UNLOCK ARGENTINE TANGO’S PAST
TO BUILD TANGO’S FUTURE TOGETHER.

Daniel Trenner is a professional dancer, coming up on his 50th year in dance, and 40th in Tango. He landed in Argentina by fate, or coincidence, following a tango love story to Buenos Aires, in 1987, guest teaching jazz and improvisation at the State School of Contemporary Dance, and discovering Tango at it’s re-emergence, after 30 years of political repression.

He is one of the important characters of the first generation of revival youth, and an accidental anthropologist, as he studied from, interviewed, and filmed many of the last generation of Tango Elders in the 1980s and 90s. He went on to begin Tango tourism (Bridge to the Tango Tours), bringing more than 1500 visitors to Buenos Aires in the 1990s, started the Tango Catalogue (1996), which was the first Tango store in North America, toured extensively in the north, teaching social tango, and earning the nickname of “The Johnny Appleseed of Tango”.

He settled in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 2002, after almost 20 years on the road, and founded the Tango House, Casa 62, first as an experiment in alternative elder care, for his aging parents, and also creating an “alternative extended family” of friends and dancers. It also has become the home of his Tango Archive, his intensive study opportunities, and a co-living household.

He taught at the Five Colleges (Smith, Mt Holyoke, Hampshire, Amherst, & UMASS Amherst) as a lecturer and coach from 2004-2020. He is semi retired since the pandemic, focused on building the archive, receiving guests, and writing.

The Archive was originally created as part of International Tango Productions, 1996-2002. The company that ran the Tango Catalogue, the Bridge to the Tango Tours operation, and Daniel’s touring and local classes.

In 2002 he sold ITP to the owners of Solo Tango, the Tango TV Station based in Buenos Aires in the 1990s, and since defunct. He retained ownership of the videos he produced, signing a 15 year non-compete that ended in 2017. Since then he has been focused on creating this online portal to the Archive. For a time it was known as ITangoCafe, but in order to have clarity about what the Archive is and where it came from Daniel decided to brand it with his own name in 2023.

So, Trenner’s Bridge to the Tango (1987- 1990s) became International Tango Productions (1996-2002) became ITangoCafe (2017-2023) became Trenner’s Tango Archive (2023- the present)

Tango’s earliest references start in the late 19th Century, as an Argentine Music and Dance. It was associated with working class culture and considered vulgar and in bad taste by the upper class. Dancing it was even considered an ex-communicable offense by the Church, until the Pope saw an exhibition in Italy, before WW1, and changed his mind.

Tango became well known internationally between the World Wars, and branches to the Tango Family of dances appeared in European, and American Ballroom Dance circles.

However, within Argentina major evolutions in music and dance occurred beginning in the 1930s, resulting in the creation of the music and dance we now recognize as the “traditional” Argentine versions of the form. These changes occurred as the world fell into the cataclysm of WW2, and thus Argentine culture developed in isolation during this period.

So the Golden Age of Tango is a period of approximately 20 years from the mid 30s to the mid 50s. The social dance was transformed into the dance we recognize now, evolving in isolation during the whole of this period, and that’s why it is so different form its Ballroom Tango cousins in the north. The music genre of Tango also evolved during this period, unbeknownst to the world at large, and that’s why its large canon still remains relatively obscure. (That is why Daniel devoted a section of the Tango Catalogue in the 1990s specifically to introducing traditional dance orchestras, which had never been available in North America before.)

During this, Tango’s golden age, Argentina was at peace, selling supplies and agricultural goods to both sides during WW2. Argentine’s did not go to war, and the society prospered. Working people had money for going out, young people were escaping the confines of protective family culture, and, in the city of Buenos Aires there was a culture of music, dance, and parties, one which owed it’s ubiquity to the wealth, freedom, and nihilism of this Tango based, Gangster-like, “party like the world is coming to an end” feeling.

When World War 2 ended, and reconstruction began, throughout the late 40s and early 50s, Argentina began to suffer from the competition with growing peacetime economies in the north, and corruption in the south.

By the mid 50s the Argentine economy had collapsed, and the military began taking charge, beginning a period of oppressive, autocratic rule that would last until the early 1980s, almost 30 years. During this period, art, music, dance, and other cultural forms that were considered to be anti-establishment were suppressed. Social gatherings were suppressed. Progressive politics was suppressed. Tango people either were driven underground, or left the country.

Tango’s modern Revival refers to a number of different factors, slightly different for Music and Dance, and within the dance itself.

Tango music was suppressed because of the social world around it being suppressed. But, oddly, the conventional dance style of Orchestral Tango Music was preferred by the older generations of Argentines of all political stripes. Astor Piazzolla, was an exceptional bandoneon-ista and composer, who lived apart, in exile for decades, like many artists who were suppressed, and led a revolution in new tango music, but from the outside. He returned to Buenos Aires in the 80s after the return of the democracy, was received as a returning hero, and influenced the revival generation of musicians, which seeded modern Argentine Music of all varieties, including the tango fusion music that some of us also dance to in modern times.

Tango Performance Dancing survived in a much reduced way during the years of the dictatorships. But Tango Shows continued to have success overseas, giving steady work to a small generation of Stage Dancers. Many of them are viewable here in the Archive. (See the Historical Category). With the big successes of the Broadway Show Tango Argentino, and the Touring shows Forever Tango, Tango X2, and others, Tango Dance as a Performance Art survived and the Stars returned to their homes in Buenos Aires, where they continued to pass on their skills to a new generation of Stage Performers, and supported a small sector of Tango Tourist Houses in the city.

Tango Dancing, Milonguero (Social) Style, however, had a much harder road to survival. Decades of little, and much reduced social dancing circles in Buenos Aires, led to a lack of skilled tango youth, and a lack of interest in, and attendance in Tango Social venues. Young dancers in the 70s,80s and 90s preferred Rock and Roll, Tropical, and Folk dancing. Dancers outside of Argentina were exposed only to Tango’s ballroom cousins. The elder social dancers in BsAs felt that the form would die with their generation, and they were almost right. In the 80s, following the return of democracy, social Tango venues were populated almost exclusively by elders. And when youth appeared they were criticized for their choices to dance fancy steps (and poorly) in social settings, for dressing poorly, and inadvertently turned away.

Fortunately some of the elder teachers persisted in teaching the youth how to social dance. (See Miguel & Nelly, Pupy Castello, Mingo & Esther, Pocho Pizzaro, Rodolfo & Maria, Juan Bruno, Tete & Maria, and others, all in the Archive. Slowly a new generation grew.

And this new generation changed the Tango. Women dancing in the 1980s and beyond had Ballet and Modern Dance training, leading to an evolution in Tango Technique. There was experimentation in Tango Pedagogy leading to new styles of teaching, and eventually of dancing.

The Archive is strongest in covering Tango’s resurgence and evolution in the late 1980s through the beginning of the 2000s, before the advent of YouTube, Google, and the Smart Phone. This video collection offers a unique lens into the last group of authentic Tango Elders, and the first generation of the Revival’s Tango Youth.

Please help us continue to grow the archive. Only about half of the collection is digitized. Be a subscriber. Rent videos. And, most importantly, share about us in your social media and on your mailing lists. We hope this resource will remain available to dancers and historians into the Tango’s future.

Salon, Orillero & Canyengue are words most often used to describe the range of styles during Tango’s Golden Age (late 1930s- early 1950s). You are most likely to hear these words being used in the Archive by the last generation of Tango Elders.

In the early revival Salon and Fantasia were used to describe social and performance Tangos.

More recently we see the introduction of “Apilado” or Close Embrace, and traditional Salon or Open Embrace Salon styles, which describes an evolution of social styles towards ones that minimize decorative vocabulary while emphasizing the close embrace, versus the open style of Nuevo, where many elements of decoration that belonged to the stage tango are incorporated into social improvisational vocabulary.

More emphasis is now being placed on learning technique, which when applied to any and all oft he styles, is expanding the range of possibilities available to social dancers.

And in this conversation we need to include further evolutions in social dancing including the Exchange of Lead and Follow, where dancers are encouraged to learn and execute both roles, and further interchange roles within a dance. Also, Tango Fusion, which refers to the combining of Tango with other dances, including Swing (Swango), and Contact improvisation (Contact Tango). Lastly there is Queer Tango, where expectations around who dances each role are deconstructed, and gender prescriptions are dissolved.

You can find examples of all of these variations within the Archive. See the next question about subscriptions and Bundles.

—— Subscriptions with full access to Trenner's Tango Archive materials for longer term study:

- The Monthly Subscription is $49.99 / month.

- There is an Annual Subscription giving full access to Trenner's Tango Archive for $480.00 / year. (Best value

- 20% cheaper than the Monthly Subscription for full access.

- Our Supporter Subscription is $1,000/ yearly access to all the Trenner's Tango Archive. If you can afford to help us, this is an ideal way to do so.

If you are able to offer even more support, please contact us directly.

—There are different monthly Subscriptions to access certain specific materials at lower prices depending on the amount of each instructional material available in each subscription:

- Beginner Subscription. What we recommend so you don’t get bogged down, and can dance asap.

- Intermediate & Advanced Subscription: Training for Experienced Dancers. Our recommendations for ongoing study.

- Interviews Subscription: Tango History, Philosophy and Culture from the Milonguer@s.

- Follower’s Technique Subscription: Tango Movement Practice. Hint. It’s for all dancers.

- Close Embrace (Apilado) - Specialty Instruction.

- Tango Nuevo Subscription - 1st Generation Seeds. Changes to Tango’s modern Vocabulary began in the 80s and 90s.

- Exchange of Lead & Follow / Intercambio Subscription - 1st Generation Evolutions in the learning of Lead & Follower Roles.

- Creating Tango Choreography - Step by Step lessons for Screen and Stage Performance.

—— Rentals: You can now rent every video in the archive. Renting is another access alternative to subscribing. Renting means you have access to the video you rent for 1-7 days from $1.99 - $4.99, depending on the video length.

Short individual Clips, approx. 3ish minutes, are least expensive, and viewable for 2 days.

Longer individual clips are still inexpensive and viewable for 3 days.

Individual Instructional Videos, 1 hour-ish, are a little more expensive and viewable for 1 week.

—— Bundles are created for working with any one artist, or artists, with multiple programs, for one month’s rental at a time.

The cost is about 20% less than what you would pay for renting the programs one at a time, and available for 1 month, after which you will have to renew the rental of the same Bundle in order to keep working with the material.

Bundles have been created for artists teaching 2 or more hours of classes. Shorter clips are included for no extra charge. Bundles are available on the individual page for any video within the bundle.

To purchase a gift subscription, scroll to the bottom of any page on the website and click “Buy a Gift Card” in the footer. You’ll need to log into your account or create one if you don’t already have one. Then, select the subscription or bundle you’d like to gift, choose the duration of the gift, and complete your purchase by entering your payment details. After purchasing, you’ll receive a confirmation page and a confirmation email with the gift code, and a shareable link that you can send to your recipient.

To redeem a gift subscription, use the link shared with you by the gift sender. Clicking the link will automatically apply the gift to your account. If you don’t already have an account, you’ll be prompted to create one.