Keeping tango alive

If the city of Buenos Aires had a soundtrack, it would no doubt be filled with tango music. The emotionally-charged music and dance style, which emerged from a mixing of European, African, and indigenous cultures in the 19th century, has become the Buenos Aires’ trademark (at least for outsiders like me), lending form to a sense of nostalgia often associated with porteño culture. When I had the opportunity to spend a few months working in Buenos Aires in 2007, I made a point of visiting a few of the city’s established milongas and even took a few dance lessons. Yet, in my conversations with young artists, writers, and musicians, most expressed little interest in the tango tradition—that was their grandparents’ music.

In 2009, the cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo joined forces to nominate the tradition of tango to the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The list comes out of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage, a UNESCO instrument designed to protect and revitalize culture traditions or living cultural expressions such as oral traditions, performing arts, and festive events. As signatories to the 2003 Convention, States Parties are committed to safeguarding and revitalizing identified intangible heritage in their territories.

So, how does one safeguard and promote the intangible cultural heritage? The Convention itself does not provide specifics, but does state that Parties should report on legislative, regulatory and other measures taken every six years. Last week, at an event hosted by the Americas Society, I had the opportunity to ask Buenos Aires’ Minister of Culture, Hernán Lombardi, what steps Argentina was taking to promote the tango.  He outlined a four-pronged strategy: ensure the existence the traditional tango ensemble, the Orquesta Típica, through festivals and competitions; preserve and disseminate tango scores; promote the production of the bandoneón, the instrument that lends the tango its signature sound; and spark young people’s interest in tango by integrating tango music and dance into school curricula. He added that the best way to interest young people in tango was to link it to the possibility of romance. Lombardi’s office also supports a major annual festival dedicated to tango in both its traditional and contemporary expressions, Tango Buenos Aires.

Have these policy efforts paid off in breathing new life into the tango tradition? I couldn’t find any details of the the Ministry's strategy online, or how much it costs to implement, but will be looking for Argentina’s UNESCO report in 2015.