| Sinuous, sharp, and sexy, the dance crept, one critic said, like “a reptile from the brothel.” Disdained by elites at home, the dance (shown above) captured Paris, and Rudolph Valentino broke hearts with it in America.
Belatedly, Argentina embraced its greatest contribution to world music—the grasping, accordion-laden opera of emotions known as the tango. More than a century from its birth in the slums, tango’s intense interplay of intertwined couples on the dance floor has prospered anew, from the banks of the Rio de la Plata to Berlin’s Spree, from small cafes to TV’s Dancing With the Stars. “It gets in your blood in a quiet way,” says actor Robert Duvall, who did this Nat Geo special on the dance.
How did it begin? What influenced this enduring dance? What can we learn from the mysteries of the tango?
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