TANGO HISTORY

   Tango spread from African communities in Buenos Aires based on ancient African dance forms. The word tango is also of African origin, applied to music resulting from the synthesis of various forms of music from Europe, Africa and America. Jorge Luis Borges in El idioma de los argentinos writes: "Tango belongs to La Plata and is the 'son' of the Uruguayan milonga and the 'grandson' of the habanera." The word tango seems to have been used for the first time in reference to dancing in the 1890s. Initially, this dance was just one of many, but soon it became popular throughout society.  

   In the early years of the twentieth century, dancers and orchestras from Buenos Aires and Montevideo traveled to Europe, and the first European tango show took place in Paris, and shortly thereafter in London, Berlin and other capitals. By the end of 1913, the dance reached New York, USA and Finland. In the USA in 1911 the name "Tango" was often used for dancing to a 2/4 or 4/4 rhythm "one step". Sometimes tango was performed at a fairly fast pace. During this period it was sometimes referred to as "North American Tango", in comparison to "Rio de la Plata Tango". By 1914, authentic styles of tango were more common, as well as some variations like Albert Newman's Minuet Tango.  

   Despite the Great Depression, the period 1930-1950 was the "golden age" of tango. Many ensembles were created, which included outstanding composers and tango performers who have become classics of the style today: Annibal Troyo, Osvaldo Pugliese, Astor Piazzola and many others.  

   The tango renaissance began in 1983 with the opening of the Forever Tango show in New York. These shows revolutionized the world and people everywhere started taking tango lessons.  

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FUNDAMENTALS OF ARGENTINO TANGO

   Argentine tango is an improvisational dance built of four elements: steps, turns, stops and decorations. The dance is like a mosaic that is put together differently every time. Women and men bring their own styles and embellishments to dance, which greatly contribute to an exhilarating and unpredictable experience. Even though dancers follow certain conventions, they never know exactly how the dance will be constructed, embellished or interpreted. The surprises in dancing are what makes dancing so exciting. It really gets the two involved in tango, because the dance is not only about the man leading and the woman following. Both partners have a lot to contribute - just like in a good conversation. 
   Tango is danced counterclockwise, just like racing. The dancers try to stay on the outer edges of the hall, away from the center. If you look at the tango dance floor from above, you will see the dancers move like a river descending, flowing smoothly and sometimes stopping to spin in a shallow vortex. 

   Is Argentine tango the same as ballroom tango? 
   No. They have common roots, but the place, the time and the nature of the development of the dance has separated them. International ballroom tango is very different from social tango in Argentina. Argentine tango differs from ballroom tango in position, hug, improvisation, movement, balance, steps and music. It is completely different from the top of your head to the base of the soles of your boots with which you dance it. 
If you have ballroom tango experience, think of Argentine tango as a completely new dance, not as an evolution of what you already know.  

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WHY DO GUYS NEED ARGENTINO TANGO?
 

In tango, in class, in milongas (dance evenings), there are noticeably more women than men. This is some kind of abnormal situation. Indeed, in football or in a pub, despite the statistics with demographics, there is a normal number of men, logically, this should be the case in tango. After all, it, like pubs with football, was invented by men and for men. What is happening, at least somehow, can only be explained by a lack of understanding by the strong half of the essence and purpose of tango. I once asked my tango mentor, Juan:
"How did it happen that you, the frontman of a rock'n'roll group, a football player, a law student (and this in Latin America has a somewhat different status than ours), and suddenly left for tango?"
"How why?" - there was an instant answer - "There are so many girls there!" ...
And Juan told how, until he was 25, he considered tango to be entertainment for "old boys". The first time he was dragged to the milonga almost by force during a family holiday. And how with surprise he found that the "oldperskaya" milonga was full of young beautiful women who looked at him with obvious interest and seemed to speak with their eyes:  “Well, why are you sitting? Choose me and we will dance! " At that moment, Juan could not answer the invitation, since he did not know how to dance tango, but, while still sitting there, he firmly decided that he urgently needed to do tango.

I came to tango from the other side. It so happened that for medical reasons I was ordered to do any kind of quiet dancing. Following the instructions of the doctor, I went to the nearest dance school and enrolled in a group with free seats. And it turned out to be an Argentine tango group. At first, dancing was a form of pleasant fitness for me, but when I got to the first milonga, I almost exactly repeated the story of Juan and how he fell ill with tango. And now, observing the gender imbalance in tango, I cannot help feeling the wrongness of what is happening. It seems to me that this is due to ignorance or misunderstanding by men of the essence of tango. Indeed, in all respects, tango at least does not lose to pubs and football, and in terms of women it wins a lot. And I will try to substantiate this.

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WHAT TANGO GIVES YOU

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Tango can give you a lot, you just have to be honest with yourself. Too often, for example, we call loneliness boredom, the inability to establish contact - the fact that no one understands us. We are afraid of losing, embarrassed to make mistakes or look awkward, and so on. You don't have to be politically correct with yourself, at least for yourself call things as they are, by their proper names, and then tango will start working for you and give you: 

- A cure for loneliness and boredom. With tango you forget what it’s like not to know how to kill time. Every evening in the city there is a place where you are expected, where you are needed, and where you are welcome. At first it is a very strong drug, but after years it still continues to work. Especially when you discover that this is true not only for your city, but also for almost any major city in the world: Paris, Lisbon, St. Petersburg, Chelyabinsk, Vladivostok, Seoul, New York ... a place where you can come and have a good time dancing Argentine tango. And all you need for this is to learn to dance (by taking up the rest of your free time, which, by the way, you had to kill before).
- Social connections, especially close ones. Life in a big city, especially when you grew up in another, often takes place in a narrow circle of friends, which you cannot always call close. Specific worlds of work and the Internet, that's actually all the possibilities to expand the circle of communication. Well, maybe another hobby, who has them, but in any case, in such conditions, it is difficult to get close to people. Argentine tango was originally created to solve this problem. Everything in it is aimed at expanding social contacts.
- Creation. Argentine tango is an improvisational dance. It's like playing jazz, only available to everyone. For example, I will never become a jazz musician, even a mediocre one, as much as I wish it, but with tango I was able to fulfill the dream of improvisation. Each dance became a micro jam session for me: me, a partner and an orchestra.
- Another world. Evening, you come to the milonga, change clothes and, as it were, start a different life. You go into a parallel world where different things are possible. Someone there starts all over again, living a second life. And someone, like me, gets the opportunity to live for a while in a world where it doesn't matter how much money you have, what you borrow or what your status is. All that matters here is what kind of person you are and how you dance.
- Beautiful women. There are a lot of beautiful women who, especially if you dance well, catch your eye. Probably, this point should have been put first, but then I would hardly have read further. This point alone would be enough for me. Actually, this is what happened to me in reality, I figured out the rest later.  

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WHAT IS TANGO LEARNING

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In addition to what tango gives directly, it also teaches a lot indirectly. And it’s even hard to say what is more important in the end. As for me, it was thanks to tango that I somehow learned:
- Understand women. Well, as far as a man can do it in principle. Moreover, it is more correct to say not "understand", but to feel. It dawned on me that you can do without understanding, enough sensation, empathy. It's hard to explain in words, but it's a pity that tango did not appear in my life at the age of 25-30. It would be very useful, and I could avoid many rakes.
- Make contact with another person. Now, if I want to, I can speak and keep in touch with anyone, anywhere. At the same time, I remained an introvert, just contact with new people ceased to be a problem. Argentine tango is a regular practice of contact with music. And if you are able to establish contact without words, then with words it becomes even easier.
- Negotiate. The modern world compulsively teaches everyone to fight against everyone. And that if you want to be "successful", then you have to prevail everywhere and always. But this is not true. Indeed, in real life, cooperation is often more advantageous than competition. But where is cooperation taught? How to negotiate, for example, with women? In tango, they teach. There it is generally one of the basic skills on which everything else is based. After all, when you go out to dance, you sometimes not only do not know your partner as a person, but also do not know the culture in which she grew up and the language in which she thinks. You have only 30-40 seconds to come to an agreement with her without words and start working together. This is a very interesting experience.
- Tactile sensations. We live in a strange world where from school there is access to pornography, but the majority exist in tactile hunger. Touches, hugs in society have become almost taboo and are associated strictly in a sexual context, and there are already problems ... How else, if tactile contacts are minimized, or even completely out of the brackets of everyday life? But such contacts are necessary for normal existence, if not to say - necessary. A person without sufficient tactile interaction, even in adulthood, begins to quietly go crazy, and in childhood - this generally leads to a personality disaster (you can read more about disasters in the reports on Harlow's experiments). Complete sensory deprivation, including deprivation of tactile sensations, can quickly drive even a very healthy person crazy. Tango, on the other hand, restores the lost skill of tactile interaction, without which it is simply impossible to dance. Tactile sensations are the foundation of tango.
- The correct attitude towards life, for example, the ability to lose. Evenings where Argentine tango is danced are a micro-model of society. During the evening, in a playful way, you go through the cycles many times: acquaintance - establishing contact - developing relationships - ending relationships - parting. And in different contexts: sometimes you want a relationship, sometimes they want it with you, and sometimes you learn to accept what they don't want you to. Well, with experience you understand that in ordinary life everything is about the same. Only longer, more difficult and at times more traumatic. But the main thing is that nothing is predetermined. And it is in your power to make your partners, who have recently looked through you, begin to catch your gaze themselves. But possible failures are only milestones on the way to the goal, and nothing more. You cannot constantly win, alas, losses are inevitable, but they, it turns out, have their own buzz. It sounds corny, but in practice it turns out not easy and not immediately. Tango will teach you the correct attitude to life and the ability to play exactly what in practice. 
- Dress. Yes, Argentine tango also teaches you how to dress, putting yourself in order to a state that girls like. No, there are, of course, exceptions, but in general, tango is an excellent practical school of style, after passing which, people in ordinary life begin to dress differently: brighter, freer, more interesting.

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STUPID ABOUT TANGO

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When talking with my acquaintances about tango, I regularly come across stereotypical misconceptions that, in terms of zaborism, can argue with cranberries about Russia and Russians: vodka, bears, the KGB. Thanks to cinema and mass media, thanks to which there is no less nonsense about tango. The most common misconceptions are:
- "Tango is not a man's occupation." A very frequent complex, I myself suffered from it. But there is hardly a more masculine dance than Argentine tango. Conceptually, by the way, tango is very similar to single combat. And historically, this dance, in one of its forms, literally served as a peaceful way to find out which of the two guys is cooler:
- "It's too late for me to start." Tango is not a sport or ballet. If it's not too late for you to have sex, then you can master tango. Any man who can move independently can dance tango, and at such a level that it arouses interest in the opposite sex. Therefore, talking about age is just an excuse that masks complexes and fear.
- "I am not plastic, not musical, I do not feel the rhythm." There are no rigid people without a sense of rhythm. At first, my tango mentor Huang believed that I was this unique person with the plasticity of a robot, moreover, completely amusical, and it was impossible to fix it. But even I managed to radically change his opinion in a year. So, if you wish, everything can be fixed and quickly enough.
- "I'm so and so, girls are not interested in me and in general." They rarely say it aloud, they think so more often. But this is nonsense, another self-justification of fear, laziness and complexes. And both in general in life and in tango. And especially in tango. By the way, starting to change in tango, people change noticeably in real life. Tango is a school of life for adults, after passing which, you will become able to change a lot, or at least adjust your attitude to the existing one. At least until you have the bad idea of performing on stage or at world championships (Argentine tango championships), but that's another story. As for female attention, if you dance tango even a little and are not a complete asshole, then it is guaranteed to you.
Tango is a very masculine occupation!

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WHO NEEDS ARGENTINO TANGO?

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Although it would probably be easier to say who doesn't need Argentine tango. If everything is good with you, you are happy with everything and you do not need anything, then tango will hardly interest you either. But if, you're wondering:
- Expand your circle of acquaintances, and all over the world
- Take your free evenings with something useful and interesting
- Master tactile interaction, and speaking in Russian: learn to hug
- To improvise and create, as, for example, in jazz, or as an artist, or as all at once: 
- Take back control of your own body
- Get the opportunity, if you wish, to escape for a while from boring reality to another world
- Correct self-esteem
Well, and most importantly: if you are attracted by beautiful women, then Argentine tango is the right choice. Try! Do this not only for yourself, but also for women. They want to dance with the good guys so much.

And the last thing. Simple - it won't, especially at the beginning. Yes, tango itself is a fairly simple and accessible dance, but people have so much crap in their heads that the main battle is not with the dance, but with themselves, with their cockroaches. It can be difficult for a grown man to accept that he has suddenly become a rogue in something again. Or that he needs to shove his conceit to hell, that he, as it turns out, does not know how to do elementary things, and that money with status will hardly help him here. Tango is a tabula rasa that can be completed from scratch. Well, it's also a challenge. But the result is worth it, because as Juan said: "There are so many girls!"

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Dixi