Back in the 1880s, working class European immigrants spent time drinking, socializing and looking for romance around the bars, gambling houses and brothels of Buenos Aires. Even though intimate dancing was often forbidden, flirting couples channeled their passion into a dance where their bodies were entangled, cheek-to-cheek, chest-to-chest, legs invading each other’s space. This was the evolution of Argentine Tango.

The ethnically diverse underclass and poor made the Tango their very own, creating a culture of expressions, slang and customs. Tango music and dance epitomized their loneliness and desires; its themes almost always referred to an ordinary man and his problems, the city and its memories. Their Tango spoke of frustrated love, of longing, of fatality, of destinies engulfed in pain, of sadness, of sorrow, and yes, of lust. It created a feeling of belonging, an interpretation of a culture that united similar spirit.

This eclectic mix of cultures soon became a new social class. At first, the Argentine upper class wanted no part of Tango. To see it, one was forced to go to the outskirts of Buenos Aires—an exotic safari in search of the mysterious dance. Yet, the upper class soon took to the Tango.

During the early 1900s, Argentina’s economy developed quickly. Buenos Aires—the beautiful old colonial Spanish city, with its one-story buildings and narrow streets—was replaced by a metropolis of wide avenues and beautiful parks. Argentina became one of the 10 richest nations in the world, maintaining that position for decades. During this prosperous period, the rich traveled to Europe at least once a year and sent their young sons to study at schools in Paris.

Some of the young Argentineans visiting Europe introduced their “indecent” Argentine Tango to the Parisian nobility, and the dance took the city by storm. From Paris, the Tango rapidly migrated to other capitals— London, Rome, Berlin, and finally to New York in 1913. The Tango became “respectable,” and was soon re-imported to Argentina, where it was featured in the cafes and clubs frequented by the wealthy.

While the dance lost some of it abrasiveness, its structure remained intact, and soon the Tango developed into a worldwide phenomenon. Tango musicians also were elevated to the status of professional composers. In 1916, Roberto Firpo, a bandleader of the period, cemented the arrangements for standard tango sextet: two bandoneons, two violins, piano and double bass. Firpo heard a march by Uruguayan Gerardo Mattos Rodriguez and adapted it for Tango, creating the popular and iconic La Cumparsita.

In 1917, folk singer Carlos Gardel recorded his first tango song Mi Noche Triste, forever associating tango with the feeling of tragic love as revealed in the lyric.

Classically-trained musicians weren’t associated with tango music until Julio De Caro, violinist, formed an orchestra in 1920 and made the tango more elegant, complex and refined, as well as slowing the tempo somewhat. With Pedro Laurenz on bandoneon, De Caro’s orchestra was famous for over a decade.

In Argentina, the onset in Great Depression, and restrictions introduced after the overthrow of the Hipólito Yrigoyen government in 1930, caused Tango to decline. No longer able to vote, the citizenry became largely apathetic with a concomitant depressing effect on dancing the Tango. Rather pessimistic philosopher/singers of the Tango emerged at this time.

The late 1930’s saw a Tango revival when Argentinean’s regained a good measure of political freedom. Celebrating the social rise of the people, the Tango again became a symbol of solidarity and a part of their daily lives. Even wealthy intellectuals, far removed from the working class “orilla,” were writing new lyrics for Tango songs. Due to this influence, the Tango became more romantic and nostalgic, and less threatening.

In 1946, Juan Peron rose to power and the Tango reached a new pinnacle of popularity in Argentina with both the generalissimo and his wife, Evita, embracing it wholeheartedly. Following Evita’s death in 1952, the Tango fell from public favor and the advent of American rock-and-roll made the Tango seem even more out of step with the times.

Tango enjoyed a revival in the 1980s following the opening in Paris of the show Tango Argentino and the Broadway musical Forever Tango. Today, the Tango still enjoys wide favor. Immensely popular, the Tango is again experiencing a worldwide renaissance (it is virtually the “national” dance of Finland, and even widely danced in Zambia, Africa), and Tango is still a popular and required ballroom dance in international competitions.

Argentine Tango has traveled all around the world. It has caught the attention of those who appreciate art, music and love. It is the dance that captures a moment—the Tango moment.