Tango Dancing Mesmerises the World
With the recently concluded Tango Dancing World Championships in Buenos Aires, the spotlight has shifted to the world of dancing once again. This interesting event brought together 400 couples to the birthplace of Tango and featured some of the world’s best dancing skills on display.
Tango is a highly energetic dance style which forces the dancers engaging in it to be very physically fit and makes them highly competitive. The dancing style puts up quite a show; dancers even wear costumes when they compete in order to accentuate the theatrical side of the dance. This takes nothing away from the physical nature of the dance which has led many people to consider it a sport. Tango will slowly take over our lives as people all over the world continue to become interested.
The Tango is one of the world’s most beautiful dances and has a history stretching back many years. It seems to have born in Argentina and then traveled across the world when settlers moved to the New World. It then slowly spread to America where it became very popular in New York during the Roaring Twenties.
The method of dancing and the style seems to have come from the way people lived in olden times. The original dance came from the gauchos of Argentina who would go to saloons to try to entice and dance with a woman after a long hard day of horse riding. The chaps they wore had become hardened with the sweat from the horses body and they walked with their knees bent slightly.
As the men had not showered in a few days, they did not smell great and the women who would dance with them would c**k their heads to one side to avoid the smell. One hand was placed near the man’s pocket to seek payment for the dance. As the dancing area was crowded with tables and chairs, the couple danced in a curving fashion. Through the confines of the time a fascinating dance was born that then spread slowly across the world and is now one of the most popular dances around.
The recently concluded Tango Dance World Championships was the 12th incarnation of the seminal event to take place in the world of tango. The event saw over 400 couples take part in the highly competitive dancing competition that took place over 18 days. Even though most of the competitors were from the host nation, there was representation from all over the world, with the current reigning champions being Japanese.
The interesting thing about tango is the fact that people who do not even speak the same language can dance together. The overall winners of the competition turned out to be a duo where one person was from Japan and the other from Argentina. The two winners, Chizuko Kuwamoto and Diego Ortega, could hardly understand one another but they managed to compete against other dancers because they could feel the music, the rhythm and they work very well together. This seems to be the magic of the tango; it transcends boundaries and cultures and is something universal.
Besides the theatrical nature of the dancing, some people have criticised the dance as being too sultry and even vulgar because of the steamy nature of the moves. But supporters of the dance point to its history and traditions and how it was even honoured by UNESCO last year when the organisation made it part of the ‘Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity’. The sultry nature of the dance makes it a highly physical one and it is for this reason that people compare it to other sports where athletes have to be very physically fit and perform routines and score points in a competitive environment.
It looks like the Tango is all set to become the world’s most popular dance. As its acceptance and popularity spreads across the world, more tango schools will be set up and more competitions will take place. But sadly, there will always be those that look down upon the dance as well.
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