It is uncommon that an event has such a level of connection between the organizational forms and criteria on one hand and the content which supports it on the other.
Using the same motto from previous Summits, the slogan of the IX World Tango Summit will be:  “From Seinajoki tango unites cities.”
It was essential to conceive of tango as an urban and contemporary genre and to even imagine a “Tango” territory, like an archipelago of different cities and countries, in order to come up with a project such as the World Tango Summit.  This ensures that one recognizes the legitimacy of the claim that artists, from cities far from the birthplace of tango (Río de la Plata) and its cities Buenos Aires and Montevideo, can perform and recreate tango, not just as a mere copy of a far off culture but rather as a genuine medium to express their own daily urban life.
In the last few years, tango again has found a space in the cultural life of today´s cities.
The Summit artistic programme will offer traditional performances just as much as experimental or avant-garde pieces.  The different phases in the evolution of tango throughout its history can be appreciated in the Summit as aesthetic options of the present moment.  Instrumental tango, tango dance and tango song will have equal prominence.  In the same way, tango in poetry, in the cinema, in fine arts will also have their space and time.

The Seinajoki Summit will have three specific considerations in mind related to previous points:

- For the first time, a Tango Summit will take place in the Northern Hemisphere which is a country of non-latino origin.

- It is important to consider that, unlike hosting cities of previous summits, Seinjoki is located in a country that creates its own tango.  In this way, the summit in Finland will connect the tango that was mothered by the cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo with the tango of Finland.  This link will possibly generate future bases for new artistic adventures.

- If it is often perceived that tango is associated with night-time activities, the main event of the Summit in a cold Scandinavian country will take place under a midnight sun, which gives this ninth summit an extraordinary element.