The Tano Tango Festival is not just a festival as many others, but the only European festival which deeply links the guest and the host, both in terms of history and traditions: Naples and Buenos Aires, the Neapolitan song and the tango.

At the end of XIX century, Buenos Aires was a babelish mixture of different languages and ethnical groups: Italians, French, Germans, Spaniards, Jews, blacks of slave origin, as well as many other immigrants escaping from misery, prosecutions or wars, settled in the capital's suburbs. This mixture of different heritages gave birth to Tango, an entirely new cultural genre.

In the last few years tango has been going through a rebirth all over the world, and also in Naples various initiatives have flourished, attracting a large number of people. At present, linking significant touristic interests to tango may be a great opportunity.
The idea underlying the Festival is to create a bridge between the harbors of the two cities , both symbols of immigration, a phenomenon which, for good or evil, so heavily characterised the last two centuries. Through this bridge the ideas, the dreams, the hopes and the memories which still unite us to our faraway kinsmen will freely flow - in both directions, this time.

In order to underline the broader framework of this edition, the festival, which was formerly called "NapoliTano Tango Festival" loses the word "Napoli", keeping only " Tano" in its title. Tano, a short form for "Napolitano", is a word still used In Buenos Aires to indicate all the immigrants of Italian origin, not necessarily of Neapolitan descent. For Argentine people, in a way, all Italians are Napolitanos. For this reason, it was only natural for us to use this word again for a tango festival in Naples, also in the attempt of softening its original derogatory implications.

Thus, the 3° Tano Tango Festival is a journey between Neapolitan culture and Argentine Tango , an ideal bridge between the two cities.

The 3° Tano Tango Festival represents also the journey of Tango to Europe, where our dance brought its vitality and whence it received new energy during its periods of crisis.

The bridge, the journey, the embrace are the souls of the Festival. Its structure has been built upon this intention: a route between Naples and various localities in its suburbs. It is a suggestion not to stop, to go back to (or to visit for the first time) the places that everybody leaving Naples, for choice or necessity, brought with them in their hearts. Naples, Castellammare di Stabia, Ottaviano, S. Giorgio (in the same way as Herculaneum, Vico Equense, Pagani or Pomigliano d'Arco in the past editions), represent places of memories, to be discovered (or rediscovered) with passion, liveliness and (why not) nostalgia: in a nut-shell, the uniqe traits of Tango and of Neapolitan Song.

The 3° Tano Tango Festival is the natural evolution of the activities that Stefi Donisi carried out in the past years to spread Tango culture and to teach tango in its different styles: the significant point of arrival of a continuous, every-day work.

The Tano Tango Festival certainly represents an occasion of exchange and study on tango, its history and its culture, at the same level as other very important international events; we hope it may also constitute a beginning for closer relationships between Naples and Buenos Aires.

The 3° Tano Tango Festival is a leap forward, the fulfillment of our city's touristic vocation, taking advantage of the incredible beauty of Naples and of its surroundings in order to reach a European dimension. Tangueros from all over the world will have the opportunity of compare their different approaches to an art form which is so full of artistical, cultural, behavioral and sociological implications.