Bringing Tango to Nairobi ! Bringing Tango back home !

The Patamango Association is a non-profit association of volunteer teachers, organizers, passionates of Argentine Tango, with the mission of developing the appreciation and practice of the dancing art, within the music and the culture in which it exists, that is the Argentine Tango.

”Stand up straight and walk right”

The exact origins of tango—both the dance and the word itself—are lost in myth and an unrecorded history. The generally accepted theory is that in the mid-1800s, African slaves were brought to Argentina and began to influence the local culture. The word "tango" may be straightforwardly African in origin, meaning "closed place" or "reserved ground." Or it may derive from Portuguese (and from the Latin verb tanguere, to touch) and was picked up by Africans on the slave ships. Whatever its origin, the word "tango" acquired the standard meaning of the place where African slaves and free blacks gathered to dance. -- Argentine Tango: A Brief History

The art of tango dancing at its best is a means for conscious evolution of the practitioner. -- Tango and Conscious Evolution, Artem Maloratsky

Is Argentine Tango the Same as Ballroom Tango?

No. They started out from the same roots, but location, time and the ever evolving nature of dance have made them separate dances. The American and International ballroom tangos you may see on PBS, are very different from the tango danced socially in Argentina. Argentine tango is different from the ballroom tangos in its posture, embrace, improvisation, movement, balance, steps, and music. It's completely different from the top of your head to the bottom of the soles of the shoes you dance it with. -- The Beginner's Guide to Argentine Tango

Note that it is the Argentine & Uruguayan tradition of the Tango that UNESCO inscribed, on Wed 30 Sept 2009, as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.