Sep 22, 2014
"Robert Farris Thompson, a professor of African art at Yale, champions black contributions to Argentina’s national dance in his passionate, polemical new book, Tango: An Art History of Love. Not only are blacks present on the Pampas and in the port city of Buenos Aires, he argues, but their influence has been disproportionate to their numbers. Even more than has previously been acknowledged, the origins of tango are black, via Kongo culture imported from Central Africa and Cuba. Tango, "the fabulous dance of the past hundred years," started life as a creole: "the Kongo grind, caught in a waltz-like embrace."