A short history

Tango is a social dance and a musical genre that originated in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay and spreading to the rest of the world soon after that. The musical styles that evolved together with the dance are also known as tango.

Early tango was known as tango criollo, or simply tango. Today, there are many tango dance styles, including Argentine Tango, Uruguayan Tango, Ballroom tango (American and International styles), Finnish tango and vintage tangos. The "authentic" tango is closest to that originally danced in Argentina and Uruguay,
though other types of tango have developed into mature dances in their own right.

Music and dance elements of tango are popular in activities related to dancing, gymnastics, figure skating, synchronized swimming, etc., because of its dramatic feeling and its cultural associations with romance and love.
The dance originated from the mixture between the native population and European immigrants, especially Italian, French and Spanish. The origins of the word Tango are from the Niger Congo languages of Africa. The music derived from the fusion of various forms of music from Europe, Africa and the Americas. Jorge Luis Borges in "El idioma de los argentinos" writes:"Tango belongs to the Rio de la Plata and it is the son of Uruguayan milonga and grandson of the habanera. The word Tango seems to have first been used in connection with the dance in the 1890s. Initially it was just one of the many dances, 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 the early years of the twentieth Paris, soon followed by London, Berlin and other capitals. Towards the end of 1913 it hit New York in the USA, and Finland. In the USA around 1911 the name "Tango" was often applied to dances in a 2/4 or 4/4 rhythm such as the one-step. The term was fashionable and did not indicate that tango steps would be used in the dance, although they might be. Tango music was sometimes played, but at a rather fast tempo. Instructors of the period would sometimes refer to this as a "North American Tango", versus the "Rio de la Plata Tango". By 1914 more authentic tango stylings were soon developed, along with some variations like Albert Newman's "Minuet" Tango.

In Argentina, the onset in 1929 of the Great Depression, and restrictions introduced after the overthrow of the Hipólito Yrigoyen government in 1930 caused Tango to decline. Its fortunes were reversed as tango again became widely fashionable and a matter of national pride under the government of Juan Perón. Tango declined again in the 1950s with economic depression and as the military dictatorships banned public gatherings, followed by the popularity of Rock and Roll. The dance lived on in smaller venues until its revival in the 1983's following the opening in Paris of the show Tango Argentino created by Claudio Segovia &Hector Orezzoli. This show made a revolution worldwide, and people everywhere started taking tango lessons.

In 1990, dancers Miguel Angel Zotto and Milena Plebs found the Tango X 2 Company , generating novel spectacles and that a great current of young people incline for the dance of the tango, unusual thing just then. They create a style that recovers the traditional tango of the milongas, renews it and places it as central element in its creations, doing an archeological search of the diverse styles of the tango. At the end of 1998 Milena Plebs dissociates herself of this company to initiate a road of personal investigation of diverse facets of tango dance.

Many shows toured around the world, such as Broadway Musicals Tango Argentino & Forever_Tango, Tango X 2, and Tango Pasion among others.