If Buenos Aires is the mother and Paris the fiance, Beirut is a very late daughter of Tango, one that may have been born as a necessity, in political and cultural conditions similar to those that gave birth to its Argentinean mother.

The planning of its conception probably started in the late eighties and early nineties when various dance schools scattered around Lebanon, were giving ballroom classes including standard Tango in their curriculum.

At that time, Argentinean Tango was truly danced only by few members of the society who had learned its language in workshops they attended abroad, mostly in Paris. Those selected few as well as other dance teachers took the initiative of training others.

In 2003, the stage production of Tango Passion  introduced to Lebanon the Argentinean Tango. Teachers, markedly Los Ocampos, started organizing yearly workshops in the country attended by many.

It was not until 2005 however, that the Tango epidemic started spreading throughout the capital.

In the same year, one of the first public milongas was launched in the heart of West Beirut, in an old little restaurant called Walimat Wardeh.

 For two years - and aside from various tango nights organized within dance schools as practica - this milonga offered Tango addicts a true escape to the otherworld of leg swirling and emotion brewing. In 2008, a blooming of other milongas took the country by surprise.

And while the original portenos struggled to contain their identity through a dance of the people, Lebanese dancers are struggling to thrive and celebrate life in the name of love, passion and a dance called Tango.