Milonga

Milonga, an Argentine term with several distinct meanings, perhaps most commonly applied to the dance that was probably the immediate forerunner of the Argentine tango. The milonga of the 1860s and 1870s became, especially after its revival in the 1930s at the hands of talented composers such as Sebastián Piana, part of the standard repertoire of tango bands. The word also means the place where the dance was performed. Hence its development in the 1920s into a virtual synonym for "nightclub" or "cabaret." The young women frequenting such locales also became known, somewhat confusingly, as milongas or milonguitas. The term seems to have been used originally to describe the payadas, the competitive performances of payadores (folksingers accompanying themselves on guitar) common in nineteenth-century Argentina and Uruguay. In colloquial Río de la Plata Spanish, milonga can also mean "difficulty" (as in the expression "life is a milonga") or "vain words." There are two distinct types of milonga: milonga lisa, or "simple" milonga, which calls for the dancer to step on every beat of the music; and milonga con traspíe, a version that focuses on countersteps, in which the dancer constantly changes weight from one foot to the other.

See alsoMusic: Popular Music and Dance; Tango.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Roberto Selles et al., La historia del tango, vol. 12 (1978).

Additional Bibliography

Nudler, Julio. Tango judío: Del ghetto a la milonga. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1998.

Rosboch, María Eugenia. La rebelión de los abrazos: Tango, milonga y danza; Imaginarios del tango en sus espacios de producción simbólica; La milonga y el espectáculo. La Plata, Argentina: Universidad Nacional de la Plata, 2006.

Thompson, Robert Farris. Tango: The Art History of Love. New York: Pantheon, 2005.

                                               Simon Collier