Florencio Sánchez and the "canillita", reason of a tango inspiration.

By Néstor Pinsón (from Todo Tango)

In January 1, 1868 Dr. Manuel Bilbao did something that can be regarded as a breakthrough for journalism. Up to that time newspapers were sent to their subscribers by mail, or they were bought at the printer's shop itself. But when the paper "La República" appeared for the first time, founded by Bilbao himself along with Alejandro Bernheim, citizens were surprised by hearing for the first time in downtown streets the voices of some boys crying out: «La República at one peso!». But not only the street newspaper vendor appeared but also the shock of an important discount. It meant a great success and soon was imitated by his colleagues. The innovation crossed the borders and it even reached France.

Gradually permanent street stands were installed and soon the number of boys agile and strong to run along the streets a race against time came to spread as soon as possible the impact of news, many times exaggerated or half made-up. The boys found their task restrained by the abundant presence of kids; it was a time of misery, of an alarming lack of jobs, so the kids brought the possibility to get some more cents for their income to many families. Furthermore they were sought after because they were faster and more daring than the older ones.

They swiftly got up and got off streetcars -their preferred vehicle-, they left one and immediately caught another, without caring for its direction and making exclusive use of their intuition for sale.

A new character had appeared in the landscape of the city of Buenos Aires and quickly the same happened in the cities of the interior of the country. But the street newsboy had not still the name that distinguished him in a special way. We had to wait until 1904 for that.

The word "canilla" derives from the Latin word "canella" that is the diminutive of "canna", cane in Spanish. The dictionary defines the term: "the long bone of legs and arms".

On January 17th, 1875 Florencio Sánchez was born in Montevideo.

Since he was 16 he devoted to journalism working for different Uruguayan media and when he was still very young he decided that his future was in theater, he dreamed of becoming a playwright.

He arrived for the first time in Buenos Aires in 1892. In La Plata he worked as clerk in an office where the boss was Juan Vucetich, a famous police official and inventor of the fingerprint system (1858-1925). His first works were written in this city. In 1902 he traveled to Rosario, province of Santa Fe, to work as editor-in-chief in the newspaper La República founded by Lisandro de la Torre.

The world of journalism inspired him and he wrote a theater play, a small one-act play with three scenes. The main character is a boy who sells newspapers. He was looking for a title, but he was touched by one of the Rosario boys with extremely thin legs. Spontaneously the word "canillita" sprang up and so he named his play.

A Spanish theater company devoted to zarzuelas, the one led by Enrique Lloret, agreed to stage it. It was premiered on October 1, 1902. The main role was carried out by the "tiple" (soprano or treble voice) of the group, a certain Mrs. Iñíguez, according to what is written in the program that detailed the cast. "Tiple" is the highest human voice, typical of women and children.

The play was staged to great acclaim, to such an extent that it was performed for twelve consecutive nights. By that time, Florencio was in need of money, he lived nearly in misery. Furthermore he longed for marrying his one and only fiancée, who finally became his wife.

In 1903, he met the actor and impresario Jerónimo Podestá who premiered his title: "M'hijo el Dotor" to great acclaim.

Due to this he dared to suggest the company staging his one-act play "Canillita" in Buenos Aires. By that time there were no children acting at plays, instead young women that possessed that ability played the part of kids. The chosen one was who would be later the famous actress Blanca Podestá.

The repercussion of "Canillita" was beyond the expectations. Critics wrote praising the play. The "newsboys" fully identified themselves with the name. Then, of common accord with the artists, a performance with free admission for all the newspaper vendors was organized. The event took place at the Teatro Comedia, the one located on Carlos Pellegrini Street, between Cangallo and Cuyo (now Presidente Perón and Sarmiento). The appointment was on a Sunday at 2:30 pm. The attendance exceeded the capacity of the room and noisily celebrated the simple lines of the pieces that were sung and they even tried to take part in the play when the police arrested the "canillita". They did not see the difference between fiction and reality yet, like in the old days happened with the play "Juan Moreira".

Florencio had tuberculosis, and as he had saved some money he traveled to Europe. But just like in tango, his ill body did not resist any longer. He was taken to the "Fate bene Fratelli" hospital of Milano where he died on November 7, 1910. Years later that day was consecrated as "El Día del Canillita" (The Newsboy Day) as homage to our dear Florencio Sánchez.

There are other data that tried to explain the meaning of the word, some of them rooted in popular beliefs, according to each case. It was said that this nickname was born when in wintertime somebody saw the kids with their noses dripping like a faucet. (Canilla also means faucet in Spanish)

In 1957 in the readers' letters section published in the newspaper La Nación, a Uruguayan gentleman, old distributor of papers, regarded himself as the creator of the term. He recalled in the letter, that at the turn of the nineteenth century he had a vendor kid, son of a woman called María Canilla. On one occasion that he had to call him from a certain distance and as he did not know his name, he shouted "Canillita". Later the term was applied for all newspaper vendors.

A couple of articles published some years before chronicle the life of María E. de Ísola, known at her time as "La China María". She died in 1934 at age 82. He was regarded as the first woman who sold newspapers, always near or based at the corner of Rivadavia and 25 de Mayo.

Florencio Sánchez in his play "Canillita", with poetic simplicity, describes the features of the character when in the first scene the latter appears on stage and begins to sing the following quatrains:

Soy canillita gran personaje con poca guita y muy mal traje. Algo travieso desfachatado chusco y travieso gran descarado. Soy embustero soy vivaracho y aunque cuentero no mal muchacho... (al final) Muy mal considerado por mucha gente soy bueno, soy honrado no soy pillete y para un diario soy un elemento muy necesario.

(I am a newsboy a guy that's funny with little money And quite poor clothes.) (A bit mischievous boldfaced, not serious witty in his game nothing of shame.) (I'm a big liar and sorta frisky though I'm a cheater but I'm not risky... ) (to finale) (Though many here don't like me at all I'm good, not queer with honest goals) (Not a rascal, I say because the paper wants me here to stay despite my capers)

The second scene begins with a "pasacalle". So is called in the Spanish género chico when before a secondary or short curtain, a musical scene takes place while time is made for the change of clothes and scenography. They are five quatrains sung by several kids, the best are the first three:

Vendemos los diarios en esta ciudad por calles y plazas boliches y bares... La Nación, La Prensa Patria y Standard se venden lo mismo que si fueran pan. Llevamos nosotros la curiosidad por diez centavos que el público da.

(We sell newspapers in this city, in streets and squares, cheap places and barrooms...) (La Nación, La Prensa Patria and Standard are sold as if they were bread.) (We satisfy the curiosity of people for ten cents.)

Movies were as well concerned with this issue. On June 26, 1936 the film "Canillita" was premiered, with the actors Gregorio Cicarelli, Benita Puértolas (mother of the remembered TV conductor Héctor Coire), Lopecito and the singers Amanda Ledesma and Príncipe Azul. The Pedro Maffia Orchestra played a tango with the same name composed by Julio César Sanders and Daniel López Barreto, with lyrics by César Felipe Vedani.

On June 8, 1938 the movie "El canillita y la dama" was premiered, with Luis Sandrini and Rosita Moreno, directed by Luis César Amadori.

Tango, as it was quite likely, gave birth to many pieces about this subject and with the same title.

Besides the above-mentioned, there are other tangos "Canillita": one composed by Carlos Pibernat, recorded by Julio De Caro on October 22, 1925; another by Francisco Canaro, who firstly recorded it with his orchestra on March 31, 1936 and later with his Quinteto Pirincho on December 19, 1956. The Cuarteto del Centenario recorded it as well in 1978.

There are, besides, three written pieces that were hardly committed to record, one composed by Alfonso Gallardo, another by H. Toto and lastly, one by Osmán Pérez Freire with lyrics by Antonio Viergol.

As well the brothers Enrique and Carlos Saborido published a piece titled "Caras

y caretas", and subtitled "El canillita".

Another tango "Canillita canillita", even though in some discographies appears as "Canillita", was composed by Tomás De Bassi and Antonio Botta. It was recorded on December 29, 1925 by Agustín Magaldi, that same year was also recorded by the Osvaldo Fresedo orchestra and in 1928 by Sofía Bozán with the orchestra led by Francisco Pracánico.

Besides other titles concerning this subject, we end this note mentioning the t

rue homage meant by the tango "Para vos canilla" written by Horacio Quintana and Gutiérrez Martín. It was recorded by Rubén Juárez with the Carlos García orchestra, in his first record in 1969 and, later, reprised by Hugo del Carril with the orchestra led by Armando Pontier on July 7, 1971.

From The Rin to the Arrabal: The lost Fueyes

By Natalia Lifchitz
translated by Dolores Iglesias Rocha

"It bodders me to confess it

but life is also a bandoneón"
(Mario Benedetti)

The bandoneón and the tango are almost inseparable, an ideal couple, two faces of the same coin. From the songs dedicated to the instrument to the opinion of experts, it is unquestionable the inveterate ligature that has been established starting with the approach of the "fueye" (bellows, slang for bandoneón), between it and the music that cradled it, incorporating it immediately.

Gold Cradle?

In spite the fact that there are diverse versions about the birth of the bandoneón, the strongest says that its invention was in charge of the German Heinrich Band (originally from Hamburg) in the year 1835. The wind instrument, composed by a bellows, with a wooden box and keyboard with forty four buttons, was at first created with the purpose of cheering up the Bavarian peasants and also, to supplant the organ, though supporting its solemnity in the countryside masses. The bandoneón way then, at first played a more sacrum roll rather than artistic, that is why some compare it to the harmonium.
Its the first denomination -band-union- naturally derived from the creator's last name and apparently, a sort of cooperative in charge of solventing its fabrication.
Its following names were bandonión, bandolión, bandoleón, mandolín and mandoleón.

The first samples arrived in Buenos Aires at the end of the nineteenth century, presumably around 1870. The versions on its arrival also vary: apparently it was introduced by a German sailor (although there are those who say that he could have been English or Brazilian). Some assure that it was José Santa Cruz, one of Mitre´s soldiers that was coming back from a victorious war of the Triple Alliance, the first one who played the instrument since he might have obtained it from a barter for clothes and victuals, done the deal with a blond crewman from a German freight-carrier moored to the Rio de la Plata.
Now the question would be why did the bandoneón failed in its native land and had, instead such favorable welcome in this region. One possible answer would be that "a new intrument like this one, was destined to failure in such an old town, and it was precisely this particular young and turbulent land who inserted a heart into that small wooden box, turning it into the tango's sonorous spokesman, in its own soul.

"Like a child whose mother has abandoned"

At the beginning, the first bandoneones with forty-four or fifty-three knobs performed tango without accompaniment in intimate parties of family ones. It was Domingo Santa Cruz (son of José, the soldier) who incorporated it to the musical ensemble. The tangos were performed by flutes tercets, guitar and violin. Occasionally the accordion or mandolín and the harmonic were included.
Later, when included the bandoneón, it began displacing the flute until it took a stand and became the star of the ensemble.
Some changes were also made on the button knobs, the instrument evolved including seventy one keys (that is thirty eight buttons on the singing box and thirty three on the lower one) becoming diatonic, that means that it would play different sounds when it was opened and when closing it. According to Zucchi "the bandoneón has a dual artistic feature: when opening the bellows, its sonority is brilliant and clear, but when closed it sounds extinct, muffled, as well as noisy and quarrelsome, as if they were fighting between beatitude and the malindraje".
The country that purchased most of the bandoneones (mostly manufactured, in general, by the German Alfred Arnold) since 1922 until 1930 was Argentina, and the instrument in the advertisement proclaimed to be "the ideal one for a perfect interpretation of argentine tango".
With the inclusion of the instrument in the tango, this last one earned more harmonic richness richness and varied the role of the rest of the instruments, and to its influence it adopted a more deep grumbling tone due to the "sonorous" color of the bandoneón, and basically varied its rhythm.

Since the bandoneón was a totally unknown instrument, there was no previous experience in order to make possible the application of resources originated from other musical genres. But, it had the capacity of being an instrument willing to learn and mold, and that is precisely what made possible its quick affirmation and consolidation in tango, and improntu creative performance typically Creole.
At first, the teaching of the instrument was rather difficult, considering that there existed no competent teachers, and the conservatories considered that it was degrading to include it as a subject. Once the experienced executants would learn the pieces "by ear", that would pass them on to the beginners, teaching them the hand settings, not knowing which note corresponded to such key, being their only guide the ciphers on each knob. Considering this, it was even possible to "pass on" a piece by mail (letter).

"Its the one that expresses what I want to say"

There is no doubt that it is difficult to try to explain in a rational way the relationship between the tango composer and the tango. In any case, it would be more judicious to suggest poetically an idea of this wise and profound communion between them.
Ever since the beginning, it has been established a relationship between them, a relationship of mutual forsakes: both accompany each other in solitude. The bandoneón stops being a simple musical instrument, to replace the inseparable singer and the poet. Both share a deep sorrow, a dark anguish, a restrained cry, the cry that can only come out if certain poetry is supported by the sweet and sonorous melody of the bandoneón. Its the instrument that traduces most faithfully sleepless nights and the grief of the poet, its it who with its melancholic and deaf complaints intones the pain impossible to even name with words.
Its notorious and persistent the personification of the figure of the bandoneón in the very many songs that name it (Calla bandoneón! ...calla por favor!).
Clearly the bandoneón is neither for the poets or interpreters a simple instrument, but a friend, which can comprehend, and can also be the voice, whether its what one's voice can no longer intone, the ring and tone that complement the voice with a griefless perfection.
It is also the witness, sometimes mute of the poets sorrow and always, in comparison to the traitor woman, its loyal and faithful to its interpreter.
It has in itself the dichotomy, the sadness and sweetness, expresses the deep melancholy of the tango and exalts it to its limits. Without him, the tango would lack of its most deep and plaintive notes.
Cries the bandoneón, and so does the tango when they get together, it is there where thay acquire the style, its true nostalgic spirit, the broken melody, there dwells its charm, in the profound grief of the bandoneón.

Glossary:

Definition:

• Portable wind instrument of single with notes vertical keys (chord-keys free) operated by a bellows played with both hands on the right and left side of the bellows.
  There exist chromatic models, on which by pressing a key the sound is the same, whether when opening it or when closing the bellows, an achromatic bi-sonorous, in which by pressing one same key will emit two different notes according to whether its while opening it or by closing the bellows, this is why the chords vary.
  

• Accordeón: Cretaed in Viena, Austria in 1829 by Cyrillus Damián . In our country it was known since Juan Manuel de Rosas´s epoch and the black musician Jorge Machado would play it in the wild milongas in San Telmo.

• 
  Concertina: The date of its creation is uncertain, and it is due to the fact that the German Carl Uhling, luthier and clarinet solo player. For each key, whether when closing or opening the bellows, one would obtain a different note which would constitute the germ of the creation of the bi-sonorous.

The old tango was once young

By Edgardo Ritacco
translated by Dolores Iglesias Rocha

Tango has always been a young phenomenon.

The splendor of its composers (Eduardo Arolas, Vicente Greco, Agustín Bardi, to name some of the few) took place in the post-adolescent era.

At first, tango was impudent, optimistic, immensely creative, subtly violent, unstoppable.

Curiously, the first that threw some cold water to such fervor of fueyes and feverish raptures were the ones that were then called “los de la guardia nueva” (the new generation).

Julio De Caro was not inflexible. On the contrary. His orchestra could get in the ring with the music stands and musical scores. Many looked at him as if he were weird. What did the tango have to do with all that paper work, like the director once said, if there would be a wind stroke, would the musicians be clueless?

As a paradox, when the guardia nueva began to settle down, the tango started loosing fire, the improvisation and the surprise of the heroic times. But in those times, (20´s decade, beginning of 30´s), its protagonists were still young.

The last half of the 30´s decade showed the first decay of tango. All of a sudden the death of Gardel, followed by the death of Agustín magaldi, held back fire from the singer’s bonfire, and the people began to withdraw their support. The orchestras were living hard times: pro-men like Osvaldo Fresedo, for example, would come back from the United States with their ears filled with Jazz, and from the boxes would create a spectacle of three foreign songs for each tango.

Only Juan D´Arienzo riding the excessive pride rhythmic back of his extraordinary pianist Rodolfo Biaggi, would fight the match without giving or asking for a truce.

But when starting the 40´s the great porteño scenario had already been staged. The bleechers and cafés were flooded with orchestras. There was a time when there were almost 300 orchestras playing simultaneously in the different neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. The most popular names were downtown. The rest were spread throughout the neighborhoods, trying to earn merit so as to enter the small circuit in the heart of the city. “I would not go beyond Patricios and Pompeya – the inmense Horacio Salgán recognized one day to the journalist – We had to do our homework very well, so as to be able to loom downtown.”

But the 40´s were not the result of the first youth. The protagonists were already around their thirties and forties. There was no longer the rebelliousness of Arolas, nor the genial unconsciousness of Gobbi senior. Everything had been changed for everyone’s own style, the orchestration plus the growth of the singers, which were no longer chansonniers to become one more instrument in the orchestras.

The 40´s was the explosion of tango. But rather a nostalgic explosion: many plots talked about the past that will never come again, like the magic 1920 that A pan y agua proclaims; he names guapos (studs) that no longer inhabited the porteño streets, they mourn the genre becoming more French-like (“eras un varón / sencillo y compadrón / de una palabra sola / rimaba tu cantar / con la emoción triunfal / del bandoneón de Arolas / pero empezó tu decadencia / cuando te dieron tanta ciencia / y hoy rezongándote cabrero / un lagrimón fulero / enturbia tu canción”, Tango de otros tiempos complains).

The 40´s tango was a dance hall tango, a tango with extraordinary musicians ( the sprout of Aníbal Troilo, the stylish adjustments of Osvaldo Pugliese, the mixture of stars with Miguel Caló, the notorious impetus of Ricardo Tanturi, the strength of D´Arienzo, the experimenting of Francini-Pontier, the canyengue precision of Alfredo Gobbi). And also the explosion of the tango singers, that may as well have a chapter of their own. But was already a middle age phenomenon.

Today, after the long night of the second decadence of tango (60´s and 70´s decades, over all), young people have come around and gotten closer to tango and its compass, to its ritual and its dance. They do it their own way, with a seal of their own, mixing Piazzolla with the primitive bands with flute and guitar, deconstructing it a bit and also respecting another bit. Maybe that is why it is now again a phenomenon of the most powerful years, the resurrection of tango may be more real than ever.

At last.

Article from ABCTango

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24tango
Location:London

My introduction to dancing Tango was a gift given to me over 7 years ago by a dear friend to whom I am forever grateful. It has changed my life forever since.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Negracha: One more of our London milongas

It is that time of the year again when we hear that every milonga starts to get going again with some trouble and gusto.

London tango scene can be very entertaining depending on what taste of milonga one has. The popular middle of the road (traditional tango) music dictates the music choice by almost all London milongas. In other words the dreaded safe populist approach rules the greater if not most or even all of an evening's music in all London regular milongas.

Naturally there are variations between the milongas but they are mostly run under similar guidelines for the type of the music that organisers believe is liked by "the majority".

It is in the light of that above that a few milongas have started to make their mark against the popular. One of these milongas is called Negracha Tango Club where there is a specific effort made to make the choice of music more varied, entertaining, challenging and certainly more of the European tango dancing influence.

Even at Negracha Tango Club they are careful not to brake the mould completely and they have devised the plan of playing different music at the two separate dance floors where one is dedicated to traditional and the other "Electrica Tango".

The Negracha Tango Club has been truly nomadic for over a year now, it has been hosted in 4 different locations to date but it still finds a good following whenever it it finds a home to be hosted and run and this Friday, 13 January will be its first late evening milonga of the year. Their website of www.negrachatangoclub.com usually updates the dates and the location where they are running their milonga in London.

The current place has fabulous two floors , good sound system, great space to dance at and the touch of entertainment that is unique to Ivan who organises and runs the Negracha. He always has a special movie or some multimedia ready program to show his guests as well as treating everyone to more of modern music than others would normally dare in London milongas.

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Share information and ideas about argentine tango in the UK and further afield. This is the main mailing list for tango events and groups all over the UK, from London to Aberdeen, Cardiff to Cambridge. Also includes links to all the tango groups and teachers in Britain (England, Wales, Scotland), and addresses of organisers of tango around the country.

Passion parade

© Witold Krassowski/Network


Young Polish professionals have discovered the delights of the Tango. Witold Krassowski photographed at a dance academy which gives lessons in the surprising location of the former Communist militia in Warsaw


Young people in Warsaw are flocking to learn the old time Argentinian tango. Polish yuppies and professionals have enthusiatically welcomed the arrival of an Academy of Tango in their city. Bored with rock and roll, they have grasped at another trendily pastime. Some hope to meet the big love of their life, though they wouldn't care to admit it. The first sessions took place in the former club of the hated communist militia, right next to their notorious headquarters in the Mostowski Palace. Every Wednesday more and more bored young hopefuls congregated in this dark, socialist-realistic environment to experience the double thrill of tango and former danger.Young people in Warsaw are flocking to learn the old time Argentinian tango. Polish yuppies and professionals have enthusiatically welcomed the arrival of an Academy of Tango in their city. Bored with rock and roll, they have grasped at another trendily pastime. Some hope to meet the big love of their life, though they wouldn't care to admit it. The first sessions took place in the former club of the hated communist militia, right next to their notorious headquarters in the Mostowski Palace. Every Wednesday more and more bored young hopefuls congregated in this dark, socialist-realistic environment to experience the double thrill of tango and former danger.



The venue became too crowded and, overwhelmed with success, the Academy had to organise extra sessions every Monday in the former casino of the equally feared secret police. This place lacks the heavy atmosphere of socialist architecture but is much more appropriate for teaching the tango. And the crowds keep coming. The teachers are mainly dance enthusiasts, all young, some expatriates. A few are studying, most have jobs, all give energy and time to sustain their passionate pasttime. They can do incredible things with their legs.



The tango meetings evenings start around 8 p.m. and the atmosphere builds up slowly as more people arrive. First, couples interested in polishing up their tango technique try new steps in the almost empty room. The crowd grows thicker and the bar serves drinks at full speed. Things heat up. Technique goes out the window as emotion and imagination take over. Liaisons take place and some last beyond the dancing. Aspiring newcomers look on from the sidelines, curious at the relaxed but volatile scene before them. At midnight, on the dot, the clientele leave in a cloud of all-pervasive tobacco.

Watch your step with the tango: It's addictive

By Margaret Putnam / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

I'd been warned. The rapids are treacherous and the current swift. Once you step in, watch out. It doesn't take long to be swept away.
Those rapids - otherwise known as the Argentine tango - have claimed plenty of victims. Valorie and Alberto, for instance, gave up lucrative careers to tango. Beth resisted for a while, quitting, returning, quitting and now back at it. Eiko is definitely a goner - she took up tango four years ago and soon found it impossible to return to Japan.

I fear I'm next. Already I've skipped two ballet classes, rushed from a flamenco show to get to a Sunday afternoon session, plunked down $60 for a private lesson, practiced tango steps on the streets late at night while walking the dog and danced on and on despite feet that ache so badly I wonder if I'll make it to the car. And it's not even a week.

Only last Friday I had laughed when Leonard responded to my question about what other kinds of dances did he do. "Tango is the only dance," he said.

I think he's right.

Tango is the Everest of social dance. Impossible. Demanding. Intricate. And therefore irresistible.

"The geometry, the navigation and the balance captivate men," says Valorie Hart, who with her partner, Alberto Paz, is in town to teach a three-week tango workshop sponsored by Tango Argentino Dallas and the city of Dallas.

"Engineers go wild over the infinite mathematical possibilities." She mentions likewise lawyers, architects, artists. "Tango has become the darling of the professional classes. In the old days it was the working class and the middle class."
People who spend too much time staring at computer screens and talking on cell phones discover, through tango, the heady pleasures of physical reality. Suddenly, the body counts for something. And the isolation and distance built in to most forms of modern work disappear in a flash the minute a man steps forward to embrace a woman.

With that embrace, the rest of the world falls away. The music takes over. Even in the cold florescent glare of KC Dance Studio where some of the workshop classes are held, my partner listens, I listen, both of us waiting for the moment to take that first smooth step to the side. Then I'm moving backward, to the side, forward again, gliding like a miniature liner through unresisting ocean.

"Stay connected," Alberto exhorts, surveying the dancers from the middle of the studio. The tango requires uncanny cooperation between man and woman and woe to anyone who loses focus. This is not the fox trot or the waltz, for which you learn a pattern and repeat it, ad infinitum. There are steps and patterns, to be sure, but they're only a base, and the possibilities of variation are infinite. To tango is to improvise, and to improvise with a partner requires intense concentration.

Not that we start out in the workshop improvising. Alberto starts us with the basics: the tango walk, a stealthy stride placing one foot directly in front of the other, thighs crossed, upper body moving slightly in countermotion. Then the side-back-side-front pattern.

We practice, and practice and practice. Amazing how much there is to learn, about balance, keeping connected, turning out the legs ever so slightly on the side step, shifting the weight, keeping the rhythm.

Overconfident at the end of the second lesson - after all, I've had decades of ballet training - I approach Alberto with a question. He eases me into his arms. I move before he does. "No!" he barks. We start over. "No! Why are you swinging your leg?" he says. We begin again, and once more, before we get to the end of even a complete pattern, I've done something wrong. "What are you doing?" he asks incredulously, trying to explain that the leg doesn't initiate the movement - my wonderful ballet training - but the upper body.

The two-minute lesson is a revelation. And after that, every time Alberto glides over to me, hand outstretched, I quake, ego on the line. But each brief encounter yields tremendously helpful information, and I improve on the spot. Think what a private lesson could do, I reason, and Tuesday I find myself in the Oak Lawn apartment where Alberto and Valorie are staying and spend 90 minutes dancing with him on a slick wood floor. Not only does he not bark, he is so warm and encouraging I begin to understand why Valorie ditched her New York business five years ago to take up the tango life with him.

"My friends in New York thought I had lost my mind," Valorie says. "I had a beach house in the Hamptons, a studio and an apartment. I gave all that up. My friends thought I was going into white slavery. I've never had those issues of submission. A kind of courtliness arises with the tango. We're all in this together."

The "togetherness" aspect of tango, in fact, is its most striking characteristic. The battle of the sexes may rage elsewhere, but not on the dance floor. The man and woman either cooperate or stop dead in their tracks. Alberto doesn't even like the terms "lead" and "follow."

"Lead and follow imply we are doing something we both know," he says. "But the moment you are improvising, you can't lead or follow. The woman moves first, the man responds and creates the space for her to dance. It's not even 50-50, it's 100 percent and 100 percent from both of them."

Tango is too intense to permit small talk. In three group lessons and a tango party, I learn nothing about any partner other than name and tango history and often not even that. I have no idea what Leonard, Mac or Carlos do for a living, whether any of them has been indicted for fraud, been married six times or plays the horses. Nor do I care. Can he dance is the only burning question.

The single-mindedness of the tango fanatic extends after class, too. After the second lesson, about a dozen of us repair to Goldfinger's restaurant nearby. The band plays Greek bazouki music, and in a flash, the dance floor fills with couples doing - what else? - the tango.

And who can bother eating? At the milonga, or tango party, Saturday night, two tables filled with food at 9 p.m. are still filled with food at midnight. When Astor Piazzolla's music is playing, "to dance or to eat" isn't a hard choice.

"When I first signed up for tango lessons," Valorie says, "I thought, how hard can this dance be? I can fake it. That first lesson was like 'Whoa!' I'm not going to be able to put on a cute dress and cute shoes and think that will cut it."

Watching Alberto and Valorie move together in their infinitely smooth and subtle way, I'm heartened. Valorie took up tango only five years ago, and look at her now. True, she has her own Argentine partner, a charmer, but I'll bet she'll tell me where to buy some sexy tango shoes.

Margaret Putnam writes about dance for The Dallas Morning News.

Flirty Dancing

From the December 24-30, 1998 issue of Metro.

Copyright © Metro Publishing Inc. Maintained by Boulevards New Media.

Tango has been called the three-minute romance, and a thriving circle of aficionados says the late-late 20th century is the right time for its passion and perfection By Jim Rendon Photograph by Christopher Gardner Dance of Life: Sunnyvale residents Valorie Hart and Alberto Paz found each other through tango and now teach others in a thriving Bay Area scene where a milonga can be found any night of the week.

VALORIE HART LOOKS out on the empty dance floor, watching as couples arrive, a few at time. She reaches across the table and grabs for an Altoid. "These are addictive," she says, popping a bright-white mint in her mouth from one of the little red-and-white tins that seem to be everywhere. Tango is a close dance. Dressed in a glittering black shirt, fishnets and a short skirt with a long slit, Hart keeps turning her attention to the floor as she talks. Her dark hair is slicked back, cut straight at the neck. Though her eyes look sleepy, her conversation is sharp and entertaining. "With tango, you are either in or out," she says, turning away from the floor. "Family and non-tango friends don't understand. My friends in New York thought I was white-slaved away. I sold my business, gave up my apartment. But I did not really give up anything," she says. "I have a great life with Alberto. We embrace this community." On the dance floor, couples move tentatively in a counterclockwise walking embrace. Clearing his throat, Alberto Paz brings the studied movement of five couples to a halt. "OK, now we'll try something different," he says. Valorie's 55-year-old partner has an air of grace about him that makes his maroon tuxedo jacket and white silk scarf look comfortable, almost casual. "Like this," he says as he and Valorie embrace, face to face, and move in exaggerated motions to the melodramatic rise and fall of the music. Even in their overblown instructive performance, their connectedness is unmistakable. Alberto steps across Valorie with his right foot, then brings his left foot toward her. They move to his right and stop, shifting weight back to his left. "Go on, try it, try it," he says. And the circle of dancers moves again. Each Monday night Paz and Hart drive from their home in Sunnyvale to share tango with everyone who wants to learn, from the advanced, invitation-only crowd decked out in dark suits and slicked-back hair, to dance-floor virgins in rubber-soled shoes, like me. As with many of the people who are filtering into the room, tango has enriched, changed and utterly consumed their lives. Five years ago, Hart and Paz lived on opposite coasts, each unaware of the other, wrapped up in successful business ventures of their own. Today their careers lie abandoned, their lives bound to each other and to the dance that brought them together. Since meeting and falling for each other, Paz and Hart have been an important part of a decade-long Bay Area tango obsession. This is the hottest tango spot in the United States, and some claim the hottest in the world outside Buenos Aires. On any night of the week, tango-obsessed dancers can hit a milonga (social dance) somewhere in the Bay Area. Homegrown teachers have sprung up to support the craze. And many Argentine masters work their way through town, arranging invitation-only classes through Paz and Hart. The dance--close, passionate, sensual, demanding a physical connection--expresses a side of the human experience that Silicon Valley turned its back on. Engineers locked in a mental embrace with numbers, theories and codes have traded sensual experience for platonic flirtation with a machine. Tango, Paz says, can help fix that. "Silicon Valley is populated and run by engineers, people who have a love affair with the keyboard," he says in a deep voice that masks a distant accent. Tango is refreshingly different. "The first thing you do is to embrace a total stranger, keep your mouth shut and listen to the music. You learn to listen to your partner, to know what they are feeling. It is a shocking and devastating experience. These moments of sheer connection are important," he says, especially in a valley where people are increasingly alienated and cerebral. DICK SIMONI, a Menlo Park architect, sits down at a long table dotted with glasses of wine and tall draughts of ice water. He moves a few glasses aside and puts his small canvas bag on the table. His back to the dance floor, he pauses to take in a stunning view of San Francisco's rolling hills, fading into the gridlike outer Richmond. From the 19th floor of the Mark Hopkins hotel on Nob Hill, the city unfolds in every direction. Simoni turns his gaze back to the table and pulls a pair of leather-soled dance shoes from the bag, swapping them with his formal footwear. At the sound of tuning violins and the sighing bandoneon, the Argentine accordion, people begin to mill about at the edge of the dance floor, picking out partners, anticipating the evening's first dance to the live band. While most milongas have a DJ, Paz and Hart have booked Strictly Tango, a five-piece band, to bang out Argentine tunes every Monday night. Like most of the men in the club tonight, Simoni wears a dark suit, his hair brushed back off his forehead. He looks around the room, enjoying the view, the potted palms and wood pillars that hem the dance floor. "We like to imagine this is a 1920s Berlin nightclub," he says. "Today in Europe, it's more underground," he says, describing the warehouses he and his wife, Ginger, danced in during a recent trip to Switzerland, as the band starts playing and the dancing begins. The band starts with a stereotypical tango song. It's the one that I hear in my head when I think of tango, a jerky beat, soft and then loud. It has the rhythm of someone frantically sneaking up a staircase--a quick run, then a pause to check if someone is listening, then another burst up the stairs. It's almost comic, reminding me of Charlie Chaplin's slapstick, until suddenly the music slows, becoming sad, almost tragic. Even the fastest, most upbeat tangos the band plays have an edge of sadness and tragedy. Simoni points out a couple moving past, their chests pushed tightly together, legs pushed out so they look like a triangle. "That's miloguero style," he says, admiring the couple's performance. The tight embrace and subtle foot movements evolved from the tightly packed milongas in Buenos Aires. A woman in a long black dress pauses at the table and asks Simoni to dance. Standing chest to chest with the woman on the dance floor, Simoni waits for the music to move him. Then, on the downbeat, he steps away, tangoing with the others, adding his own slide and shuffle of leather against wood to the quiet sound that flows just beneath the surface of the music. Tim Yoshida watches another young woman whose arms are draped over the shoulders of a tall, older man. She stretches to reach him, but the couple looks graceful nonetheless. "She's only had something like three or four lessons," Yoshida says. "But she's danced just about every song all night. She's hooked," he says with a laugh. Yoshida, like a lot of dancers, talks about two things: the sensuality of the dance, and something dancers call the tango trance. Yoshida studied martial arts for 10 years before trying tango. After three years of dancing, he finds it fills the much the same need as martial arts. "In the beginning, you work on posture and try not to fall down," he says. But once you get comfortable with the footwork, the dance changes. "You are torso to torso, hand to hand. It's up to you to lead. If you lead and she follows, you become lost in the music. You are transplanted to another time and place." Sitting across from Yoshida, Caroline Duncan agrees. But for her, the spirituality gets wrapped up in the physical, sensual nature of the dance. "With tango, you meet a man right here," she says placing her hand flat across her chest. "It's a touching way to meet a man." Duncan takes a sip of her drink and looks out on the floor, watching for a minute as dancers pass. Everyone is engaged in their own world, creating their own steps. Some move slowly, deliberately, with long pauses. Others stamp by quickly, swinging and kicking feet in the air. Though everyone moves differently, the dancers flow together. Always the couples stay close, never leaving the embrace. "It's a dance for people who like to touch," she says. "When you first start a dance, you press your shoulder up tight against them and listen to the music. You can feel the music, your partner's energy. You can tell a lot about the quality of the person you dance with. It's synergistic. Together you are more than two." The dance, she and others say over and over, got its start in the brothels of Buenos Aires. Some call it the three-minute romance. Though it quickly left the bordello for Argentina's society nightclubs, the heart of Argentine tango never strayed far from its passionate working-class roots. TIM RISES TO GET IN a dance or two with the young woman. As he leaves the table, Jim Maes, a slender, bearded man in a dark suit, approaches the table. He says a few somber hellos, then crosses to the other side of the room, where he sits alone with a full glass of red wine, watching the dancers spin past him. Maes is a casualty of tango. Tonight he looks back on his five years of dancing with a wrenching mix of joy and despair. Maes began dancing after seeing Forever Tango, a Broadway-style show featuring some of the best tango dancers in the world. "I saw it three times," Maes says. "It brought tears to my eyes." Maes had a nearly instant reaction to the show and the dance. "I know that," Maes said to himself as he watched the proud attitude of the dancers, the tough stance and macho clothes. As a teenager Maes had been a greaser, knocking around San Francisco's Mission District. The tough, proud attitude reminded him of the street. The lure was irresistible. He jumped in head first. Maes would take classes as often as possible, sometimes six times a week. "I fell in love with the beauty of the dance, the passion and the power," he says. Maes left his most recent job so he could dance more often. Tango has taken over his life, and Maes feels lucky to give himself over to the dance. "It's a way for me to express myself," he says. "It's been a long, hard struggle to get to where I am now." But now that pride is tainted. "The dance is so seductive," he says. At a recent milonga, Maes' dance with a stranger went too far--extending beyond the dance floor. The relationship with his longtime girlfriend came tumbling down around him. Now he hates himself for what he did and for what he has lost. Yet tango draws him back. "It has brought me so much joy," he says of the dance. "But it has also brought heartache. I wish I never found it. I wish I could cut myself off at the knees and never dance again," Maes says, looking at his untouched glass of wine. Simoni walks over to offer Maes a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. An older woman extends her hand to Maes, offering a dance. He accepts, taking the floor. But he moves stiffly, his thoughts elsewhere. MAES HAS AN UNUSUAL dedication to the art of tango. But for anyone to master even the basics takes time and some commitment. Learning to dance well is like learning to play jazz music. Tango is less about learning individual steps than about understanding body position, knowing what range of movement to pursue from any given position, and learning to give oneself over to the music. Like jazz, the form allows an infinite range of personal expression. It can take a lifetime to master. Women take about a year to feel comfortable, Hart says. Men can take two years before they are confident on the dance floor. For me, I think it would be longer. As couples circle the room under Hart and Paz's direction, she can't resist giving me a little help. With her fishnet-clad legs bowed as if straddling a Brahma bull, Hart stomps away from me. Her hands rest on her hips as she swings her chest back and forth exaggerating a swagger. "Don't walk around like a cowboy," she says to me, a grin creeping across her face. "You want to keep your feet together, place them right next to your partner's as you move," she says, grabbing my shoulders and moving me around with unwavering physical certainty. "Feels better, eh?" she says, cracking a smile and walking off toward another couple. I am left to work out the rigorous act of walking with my partner. Though we attempt little more than walking counterclockwise, I feel as if just putting one foot in front of the other is beyond me. But I am assured over and over again that everyone feels lost at first. Even Alberto, who grew up in Argentina surrounded by the dance, felt awkward when he took his first steps less than decade ago. For the first six months he found the dance a trial. Paz moved to the Silicon Valley from Buenos Aires in 1968 seeking a future in electrical engineering. For the next 20 years he worked for small high-tech video companies, finally founding his own in the 1980s. But by the end of that decade, Paz felt there was something missing in his life. He began working at KIQI as a soccer announcer and eventually as a night-time DJ playing South American music. Every now and then he would spin a tango from the station's collection and the phone lines would light up. The music brought back memories of home from listeners who grew up all over South America, and they wanted to hear more. Soon he switched to an all-tango format. To gear up for the show, he took a two-week trip to Buenos Aires, snatching up books and music, absorbing the history and culture of the music. "I learned a lot of things that were already somewhere in my mind," Paz says. "For the 25 years I lived in Argentina, I totally ignored the tango I heard every day at home. I liked rock & roll." What Paz uncovered was a rich history of music, dance and culture that was largely undocumented. At that time there were no English-language histories of tango. The first was published just a year ago. Even Paz, who tracks down the dance's roots with a disciple's fervor, feels uncertain about many of the details. Italian immigrants and recently freed slaves living in and around Buenos Aires (which was a slave port in the mid-1800s) developed the earliest form of tango in the 1860s. Paz says that the dance may have originally been a spinoff of high society's ballroom dancing which gave immigrants, penned up with little work and few resources, a chance to develop and show off their grace and skill. Initially, most of that showing off was done by men dancing together, because the flood of immigrants was largely male. By the early 1900s, the dance moved from the streets to bordellos, where men lined up to take turns dancing with the women. The music developed an upbeat, seat-of-the-pants style, played by working-class musicians without the benefit of sheet music. From the bordellos, the dance began to spread upward through Argentine society. Sailors took the form to Europe, where it caught on like wildfire. And once Europe embraced it, Argentine society grabbed hold of the dance, creating nightclubs and smoothing over some of the raunchier moves. When depression hit in 1931, tango went with it, falling out of favor for the first, but not the last, time. A few years later, in 1935, musicians dramatically changed the songs, emphasizing the rhythms and making it easier to dance to. The crowds came pouring back. Tango hit its golden age from the late 1930s through the 1940s. Though diminishing in popularity, tango remained strong among working-class people until the 1970s, when Argentina lived under a dictatorship. Paz, like most in his generation, just missed out on tango. The foreign influences of rock & roll were more appealing, and the tradition seemed on the wane. With the fall of the dictatorship in 1983, a show called Tango Argentino was organized in Buenos Aires. Many of the old masters took the stage. The show toured the U.S. and Europe and helped to rekindle interest in the dance. When Forever Tango came to San Francisco in 1994, it was scheduled for four weeks and stayed for 92. Now Buenos Aires is packed with tango tourists. The government officially sanctions the dance. People around the world from New Zealand and Japan to Germany and New York dance tango. Inspired by his trip, Paz returned to Sunnyvale ready to play more tango music. Soon he was DJing milongas and classes, but he never danced himself. "I had the prejudice that tango was something you learned when you were a kid. In Buenos Aires if you weren't good by 18, forget it. If you didn't know how to dance, then a woman wouldn't dance with you." After a while, Paz learned a few steps, but never really applied himself. Then, at a milonga one night, he realized he was the only Argentine in the room and he was not dancing. That night Paz made a commitment to learn tango. Like so many other Argentinians, he was rediscovering what his parents already knew. Within six months, he began to think there was hope. That was in 1993. Two years later, on a whim, he went to Stanford Tango Week and saw Hart leaning against a dance studio door. WHILE PAZ WAS discovering tango, Hart was living a successful life in New York, running her own business, oblivious to the dance that would change her life. One night while she was making a pasta dinner with a group of Argentine friends she met through her corporate event­planning business, someone put on a tango album. An Argentine friend boasted that he would teach her tango. But it only took a few steps for them to realize that no one in the room could dance it. As with Paz, the dance had passed these Argentines by. They promised to take lessons, and Hart's interest was sparked. When she heard about Stanford's tango event, a two-week-long, eight-hour-a-day tango celebration featuring some of the world's best dancers, she had to check it out. She showed up in Palo Alto just curious, not looking to change her life, meet anyone or fall in love. But then she danced with Paz. "Not till I met Alberto did I feel comfortable dancing. He produced a safe haven for me to dance," Hart says. They danced and talked and got to know each other. At the end of the week they parted, keeping in touch via email and fax. "Tango touches people at crossroads in their lives. There is something deep about the experience of connecting with someone. My mother had just died at the time I was introduced to Argentine tango. She died young and suddenly," Hart says. "That made me realize that life is short. I am approaching my 50th birthday and suddenly I thought, where did 50 years go?" Three months later, Alberto visited her in New York and asked her to come to Sunnyvale. "I thought, am I nuts? I don't even know this guy," Hart says. She packed her bags and left New York behind. HART AND PAZ TAKE the floor together after an evening of mixing partners. The couple share a dance--slow, deliberate, so close together that they snuff out the light between their bodies. They circle the nearly empty floor as others look on. The dance holds a deep meaning to nearly everyone here. For Hart, a child of the '60s who has run her own business, the issue is about fitting the dance with her feminist background. "At face value, it looks as though it is traditional role-playing--a man's dance," she says. "But it's not. The man navigates the dance. In following, you get to improvise. The man creates the space for you to dance in. Once that space is secure, it is a place for you to express yourself, to experience the music, to be feminine." Alberto finds the social nature of the dance addictive. "People come together and share three minutes of true 50-50 cooperation between a man and a woman. The body communicates. The man improvises and feels the woman's responsiveness. It requires commitment, more than going out and listening to noise and drinking alcohol." Both Hart and Paz dropped everything to be with each other, and not long afterward they started a company, Planet Tango. They publish a magazine, El Firulete, and are in the midst of installing a dance floor in their home. They teach, broker lessons for visiting masters, arrange tours to Buenos Aires, and sell CDs, shoes and anything else related to tango. "I'm living the life of a boho gypsy. It's like being 18 again," Hart says. "We are poor, but we make enough for house payments and to make a little pasta." The couple travels almost half the year. In the next few months they are scheduled to teach in Honolulu, Alaska and Florida. Every summer they take a group to Buenos Aires, all to dance. "It is an obsession," Paz says. "You incorporate tango into your life. In many cases, it's like a religion." As the floor clears, the band packs its instruments. Paz spins a few more CDs. A crowd watches from the sidelines as the dancers from Tango show off their skills. Some couples dance furiously, some slowly, with exquisite yawning movements. The dance, which these people perform so well, seems to spark obsession in everyone it touches. Casual dancers are hard to find, and those who work at the dance are close. Tango, born at the end of the last century, fills a void that has opened up over the past hundred years. Once a release for the massive dislocation and upheaval of the industrial revolution, it now provides a vital link to that remarkably sensual world, a world that this century has left reeling behind it. Here, at the Top of the Mark, as I watch architects and mechanics, attorneys and students, lose themselves in the music and the feel of each other, the dance feels like an embrace of the waning century, a retreat from the gaping emptiness of the next millennium. Looking around the room, it seems obvious that we will need to bring tango with us. As the song ends, Hart walks out onto the dance floor. It's nearly 1am. She calls out loud and happy, "Last tango!"

A Right Idea

There is a school of thought that encourages people who are in a position to motivate and encourage others, to make a point of trying to catch others doing something right. I’m reminded of this because there was a time when I needed the reassurance of being able to do some things right in order to survive. I think I did, survive I mean, as a matter of fact sometimes I feel like I was born again, an expression with religious connotations. But then, feeling inebriated by the experience of dancing Argentine Tango is as close as a religious experience as one can live without having to forgo ten percent of your income to support the leaders of a religious organization, who, by the way will make a point to catch you doing something wrong all the time. No wonder most people wait till they die in order to find peace and joy in paradise

I found my paradise in San Francisco, the city by the Bay where people leave their hearts. It was seven years ago at a dance studio perched on the first floor of a movie house. What is beautiful about our image of paradise is that it is run by angels, creatures who by the nature of their job description find it natural to catch people doing some things right. When Tango dancing was for me as far fetched as white water rafting down the Colorado river, some angels held my arms and walked around the floor with me finding ways to catch me doing some things right. Three of them had names like Elaine, Frankie and Mary. Because of their gracious and generous acts of kindness, I try to refrain from justifying my precarious balance or my occasional bad posture by finding faults in the other person. I have not thanked them enough, I know, and now one of those angels just passed away. I don’t know if I’m mad because Mary missed our Saturday night milonga or because she chose to attend the big milonga in the clouds. Now, she is not coming back, she’s there forever and now every time I hear La Cumparsita, I’ll turn around hoping to see Mary and Martillito Villalba jamming it like they’ve done it many times while El Tucu Emilio waits his turn on the sidelines to do the same. You may wonder why I choose to talk about people you probably don't know. You see, they are (Mary was) Tango friends, the kind you encounter every week at the local milonga, the ones that’ll show up every time you give a party or have guests from out of town, the ones you can count on anytime you need them. This is an aspect of the Tango that escapes individuals who because of their selfish, rude and vulgar behavior find themselves trying to catch people doing something wrong or they act wrong themselves creating bad vibes among the people in order to survive.

When we begin to realize that our goal is not to avoid being caught doing some thing wrong but to work hard and play harder to create enough situations where others may catch us doing some things right, great things can happen. Like the fabulous party for the people of Tango Libertad, planned, produced and executed with success in mind, or the Welcome to Stanford milonga that brought many members of the Tango community together to celebrate the joy and passion of the Tango. We’ll miss Mary, because she liked to party. We pray for her soul to rest in peace but we hope her feet will be eternally drawing pretty firuletes on the clouds. And every now and then when they play La Cumparsita, I’ll hope her soul inspires us to continue looking forward to catch people doing some things right.

Alberto Paz
Copyright (c) 2000, Planet Tango. All Rights Reserved

Friends and enemies

The waiting was becoming uncomfortable. For days I had been dealing with mixed emotions about a revelation that came via e-mail. While I laughed and feared back and forth at the evidence that somebody was calling me a Tangofascist, accusing me of being somebody else and proposing that I be banned from an Internet’s Tango discussion mailing list, I also wondered what kind of coward would hide behind an anonymous username and send a defamatory message, full of hate and venom to sixteen subscribers of the list. A few names crossed my mind, but I'm not in the habit of falsely accusing anybody.

It all started when I posted the interview with Fabian Salas featured in this issue. As it is typical of the discussions on that Tango mailing list, two factions formed to attack and defend the three more visible representatives of the latest Tango dancing fad some call New Tango. One subscriber in particular, using an anonymous handle, painted a rather bleak and unflattering picture of the three “gorditos” as s/he called them. It was shortly after that a friend forwarded me a message he and fifteen others had received. He asked, “I don’t see you on the recipient’s list. If I were going to send such a poison pen letter, I’d want the subject of my venom to get it. Isn’t his (her) anonymity enough to hide behind?”

My theory is that the coward is not interested in letting me have his venom. He is betting on an universal human flaw that makes some individuals want to believe in gossip and innuendoes for whatever reasons they may have.

You see, we are very visible. Valorie and I travel and communicate with many people around the world. We are open, direct, sincere, and honest in what we have to offer. For every one who welcomes our friendship and affection, we really don’t know how many feel threatened or uncomfortable because of their feeble tenure as gatekeepers of good natured and well intentioned Tango communities. Unfortunately they do exist, and sometimes their character assassination tactics and their harmful gossiping make people wonder and change their attitudes because of that human flaw I mentioned before, the lack of moral fortitude to come forward and face the person being vilified by the hate mongers.

At this stage of my life, I can’t plead ignorance nor I can try to pass for naive. I just came back from Buenos Aires where friends confirmed that “illustrious masters” who have slept and eaten in our house, and who have made money and a name for themselves in this country through our professional efforts, have been trashing my name and questioning my motives for being in the Tango business. I wear that as a badge of honor. You know you have made it when you regularly are part of conversations thousands of miles away and your name gets trashed by the elite of Tango masters.

But the uncomfortable feeling that I mentioned at the beginning, is what really breaks my heart. Out of the sixteen people who received the poison pen e-mail, seven know me personally, some have done business with us, some have taken classes from us, all have read El Firulete on a regular basis, some have had free Internet space on our website. Only one was thoughtful enough to make me aware of the situation. Only one had the courage to confront me, to implicitly ask me if I was a "Tangofascist using an assumed name," by simply doing what I wouldn’t hesitate one minute to do with people I respect and call my friends. He let me know about the anonymous defamatory e-mail being circulated. He gave me a chance. The rest so far have chosen to let me walk around with the stigma of a calumny hanging around my neck.

Alberto Paz
Copyright (c) 2000, Planet Tango. All Rights Reserved

Who Can Take Away All Of Our Tangos?

by Alberto Paz
Copyright (c) 2000, Planet Tango. All Rights Reserved

As I write my piece for the cover story, about the five years of life of El Firulete, my heart is full of emotions as the memories flash by. I remember sitting at the controls of a radio station in 1991 in the middle of the night playing Tangos for an invisible audience and I'm focusing on three specific instances that would influence the birth of El Firulete three years later.

First, it was a phone call commenting on some sort of Tango activity at Stanford University. Great I thought, hoping that I would get more information. It would be great to have the only Tango program in the United States being associated with the academic world.

Second, it was another phone call this time announcing the unexpected death of Raul Dinzelbacher on the grounds of Stanford University. I had known Raul and his wife and dance partner Nora only briefly when we hired them to dance for a fund raising festival we had produced with a group of Argentinos in San Jose (Roberto Forte, Alex and Beatrix Tagle, who to this day are subscribers to El Firulete) the year before.

Third, it was meeting Acho Manzi, son of the great Argentine Tango poet Homero Manzi, who had walked into the radio station after somebody called him to tell him that some guy was doing a special segment dedicated to your father.

I never received any acknowledgment from Stanford University; I came to know Nora better when I hired her Argentina Folk Ballet for a couple of functions at the Patio Español dedicated to promote my radio program; Acho and I became very good friends.

When I decided to find out the nature of Stanford University Tango Week in 1994, I was part of the paying public who was allowed to participate only at the Thursday night concert and exhibition. By then, the radio program no longer existed and my life had been torn by a series of unfortunate bad choices in relationships. I remember how out of place I felt nodding out at a lengthy Piazzolla recital by an orchestra that the mild and mellow announcer kept calling a band. On the way out, an old timer raised on the tough streets of Avellaneda in Argentina quipped, you should have broadcast this as the Prozac Tango Club. Shame on you, I said, at least the gringos do something. What do we do but bitch and bitch from the sidelines.

Criticizing and bad mouthing has always been a pastime for the “superior” mind of some compatriots who know better, but do nothing to contribute to the experiences of their cultural heritage in our adopted society. I was on my way to becoming one more of them: bitter, envious, excluded. That was when I put on my thinking hat and came up with the concept of not just a publication about Tango, but The Argentine Tango Newsletter. Julio Sosa was singing on the stereo, who has told you kiddo that the times of the firulete are over... and the rest is history.

The Bay Area was absorbed by the Tango dance and I began to learn about Tango dance and in the process I learned about Tango. In the end I learned about the effects of shining the light of knowledge and experience over the murky darkness of ignorance and deceit. It would be self-aggrandizing to say that I have made a major contribution in shaping the world of Argentine Tango in this country, even it was a fair thing to say. Many of you, my dear friends have expressed your appreciation and your recognition in many different ways, and for that I’m grateful and proud we have crossed paths, although at times I have not looked at this as being the most important reward. Born and raised in a society where people need to be constantly proving that they are honest and continuously seeking the approval and validation of the figures of authority, I had trouble first, and finally learned to live with, and eventually laughed at the reactions that the publication of El Firulete provoked on my perceived “figures of authority in the tango community.”

Who translates to English for you? was Acho Manzi’s first form of admiration for the material evidence of an unfulfilled dream he also had. What kind of computer, what kind program, what type of printer, were the embarrassing questions of a long time tanguera who considered herself beaten to the finish line in her imaginary race in pursuit of her own literary ambitions. I’d love to help you with the design if you would come and stay with me, suggested another tanguera, unaware that by then “esa gringa rubia” as she later disdainfully called her, had relocated to the West coast. Rather than success, the wrath of a spurned person bred one of El Firulete's several imitations.

I have chosen along these five years to try to look ahead and not give these dubious forms of flattery any public recognition, but I’m bending the rules this time because as we celebrate Valorie’s birthday, the five years of El Firulete and four years of our association, I’m reading this message sent by another friend.

Alberto, you have been in our thoughts for the last week or two. A student of ours showed us the crap some coward has been circulating about you. I am shocked and saddened how people misuse the power and anonymity of the Internet, well, maybe not shocked, not much shocks me anymore. What a cruel and cowardly thing to do. I would say not to take it too personally but that would be a light handed response to a very personal attack. But how else can you respond to such an anonymous attack. We also have learned how petty, vicious, and stupid some people will act, just not as publicly. I hope you can hold up your head and let the strength of your character get you through this. Hopefully knowing your friends are behind you and that this type of anonymous accusations don’t hold much water will help.

I appreciate the thoughts and I’ll go on dancing and celebrating so you can enjoy this issue of El Firulete. There was a toad who half-sunken in mud, was trapping glow-worms that were flying by, and spitting them out. When asked why it was killing them, it answered, because they shine too much.

It Could Happen To You

Up to now most books written as testimonials of personal Tango experiences tend to fall under the category of out of body encounters of the me-silly kind. Like, "have you ever 'ocho' at the DMV?" Or, "I saw Santa Tangoing with my mommy to Jingle Bells." Or the lunacy of asking the rethorical question, "you know you are a Tango junkie if..."

Some day somebody will actually document the real experiences which most of us have lived from the day the Tango found us. They may describe the first time they saw a couple dancing Tango. They may even remember exactly the date, their state of mind, and the circumstances of their lives at the time. Those with a lot more mileage will doubtless credit Tango Argentino, the legendary show of the nineteen eighties, with the compelling desire to be able to Tango, to experience the passion and sensuality, not to mention the prowess smartly staged by a group of seemingly average, middle aged couples.

Others may remember hearing from a friend, or picking up a flyer where Argentine Tango lessons were being offered. Trusting, and with a naive sense of anticipation, you may have begun to take at face value all the rethorical coating that accompanied every lesson, every frustrated attempt to imitate the role model being presented to you. You may not longer remember the names of the teachers that began to come in and out in a revolving door like fashion, all the while your mind feeling like a Texas size omelette.

There might be cases where the stories will take on their own spin given personal and geographical circumstances. There might be accounts of styles wars within a city, mostly the result of shrewd operators in cahoots with ethically challenged professionals prying upon the trust and blind allegiance of eager learners. It would take a lot of soul searching and a mega dose of self respect and self esteem for ackowledging cases of blunt breach of trust, disappointment and the realization that no matter how one says it, lies and deception have short legs.

However in spite of the emotional exposure with all risk when allowing the Tango to take over our lives, there is a moment when we finally get it, or not. They say that Tango is a very personal thing, that no respectable dancer will face the scorn of their peers for being imitators, and we have heard of those who have taken their "secrets" to the grave. On the other hand they say that there are no secrets in the Tango, only those who refuse to see its simplicity, its infinite set of possibilities, its endurance through acceptance and rejection, its universal appeal to the human soul far beyond frontiers and idiosyncrasies.

The story I like to write is about every door that opened to show another set of doors which in time opened themselves into larger universes where men and women who lived and danced longer gave a mole or a mountain of their own experience, their imperfect, yet special human qualities, their internal energy and their intimate expression of a rhythm. All within the context of making you aware of your own possibilities, your own achievements, and your fragile humanity.
I would qualify many cynical attitudes as those from passionate men and women who might be afraid to be disappointed again, but I would continue to pass along what has been given to me, as an unexpected (and may be undeserved) gift . The privilege of looking into other's Tango life experiences and learn form them. It could happen to me that I'm called to tell the story of my appreciation for those who guided my steps. Or It could happen to you.

Alberto Paz
Copyright (c) 2001, Planet Tango. All Rights Reserved

Tango is Tango

It's not unusual to take for granted the special attributes bestowed upon us by the Creator. A good tango dancer listens to the music. A great tango dancer understands it. Many who consider tango a pastime or just another dance, might as well be declared legally deaf because they show a total disregard for the beautiful sounds that the instruments and voices of tango convey. As it happens with real deaf people, there is no real listening and their dancing experience is full of rhetorical arguments about the roles each member of the couple plays. That is why it breaks my heart when someone very dear tries very hard to get the gist of many tango lyrics while at the same time many of us who have been born with the natural gift of understanding Manzi, Carriego and many others, show low tolerance and outright contempt for those who try to grasp the essence of the tango in a gringo way. I regret ever being wrong about my perception of the tango world. To hear the first bars of Guys, the line of dancing is forming, (Muchachos comienza la ronda) sung in a husky Marilyn Monroe-like voice is something that touches me very deep and makes me understand why tango waited so long to find me.

Yes, the music of a tango invites the formation of the line of dance. Who, after listening to the outburst of a song so brillant, does not get up to dance to entangle his or her emotions to that song that becomes a soul within your soul? The music of tango invites us to enter the dance hall. For you see, that's how la ronda begins. So, don't miss a single beat of a tango that is captivating, rebel and sweet. And while in the middle of turns and gallant flirtations, let's imagine that we're back living in a joyful past. In a happy time of gray cocked hats, of loquacious amorous compliments and of street lamps of the arrabal. Don't miss a single beat. If you listen to the tango you'll see how nice it is to dance.

What is tango dancing, many ask? Is it a struggle for supremacy on the dance floor between men and women who are coy to act their roles and prefer to be interchangeably 'leaders' or 'followers'?

A tango lyric says that tango is a union of notes and words modulated on every street corner and dominated by a live emotion that is shared. It is a song inspired by the reminiscences that put us to sleep every night. It is a sound sweeter and ever so seductive. Or is it the husky voice of a loving gringa that keeps suggesting a dance, Muchachos comienza la ronda...? Wrapped in an illusion, I heard the voice last night, full of emotions for things about my past. There it was the house where I was born, the window bars, the vine arbor, the old corner carrousel and the rosebush. With this dare of emotion it is easy to reach one's heart. Perhaps, that is what tango is, an emotion. Its accent is the song of a sentimental voice, its rhythm is the beat that lives within a city. Tango does not have any pretensions, it does not want to be indecent. It's so humble and so simple in its beats, that there is no need to write a bad example in each phrase.

Tango is tango, tango and nothing else - (Jose M. Suñe)

Alberto Paz
Copyright (c) 2000, Planet Tango. All Rights Reserved