What is Neo Tango?
One afternoon early in 2003, I had lunch in Washington, DC, with my friend Michael, who owns a story-based marketing company called Thirsty Fish. He does not dance tango, but had dropped by one of my milongas (tango parties) the night before, at which I had been playing alternative songs for dancing in between sets of traditional tango, in place of cortinas.
When Michael asked me about the music, I explained that many dancers around the world liked to dance tango to "alternative music" and that they had in fact been doing so since the 1980s, when the recent "tango renaissance" began. I told him that I thought this was a significant part of the global expansion of the art form. He encouraged me to write about it, and as we started brainstorming adjectives that conveyed the spirit of renewal, the phrase "neo tango" emerged.
I spent some time researching neo tango and found no reference to such a phrase. A few weeks later I created this website to share non-traditional songs with whomever wanted them, hoping to spark more exchanging of music amongst dancers everywhere. I wrote an article titled "The Rise of Neo Tango Music" and created an interactive forum (no longer online) where others could contribute songs. Soon, I began to recieve email from dancers around the world who were also playing alternative songs or were running alternative milongas, the forum grew, and my own DJ list doubled and tripled in size.
For me, Neo Tango does not refer to any particular tango steps or movements. It no longer even refers to dancing with alternative music. Rather, it describes the time period that we are living in, in which the tango has become an international phenomenon influenced by many contemporary cultures. Neo tango, for me, is a work in progress, a sense of expansion in what can be expressed through the intimacy of the dance form.
-Sharna Fabiano
Neo Links
The Rise of Neo Tango Music Sharna's DJ List TangoPulse NeoTango Zone - Jackie Wong has her own list of songs posted online and runs the monthly Neo Tango Zone milonga with Daniel Trenner in western Massachusetts
Alternative Tango Radio - Demetrius Gonzalez online radio channels playing music 24/7
www.neotango.de - German site with mp3 streaming, song lists, and other resources
www.neotango.info - web portal for contemporary tango and neo tango including songs lists and discussion forum
Sharna's article on alternative music for contemporary tango dancing.
The songs on this list are Sharna's suggestions for those wishing to add new energies to the milonga. The music is varied and comes from many countries and genres.