Argentine Tango : History
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   Two dances carry the name Tango. This fact has compounded confusion among 
both dancers and musicians for a long time. Other than the name, the two have 
little in common.
   Spain was the home of the original tango. In that country it is an exhibi-
tion dance performed by a solo dancer who directs the sharp accents of heel 
rhythms, snapping fingers, and flowing arm movements into a blend of both 
classical and gypsy Iberian dance. The music for the Spanish tango has a sharp 
staccato rhythm is usually in 2/4 time.
   In contrast, the social dance used on ballroom floors owes its origin to 
the gauchos, the sturdy cowboys of the Argentine pampas. Both the dance and 
the music have undergone extensive modifications since their inception, dated 
by historians in the 1880s. In Argentina, the original dance bore the name El 
Baile con corte, meaning "the dance with a stop".
   About 1910, the Argentine dance was taken to Europe where exhibition dance 
teams were beginning to be popular in fashionable cafes. It was probably there 
that the Argentine dance acquired the name of the Spanish dance and countless 
innovations were made in the steps and styling. By about 1913, when the tango 
reached the United States, the original music had been supplanted by a throb-
bing habanera rhythm, and steps more like the French apache dance than the 
controlled, catlike movements of the gauchos and their partners. The dancing 
team of Irene and Vernon Castle is credited with returning the dance to the 
more modest styling and rhythm of the Argentine original.

Tango : Music
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   While all social dances are danced to the beat of the music, the tango has 
the added factor of being danced to the phrase. A complete musical phrase in 
the tango consists of eight measures of music, each measure containing four 
beats. Each complete phrase, however, is broken up into four subphrases of two 
measures each. Each subphrase contains eight counts, and it is on these eight 
counts (or beats) that the basic figures of the tango are built.
   Beginning students need to learn to distinguish the musical subphrases in 
order to make their dance pattern phrases coincide. The secret of distinguish-
ing the subphrases lies in the melodic line. The melody for each subphrase is 
completed, or come to a pause, on the count of 8. It then picks up again on 
the following count of 1. The dancers must learn to distinguish both the 
musical phrase (or subphrase) and the underlying rhythmic beat.

Modern Ballroom Dancing
- Victor Silvester
National CL 793.33 SIL
Page 24 on summer 1914 before Queen Mary :-
The actual figures which they made use of were
El Paseo (The Slow Walk)
La Marcha (The Quicker Walk)
El Corte
Paseo con Golpe (The Walk with a Stamp)
La Media Luna
Las Tijeras (the Scissors)
La Rueda (the Wheel)
El Ocho (the Eight)

Spanish names (sometimes French)

Buenos Aires, Argentine
Paris
London