Tango and other argentinian dances as intangible cultural heritage

In 2009 - initiated by the Ministry of Culture of the City of Buenos Aires and the Department of Culture of the City Hall of Montevideo the Tango Rioplatense (of the Argentinian and Uruguayan Rio-de-la-Plata area) has been inscribed in the representative list of the UNESCO-program on Intangible Cultural Heritage, being thereby one of only three music-dance genres of the states at the southern Atlantic shores (Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina), that became part of the UNESCO-lists up to now. Inside Argentina folklore dance and music genres have been recognized to represent the national and regional identities, as it was also reflected by Argentinian mid-20th century ethnomusicology (Carlos Vega, Isabel Aretz). It is one-sided therefore (perhaps even misleading) that Argentinian cultural identity is widely perceived as mainly connected to urban tango.