ORIGIN OF TANGO DANCE:

IN SEARCH OF LOVE & EMBRACE
 

Nostalgia and the Search for Love

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Immigrants, mainly men, traveled long way from home during late 1800s to land on the rich and booming city of Buenos Aires, dreaming of a better life and taking up jobs that locals don't want.

 

At the small gathering space they called "Tango" at night, people in these impoverished neighbourhoods played music and danced as a means to forget about their hardship in this foreign land. Tango music has a strong sense of nostalgia and yearning for home and for love.
 

Due to the lack of women amongst these male immigrants, the dance slowly became a competition for these men to "win" over the hearts of women of their dreams. And it is very common that men practiced with each other in the streets of Buenos Aires in order to learn to dance with a woman.
 

Still, Tango was seen as a dance of the working class. Although people in the upper class are fascinated by it, it is only in the brothels that these upper class can get in touch with tango, where brothel owners are the only people who could afford to hire tango musicians to entertain their customers in the waiting room. 
 

Tango started to gain importance as some rich kids of the upper class took tango abroad. Tango was very well received in Paris and America, and was played in the upper class ballrooms in Europe. When Tango traveled back to Argentina, it was finally accepted by local Argentines and appeared in main ballrooms and stages, turning into a widely adored dance and a national pride.