Miles Hamby
6505 Hillside Lane
Alexandria, VA 22306
(703) 768-1353
atcmiles@aol.com

Tango

A man.

A woman.

Passion!

This is how to dance the Tango! Feel the blood rise to your face with every beat; While an arm winds like a snake around your waist that is about to break. That is how to dance the Tango!"

Elizardo Martinez Vilas, music by Elias Randal, 1942

The origins.
The origin of the word Tango is not known. Some argue Portuguese and some African. The dance itself seems to stem from the Spanish Habanera, evolving by the 1870s into the Milonga, most popular amongst the compadritos, or barrio-dwellers of Buenos Aires. Ventura Lynch (1850-1888), a noted contemporary student of dances and folklore of Buenos Aires Province, wrote:

"The milonga is so universal in the environs of the city that it is an obligatory piece at all the lower-class dances (bailecitos de medio pelo), and it is now heard on guitars, on paper-combs, and from the itinerant musicians with their flutes, harps and violins. It has also been taken up by organ grinders, who have arranged it so as to sound like the habanera dance. It is danced too in the low-life clubs around the main markets, and also at the dances and wakes of cart-drivers, the soldiery, and compadres and compadritos."

It was in the academias, or so-called dance academies, of the poor side of Buenos Aires that the Tango's early history was formed. These academias were often thinly disguised brothels where a gent could have a drink and hire a dance partner, often for more than simply dancing the milonga.

Early leaders.
Circa 1900, the earliest musicians known specifically for their distinctive Tango stylings were El Negro Casimiro, El Mulato Sinforoso, and El Pardo (Sebastian Ramos Mejia), all African-Argentine. El Pardo was the first exponent of the bandoneon, the German-made cousin of the accordion and the premier instrument of Tango. Singers included Pepita Avellanda, Linda Thelma, and Flora Rodriguez de Gobbi, and Angel Villoldo.

Stemming from the first quarter of the 20th century, the first regarded dancers of Tango were El Flaco Saul, La Parda Refucilo, Pepa la Chata, La Mondonguito, and Pepita, all nicknames as their proper names have been lost.

These dancers and musicians often performed in the brothels and clubs of the barrios of Buenos Aires, gaining a certain renown for their artistry. Now termed the guardia vieja, they included such musicians as Francisco Canaro, Vicente and Domingo Greco, Genaro Esposito, Roberto Firpo, and a Brazilian-born German named Arturo Herman Bernstein. Once called the "reptile from the brothel", those who followed developed the dance into a more artistic form, the tango liso (smooth tango), and moved it out of the world of the pimps and whores into acceptable society. This seems to have been aided by the rambunctious sons of the Portenos, the upper-class of Buenos Aires.

Tango music proliferated. Of singular note is a theme by Uruguayan Gerado Hernan Matos Rodriguez, originally composed as a marching tune. Rodriguez took the tune to Firpo, who worked it a bit and developed it into perhaps the most famous Tango of all time -- the Little Carnival Procession -- La Cumparsita!

The Golden Age.
With the Golden age of Tango, the 1920s, and the refinement of the phonograph, the real stars of Tango began to shine -- musicians like Rosendo Mendizabal, Ernesto Ponzia, and David Tito Roccatagliatta, and especially bandoneon-players like Juan Maglio, Bernstein, and Esposito. Respected dancers featured the Tango, including the respectable Porteno, Madam Maria la Vasca, and the well-known actor Elias Alippi, and especially one regarded as the all-time master, Ovidio Bianquet, known as El Cachafaz.

With the phonograph and movies, Tango was now in export. Rudolf Valentino brought Tango to American audiences while Argentines Villoldo, in 1908, performed the "first Tango in Paris!" Tango began to takeoff.

Tango lyrics developed its sophistication at this time. Singer Pascual Contursi developed a lyric that was to set a trend in Tango:

"Woman who left me in the prime of my life,
wounding my soul and driving thorns into my heart . . .
Nothing can console me now,
so I drown my sorrows to try to forget your love . . ."

A young singer became impressed with Contursi's lyrics and began developing the style. Today, that singer, Carlos Gardel, known as Carlitos, is regarded as the maestro grande of the Tango lyric. Gardel was tragically killed in an airplane accident in 1935, but not before bringing Tango to the world on film and records. His statue in Buenos Aires, "the bronze that smiles", is virtually a shrine to the Tango. There is always a cigarette burning between his fingers, placed there by an admirer.

Evolution.
Competition arose amongst performers, resulting in two schools -- the traditionalist and the evolutionaries. The traditional school, which included Firpo, Canaro, and others, stressed so-called "danceable" tangos. Evolutionaries, such as Enrique Delfino and Anibal Troilo, El Gordo, regarded by many to be the finest Bandoneonist of all time, added instruments to the Tango orchestra and dared to experiment with variations in the music.

"Tango is like love in the afternoon -- naughty, but nice! In its purest form, tango is a sensual coupling, forged by raw emotion. The closest thing you'll find to a vertical expression of a horizontal desire!"

Angela Rippon

Nuevo Tango.
Following World War II, the Golden Age of Tango drew to a close. Politics and the arts were in turmoil. Tango evolved a more avant-garde flavor as Tango combos performed more for listening audiences than dancing. Perhaps the most notable figure of this time was my favorite, Astor Piazzolla. Piazzolla was weaned on the music of Gardel and even appeared in a movie with Gardel in 1935. But, it was Troilo who started Piazzolla on his way to notoriety by inviting him to join his band as Troilo's primary bandoneon player and arranger. In 1967, Piazzolla composed the avant-garde Tango-operita "Maria de Buenos Aires", starring singer Amelita Baltar. So far from the traditional, this work distinguished Tango forever as pre- and post - Piazzolla. For me, Piazzolla is the essence of Tango -- love, betrayal, and resolution. I often hear my Tanguero amigos exclaim, "you can't dance to Piazzolla." I sometimes ask them, "Have you ever been in love, I mean really in love?" Then, you can dance to Piazzolla!

"The Tango is man and woman in search of each other. It is the search for embrace, a way to be together, when the man feels like a man and the woman feels like a woman, without machismo. The music arouses and torments, the dance is the coupling of two people, defenseless against the world and powerless to change things."

Juan Carlos Copes

Renaissance.
With movies such as "Scent of a Woman" , "True Lies", "Evita", and now "The Tango Lesson", Tango has had a resurgence, a veritable renaissance, of this marvelously romantic of all dances. Current Tango greats such as Juan Carlos Copes and Maria Nieves, Miguel Angel Zotto and Milena Plebs, and Oswaldo and Graciela, have shown us the magic of Tango in such shows as "Tango X Two (Tango Para Dos)", "Tango Argentino" and "Tango Passion".

Tango workshops and lessons abound in the DC area and one can Tango at least five nights a week at various venues. Come, let me show you the Tango! - fin.

Written by Miles Hamby; Source -- "Tango! the Dance, the Son, the Story" by Collier, Cooper, Azzi, and Martin, Thames and Hudson, 1995.