One of the tango's many mysteries is its mixed cultural parentage. To explain plain its origins, its chroniclers have had to investigate the aftermath of slavery in a region of old Spanish colonies. Vicente Rossi, for example, suggests that the tango was born in the African communities of Montevideo, a view not always enthusiastically shared on the western bank of the estuary of the Rio de la Plata.

Apart from the inevitable wranglings over paternity, there is no disagreement about the influence of the candombe on this dance in its early years, or about the contribution to its development made by the two Rio de la Plata capitals, Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The sprawling Argentine metropolis was, in the end, to monopolize the sobriquet "City of the Tango", but in both ports (La Cumparsita, one of the best known tangos, is Uruguayan) the intermingling of its African and mestizo ancestors, together with other local and European strains, gave birth, in the space of a few decades, to one of the most distinctive cultural creations of the American continent.

Where did the name come from? In writings and lectures on the subject, Jorge Luis Borges pokes fun at those who bend over backwards in their attempts to trace its origins to a Latin root. The distinguished writer's amusement is provoked by the lowliness of its earliest surroundings, the suburbs, and by the creature's undeniable connections with disreputable establishments

In Buenos Aires, the scale of th suburban fringe was a consequence of spectacular urban growth. This unpretentious colonial town, founded twice in the sixteenth century, was chosen in 1880 as the federal capital, and rapidly became a thriving port. Thereafter, it absorved wave upon wave of immigrants, who disembarked with their cargo of dreams and solitude and, on the so-called orillas, established a sort of frontier way of life. People were washed up here by the tides of fortune, as they were on the Pacific coast, in San Francisco of the Gold Rush, or Valparaiso, with their nostalgic atmosphere of turn-of-the-century sailing ships.

In this murky urban quarter, lone men fought one another over fortunes and brief affairs of the heart. So it is not difficult to understand how this branch of humanity found in the cortes and quebradas (literally "cuts and slashes") of the tango a means of escape from the teeming solitude of the tenements.

Those heroic times have left us with the stereotyped image of the original dancing couple. She, with her tight-fitting dress, split skirt and scarcely concealed hint of erotic aggressiveness; he, perched on high heels and wearing a narrow-brimmed hat. Even today, magazines and shows continue to reproduce this vignette of a bygone age. One thing is undeniable: in the last ten years of the nineteenth century, the music to which they danced was held in high esteem in musical circles, and, at the turn of the century, a whole galaxy of distinguished composers ushered it out of the suburds and into the city centre.

By the time the Republic celebrated its centenary, definite rules had taken shape governing the instruments on which it was played. Flutes and guitars had been banished, making way for the ensemble that would henceforth be known as the orquesta tipica, consisting of piano, violins, double bass and a little-known instrument called the bandoneon. This emigrant accordeon from Central Europe came to symbolize the essence of the tango. Why did it became so prominent as a popular art form? After all, as musicologists point out, it was very difficult to play. There is no convincing answer to this question, but the fact remains that from the legendary Ramos Mejia to Astor Piazzolla in our own time, the roll of honour of those who played it includes such glamorous names in tango history as Eduardo Arolas and Anibal Troilo.

On a wave of popular creativity, this suburban adolescent rose irresistibly to fame. Before the First World War, Paris (Tangoville, some historians would claim) had given her the keys to Europe. From London to Moscow, the great cities were held spellbound by the mysterious creature. Her triumph heralded that of jazz, another child of miscegenation in the landfall cities of America. The tango craze spread through the ballrooms and fashionable watering places. Handbooks on how to dance it appeared by the dozen, and a certain shade of orange came to be called "tango". In February 1914, an engraving in the French magazine L'Illustration showed the Pope thoughtfully watching the circlings of a dancing couple. The Holy See found itself obliged to make a pronouncement, having heard voices raised in condemnation of the morals of this Latin-American upstart. Its concern was justified. Some of the vituperation came from Argentine circles. The poet Leopoldo Lugones called the tango a "reptile from the brothel", and more than one diplomat showed distaste for the disconcerting way in which this ignoble compatriot had won general acceptance.

The 1970s witnessed a partial revival of the tango on the European scene as a form of music for instruments and voice. Following a fairly long period of eclipse, this renewal was foreseeable, in view of the cities of Latin America, and, indeed, in such an unexpected country as Japan, where a huge trade in recordings is to be found, together with orquestas tipicas, collectors and specialized magazines. Nevertheless, some observers would point to a paradox: while Cuba organizes tango festivals, and while Amsterdam and Paris are enthralled by the classical rigour of Osvaldo Pugliese, the formal audacity of Piazzolla or the splendid voice of Susana Rinaldi, there are signs in its cities of origin of a slackening of the fervour that gripped them from the 1930s and 1950s. The great tango orchestras and soloists have watched their sources of work drying up one by one, partly as a result of changes in public taste, which seems less drawn to this art form than it was in days gone by.

It can be argued that, since the "codification" by Julio de Caro, in the 1920s, the structures which shaped the tango have changed in ways comparable to the changes occurring in the societies which produced it, and in the various attitudes of mind and feeling which embraced it as their own. Perhaps for this reason, following the truce between traditionalists and modernists, creators and performers have come to agree that the tango can change and develop. Accordingly, such essential works as Recuerdo (1924) by Pugliese or Adios, Nonino (1959) by Piazzola are valued in their contemporary context as innovative landmarks, and the tango is seen to embody the pathos prevailing in the painting, the films or the poetry of the day.

Worth noting is the enthusiams with which, in the first few months of 1986, tango demonstrations are being greeted in New York. Will they, perhaps, provide the necessary impetus for this complex Latin American character to make a glorious and majestic come-back to the international stage?

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LUIS BOCAZ, of Chile, is a specialist in Latin American literature and culture. A lecturer at the Sorbonne, he also directs a seminar on "Cultural production and society in Latin America" at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de l'Amérique Latine, in Paris. He has served as a consultant with Unesco's culture sector.

Links:

1. Una colección de 800 discos de Carlos Gardel entra en la 'Memoria del Mundo' de la UNESCO
2. BBC Mundo De todo un poco Gardel ya es Memoria del Mundo