Tango Trivia | 40 facts about the popular dance

Tango is a vibrant and playful dance between two people, and is considered really passionate, because of the close connection through partners.

Let’s find out more about this fascinating dance, that a lot of people from around the world choose to learn dancing.

1. Tango is a partner dance.
2. It is a social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata.
3. Río de la Plata is the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay.
4. It was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries, in neighborhoods which had predominantly African descendants.
5. The tango is the result of a combination of Rioplatense Candombe celebrations, Spanish-Cuban Habanera, and Argentinean Milonga.
6. The tango was frequently practiced in the brothels and bars of ports, where business owners employed bands to entertain their patrons with music.
7. The tango then spread to the rest of the world.
8. Many variations of this dance currently exist around the world.
9. On August 31, 2009, UNESCO approved a joint proposal by Argentina and Uruguay to include the tango in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists.
10. International Tango Day is on December 11th.
11. It celebrates the birthday of Carlos Gardel.
12. Carlos Gardel is the most famous and loved Tango singer of all times, and that of Julio De Caro, one of the influential musicians and orchestra leaders.
13. The idea of celebrating the day came from Ben Molar.
14. Ben Molar was a poet and friend of de Caro, who realized that both Gardel & de Caro shared the same birthday.
15. In 1965 he made a proposal to the Secretary of Culture of the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires.
16. It took 11 years before the idea became a reality and 11 December is now recognized as the International Day of Tango.
17. There are several theories regarding the origin of the word tango.
18. Despite the cariety of the theories none of which has been proven.
19. An African culture is often credited as the creator of this word.
20. In particular, it is theorized that the word derives from the Yoruba word shangó, which refers to Shango, the God of Thunder in traditional Yoruba religion.
21. Also, this theory suggests that the word “shangó” was morphed through the dilution of the Nigerian language once it reached South America via slave trade.
22. According to an alternative theory, tango is derived from the Spanish word for “drum”, tambor.
23. This word was then mispronounced by Buenos Aires’ lower-class inhabitants to become tambo, ultimately resulting in the common tango
24. . It is also sometimes theorized that the word is derived from the Portuguese word tanger, which means “to play a musical instrument”
25. . Another Portuguese word, tangomão, a combination of the verb tanger (“to touch”) with the noun mão (“hand”) meaning “to play a musical instrument with one’s hands”, has been suggested as the etymon of tango.
26. Tango is a dance that has influences from African, Native American and European culture.
27. Dances from the candombe ceremonies of former African slave peoples helped shape the modern day tango.
28. The dance originated in lower-class districts of Buenos Aires and Montevideo.
29. The music derived from the fusion of various forms of music from Europe.
30. One of the most popular types of tango is the Argentine tango.
31. Actually, argentine tango is the root of all types of tango.
32. It contains all the elements of the tango danced by European and African immigrants in 19th century Buenos Aires, including a flexible embrace, dramatic postures, and a ton a sensuality.
33. In 2014, Hawaiian dance teachers Brett and Jennifer Griswold danced the Argentine Tango for an unbelievable 38 hours, 30 minutes.
34. Even more incredibly, this record-breaking performance was actually the Griswolds’ second attempt of the day due to… camera problems!
35. Their first try for a Tango marathon lasted for two hours, and then they had to start again from scratch in order to break the record.
36. The world record for the most Tango spins in a minute is 37.
37. This achievement was made by the American self-help guru and entrepreneur Tim Ferriss with his dance partner Alicia Monti, live on TV in 2006.
38. ango dominated Finland’s pop charts for decades. It’s quite a distance from Southern America.
39. Tango was first imported to Finland in the 1910s.
40. Though based on Argentine Tango, Finnish Tango is a genre in its own right, with a distinctive style and traits that have earned their own heritage.