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Foxtrot and tango1/15/2024 Becoming A National Symbol Īt the beginning of its history, tango was looked down upon by the Argentinian elites for a number of reasons. Afro-Argentines and the other working-class populations were especially crucial in shaping the emergence of tango by combining the different influences, including the milonga, the condombe, payada. They frequently met in “tangos” where whites and people of color played music and danced together. It was in these arrabales that different marginalized groups converged while expressing themselves in dances. Under the Argentinian government's efforts to Europeanize and modernize the country, those who did not fit the “pure” and civilized image of the Argentinian identity were excluded from urban centers like Buenos Aires and gradually pushed to the arrabal, the suburbs between urban and rural areas. However, this influx of diverse immigrants also led to social tensions and conflicts which engendered nationalist movements that sought to promote a “pure” Argentine identity aimed to exclude the more inferior immigrants. To attract immigrants, the Argentine government implemented various measures, such as offering free land, providing financial incentives, and establishing immigration agencies in Europe. The immigration policy at the time was shaped by the Argentinian elites’ desire to promote economic growth, their need to populate its vast territories, their aspiration to become a modern and civilized nation, as well as their racial and nationalist ideologies that sought to establish a homogenous and European-based population. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Argentina experienced a significant wave of immigration that transformed its demographic composition. For this reason Tango is often referred to as the music of the immigrants to Argentina. The development of Tango had influences from the cultures of several peoples that came together in these melting pots of ethnicities. Initially tango was just one of the many dances practiced locally, but it soon became popular throughout society, as theatres and street barrel organs spread it from the suburbs to the working-class slums, which were packed with hundreds of thousands of European immigrants. In 1902 the Teatro Opera started to include tango in their balls. In Argentina, the word Tango seems to have first been used in the 1890s. All sources stress the influence of the African communities and their rhythms, while the instruments and techniques brought in by European immigrants played a major role in its final definition, relating it to the salon music styles to which Tango would contribute back at a later stage, when it became fashionable in early 20th century Paris.Īrgentina’s Immigration Policy in the 19th Century Įven though the present forms developed in Argentina and Uruguay from the mid 19th century, there are earlier written records of Tango dances in Cuba and Spain, while there is a flamenco Tangos dance that may share a common ancestor in a minuet-style European dance. It is thought that, over time, these elements intersected in the outer districts of Buenos Aires and developed into the Tango. The mazurka is another European element thought to have a hand in the tango's development. Conversely, the milonga was a fusion of the Spanish-Cuban habanera and the imported European polka. These African rhythms are thought to come from the candombe, which was characterized by energetic, "jerky" movements. The Tango derives from the Cuban habanera, the Argentine milonga and Uruguayan candombe, and is said to contain elements from the African community in Buenos Aires, influenced both by ancient African rhythms and the music from Europe. Another theory is that the word "tango", already in common use in Andalusia to describe a style of music, lent its name to a completely different style of music in Argentina and Uruguay. One of the more popular in recent years has been that it came from the Niger–Congo languages of Africa. There are numbers of theories about the origin of the word "tango". Tango, a distinctive tango dance and the corresponding musical style of tango music, began in the working-class port neighborhoods of Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Montevideo (Uruguay) on both sides of the Rio de la Plata.
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