ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the specific ways in which tango was incorporated into the world economy of passion as one among many exo tic dances. Tango appears as an episode in the long history of colonial manufacturing of the exotic. A typical story line begins with some gentle character driven by the wars among the Europeans into the colonies in search of the pleasures to be found in the mild climates. In tango, the gaze of the colonizer could take a look at itself by looking at the tense, passionate, dramatic steps of the colonized molded into the shape of the colonizer's cast. The production of luxury and of "primitiveness" went hand in hand with the manufacturing of exoticism: Variety was precious and denoted mastery over the world. In addition, the rowdy dancing manners of the urban poor were staged as spectacles for the rich—exotic because of class.
