Informative tango sites

Todo Tango

You can find everything about tango history and modern tango artists on this site.
A lot of music to listen.
Many articles are translated into English.
This is literally an official tango site, supported by the city of Buenos Aires.
Absolutely the best deal on classic tango music of the 1920s-1950s, especially for those, who own MP3 players. TodoTango's set of CDs contains the listing with the year of each recording, composer, artist.

TangoData

excellent information source on modern tango scene run by Argentine government. Some articles are in English.

Tango Blogs and Periodicals

Blog: Rick McGary: Tango and Chaos

Notes on absorbing tango as an outsider of tango in Buenos Aires

Blog: Clint Rauscher: Hybrid Tango

The variety of notes on dancing and music (and politics, occasionally) written by the tango teacher from Atlanta, GA. Clint also runs the internet radio station under the name of Evolution Tango.

Blog: Roman's Tango List Library

The best online writings of tangueros from all over the world

Blog: Igor Polk

Since 2003 Russian-born dancer from San Francisco area keeps the interesting variety of notes on tango dancing and dancers.

Tango Times

Magazine published by Daniel and Maria from New York. Each issue has a little bit of everything - the articles about history, modern dancing, short biographies, lyrics translated, photographs of dancers, musicians, shows.

 

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Essays about tango dancing (English)

Musicality for dancers by Pablo Aslan: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3

Psychology of tango by Elena Pankey

Excellent series of observations on why people choose tango, male-female relationship in context of the modern No. American culture & how to adjust your expectations. Selected articles from Elena are listed below, for more good writings go to her website.

The real art of tango walk by Elena Pankey

The secret of tango walk. #1: practice it alone. The rest of the good stuff in the article.

Communication in tango by Elena Pankey

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Argentine tango: research papers and lectures (English)

Must-read articles by Pablo Aslan, a prominent jazz/tango musician from NY:

The evolution of tango music

A brief history of tango

Tango music and it's relation to dance
 

Audio-visual recordings of lectures from Tango! conference

Radcliffe Institute, Boston, MA, Oct 26-27, 2007.
Great lectures on tango history and music (if you can deal with very academic language):
“Wallflowers and Femmes Fatales: Dancing Gender and Politics at the Milongas”: Video (1:26 minutes)
“In Search of Tango Music History”: Video (1:32 minutes)
“Borges and Tango”: Video (1:11 minutes)
“Tango as a Cultural Form: Music, Dance, Film”: Video (1:33 minutes)
“Tango as Politics: Gender, Class, Urban Life” and Closing Remarks”: Video (1:25 minutes)

The Cacaphonic Moment (PDF) and Desdemona's Lament (PDF)

Julie Taylor (prof. of Anthropology, Rice University) explores "Argentine phenomena linked with grotesque: the tango, its social setting, the milonga, and the theater of Creole grotesque".
Julie Taylor (PDF) , a professionally trained dancer, studied the tango in Buenos Aires, dancing during and after the terror of the 1980s.
Check out her book: Paper Tangos

The destiny of Borges

From an interview with Jorge Luis Borges, in Habitus 03, conducted in 1984 at the University of Buenos Aires by philosophy professors Tomas Abraham, Alejandro Russovich, and Enrique Man.

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Astor Piazzolla (English)

Le Grand Tango: The Life and Music of Astor Piazzolla (PDF)

Maria Susana Azzi (Piazzolla's biographer)
lecture in IDB Cultural Center, Washington, DC, March 2000

Astor Piazzolla: A Note (1998)

John Adams, an American opera composer
Lyrical, erudite short essay of the musician on another great musician

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Community organization

Malcolm Gladwell - The Cellular Church, article in The New Yorker magazine

How Rick Warren’s congregation grew. Maybe, there is a lesson for the tango organizers in Warren's success building Saddlebrook church!
The initial inspiration beyond my show Tango as a community came from this article.

Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Church

The best hands-on manual on organizing volunteer community. After all, tango and religion has a lot in common.

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Tango lyrics translated (English)

Jake Spatz over 80 (and growing!) translations

High quality modern(-ized) translations of the most popular tango songs with original text. Jake is a poet, writer, and an Argentine tango teacher from Washington, DC. The site includes several essays on Argentine tango poetry and music. Support Jake's labor of love - visit his site and write a feedback on his work!

Alberto Paz & Walter Kane of Planet Tango in New Orleans, LA

Numerous semi-amateur translations and links to YouTube with historical perfomances of tango.

Coby Lubliner

A dozen or so very professional translations of the classical Argentine tangos, especially by Discepolo & Cadicamo.

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Tango music web retailers

Classical collections from TodoTango.com

Absolutely the best deal on classic tango music of the 1920s-1950s, especially for those, who own MP3 players. TodoTango's set of CDs contains the listing with the year of each recording, composer, artist.

867 tangos de Gardel

TodoTango's extensive collection of great singer Carlos Gardel, accompanied by biographical material.

Danza y Movimiento

Great Dutch site dedicated to Latin music, many European and American tango musicians represented.

CDBaby.com

the distributor of independent music, many CDs (plastic & MP3s) by young modern tango artists from all over the world. Mature tango musicians, such as Daniel Binelli, are well represented too.

TangoStore.com

The greatest selection of Argentine tango and pop music for sale. No MP3 downloads, alas.
Buyer beware: the shipping costs a fortune!

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Argentine history

Buenos Aires as a Commercial-Bureaucratic City, 1880-1910: Characteristics of a City's Orientation (PDF)

James R. Scobie
the research paper published in American Historical Review, Vol.77 No.4, Oct 1972

Political and Socio-economic Elites: the Encounters of Provincials with Portenos in Fin-de-Siecle Buenos Aires (PDF)

Stephanie Bower
the research paper published in The Americas, 59:3, Jan 2003

Evita: The Globalization of a National Myth (PDF)

Marta E. Savigliano
the research paper published in Latin American Perspectives, Vol.24 No.6, Nov 1997

Evita Perón Historical Research Foundation

Headed by Cristina Alvarez Rodriguez, a grand-niece of Evita Perón. Expect somewhat biased points of view.

Eva Perón: official site - Argentine Ministry of Education (Spanish)

Contains articles, audio of Eva's speeches and hilarious laudatory poetry by - alas! - some of the best tango lyricists.

Excerpts from Eva Duarte Perón's The Reason for my Life (English)

The book La razón de mi vida ghost-written for Evita shortly before her death. Fascinating piece of political propaganda.

Eva Perón's biographical notes and historical audio on CasaHistoria.net (English).

The bio sketches, includes some historical audio.

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Historical audio and video about Argentina

Audios and Videos Historicos

Eclectic, well-selected on-line audio/video collection. Clips of world leaders and events, which effected Argentina. Aside from speeches by the Perons, the archive has a funny cigar commercial with Anibal Troilo, the last recording of Gardel's voice and Bertha Garde's interview after her famous son's death.

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