”, or boarding houses where families shared facilities in poor conditions.  It took some time for the tango to spread to these areas as they were after all decent European families and women of good reputation did not want any part of it.  Saturday nights and Sundays were used to celebrate weddings, birthdays, baptisms and other holidays. It was at these occasions that little by little somebody would ask for the musicians to play a tango and later on somebody would dance a purified version of the dance

It took even longer to get to the houses of the mid- and high-class families. Boys of those families took to the habit of going to the suburbs looking for emotions and adventure. They returned home excited by their lecherous experiences.They started teaching their sisters, neighbor girls, and other females this new dance. They were taught the "purified version" as well.

Nonetheless, tango was still generally danced in secret. Politicians of both right and left condemned it; for they did not want the new Argentina be associated with such a dance. The next stop of this pilgrimage is Europe.

Argentina developed very fast between 1880 and 1930. The whole city of Buenos Aires was rebuilt during this period. The old colonial Spanish city was replaced by wide avenues, beautiful parks and buildings of French and Italian architecture.
The country became one of the 10 richest nations in the world.

During that period of fast development the very rich had the habit of going to Europe at least once a year. They had big homes in Paris or London. Their parties were regularly attended by the nobility, the famous and the very rich. The French coined the phrase "he is as rich as an Argentinean". The sons of those people remained in Europe to study. It was they that introduced Argentine Tango to the Parisian nobility. Tango became the craze of the time right away.

Everybody started giving parties with Argentinean orchestras, tango lessons and milongas (social night of tango). Women's fashion had to change to adjust to the moves of tango. The very bulky dresses were replaced by lighter, looser ones. A famous fashion designer had a fair amount of material of orange color that he could not sell. He decided to name the material's color "Orange Tango"; he ran out of the cloth right away and had to order more. Tango became the dance of the moment; from Paris, tango rapidly migrated to the other big capitals, London, Rome, Berlin, and finally New York.

With the fall of military dictatorship in Argentina and the rise of the popular Juan Peron as president the tango was once again permitted in Argentina, giving rise to the “Golden Era of Tango” throughout the 40s and 50s.  Tango composers and orchestras boomed.

Again in the 1950s when depression and dictatorship gripped Argentina the tango was banned along with public gatherings.  The popularity of tango took a forced drop, and when Rock n Roll gripped the world tango struggled to regain its popularity.  It was not until the 1980s with the Paris show Tango Argentino and Broadway hit Forever Tango that the rise of tango began again to become the world dance once again.