Milongueros : tango codes and culture

The subject of this book is The Milonga, the place to dance tango, and it is addressed to the Milongueros, that is, the dancers. The idea is to illustrate to those who begin to dance, what the milonga is, and for those who already know it and wish the go more deeply into the subject Tango, the goal is to offer other elements which could enrich them, as its codes (códigos), culture and history. Tango is many things, because with more than one hundred and twenty years of existence, it offers us music and poetry and its lyrics are a source of information from several points of view, namely, sociological, psychological, philosophical, historical and anthropological, as well as linguistic, regarding the "lunfardo", a jargon from Buenos Aires. The "cabeceo" is the most important concept regarding the codes, but there is more, much more. What it is natural for an experienced Argentinean who dances in Buenos Aires, it may not be so for a foreigner. While it is not mandatory to do something that may not seem natural at first, the respect of the codes is essential to dance in the best milongas of Buenos Aires. Finally, some aspects of the history of tango are outlined through the biographies of some of its celebrities and its migration from the Río de la Plata to the rest of the world, especially to Europe at the beginning of the XX century.