Los patios de Flores ( amor de tango)

Juan Bautista Alberdi entre Membrillar y Rivera Indarte. La vieja casa chorizo, devenida en inquilinato, abría sus puertas a las familias de las familias que la habitaban, en las Fiestas de Navidad, Año Nuevo, los Carnavales y cuanto cumpleaños o festejo vario nos cruzase el destino, en aquella década del 50 que me vio nacer y corretear por sus patios.

Doña Dominga, como llamaban los vecinos a mi abuela Lala, iba y venía con el mate cocido  o la mazamorra con leche de mi merienda, y la voz del speaker nos anunciaba el Radioteatro de la Tarde.

Mi tío Oscar, el Catorce, fascinaba mi atención mientras la brocha le llenaba la cara de espuma y El Negro, mi padrino, el hermano preferido de mi vieja, silbaba un tango con la gracia y el humor que lo pintaba de cuerpo entero.

El Negro le enseñó a bailar el tango a sus hermanas. Ninguna quería perderse una pieza con él, incluso las que, como mi madre, ya tenían un marido que seguramente las había afilado al compás del 2 por 4.

Flores siempre fue para mí un barrio que olía a arrabal, por eso sus patios siempre me devolvieron un tango.

Por ese entonces mis tíos Rodolfo y Ofelia vivían con mis primas en una casa similar en La Rioja al 200, en el barrio del Once. A menudo las fiestas se trasladaban a sus patios y años después al de su casa de la calle Remedios en el barrio de Floresta o al de la Portería del tío Abelardo en Primera Junta.

A medida que los primos fuimos creciendo, comenzaron a sonar otras músicas en los tocadiscos Ranser de las reuniones familiares, pero siempre –sagrado respeto por nuestros mayores- el tango era la coronación de cualquier festejo.

Mi eterna vocación de patadura hizo que nunca lo aprendiera a bailar, o al menos sólo lo hiciera toscamente. Pero cada vez que el Polaco, Troilo, Fresedo, Sosa, los hermanos Expósito, Falcón, la Merello y tantos otros, me acarician el cuore con su melodía, las palabras de Gagliardi me aparecen en la garganta y, al compás de una sonrisa, se me pianta un lagrimón…

Señores… ¡me llamo Tango!

Yo soy el tango que llega

Por las calles del recuerdo.

Dónde nací, ni me acuerdo…

En una esquina cualquiera

Una luna arrabalera

Y un bandoneón, son testigos

¡Yo soy el Tango Argentino!

¡Donde guste… y cuando quiera!

Carlos Juárez - Buenos Aires

From Tango Shoes to Tango

Four years ago exactly, my wife and I were 52 and dancing was not in our lives at all, but my wife did like shoes a lot.

She thought tango shoes could be adequate for going out and for fancy dinners, theatre evenings and so on.  So we went to a place where tango shoes were being sold.  That place happened to be also a tango club.  While we were looking for shoes, we could not not notice the beautiful music and the tango dancers who were involved in hugging each other and moving around the room so elegantly.  We asked if we can stick around and watch the dancers.  The club had a bar. We ordered a few drinks and watched the dancers for a couple of hours to our amazement.  We spotted some very good dancers and observed their moves. We went back home in pleasant thoughts.

We were not much into dancing, but we were into music.  We have a very good Argentinian friend, who had introduced us to Piazzolla’s music a few years before that evening.   We fell in love with his ingenious music.  That friend told us we could have free tango initiation classes. Despite our harsh winter, we went and gave it a try.

We loved it so much, that after that we got hooked and up to today, it’s impossible to unhook.  It became an addiction, the kind of addiction, which is very desirable, physically and emotionally.  For the last 4 years, we took classes, workshops, went to Buenos Aires and today we go out dancing 6 times a week and enjoy tango greatly.

Well, today, we can’t imagine a life without tango and Piazzolla.  

Louise and Izak from Canada

Thought-free and moving like the wind ...

I got moved to try Tango when i saw two tangueros melting into each other.  That is what I wanted.  And after 10 years of dancing Tango, I have experienced that phenomenon maybe 4 times.   Perhaps it is called the 'Tango Zone'.  It is certainly moving in 'The Zone.'  It is what some runners or skiers of powder snow experience when they are totally in the experience, thought-free and moving like the wind.

Carol T.  from USA.

My Tango Encuentro

I grew up with the tango, never understanding exactly what it was, only that it spoke to me. When I was very young there were a few popular tango songs I loved that almost always were played as campy parodies, you know the rose in the teeth type thing—Hernando’s Hideaway, Jealousy, Kiss of Fire, La Cumparsita. Many Broadway musicals featured a tango number—for example, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Pajama Game, Chicago.

The pianist at my ballet school chose to play tangos for the grand battements at the barre, inspiring me to kick higher and with more passion.

Looking back through the piano sheet music I had collected since a child, there was a plethora of piano solos with names like Mood Indigo, Deep Purple, Blue Fantasy, Blue Moon, Moonlight Mood, Stella by Starlight, Spellbound, Manhattan Moonlight, Moonlight in Vermont, Autumn in New York, Autumn Leaves, Rhapsody in Blue—it was a shock to see them all in a stack covering fifty years of my piano music tastes. Jewish lullabies, Armenian love songs, the second movements of symphonies touched my soul. I must have been a very sad and lonely child. 

I later realized that was the tango in me, waiting to be found; each aching diminished or augmented 7^th minor modulation in these old pieces expressed my feelings. I was searching for the tango before I even knew what it was. So when I finally found a whole genre of this type of music, and music that I could even dance to, I knew I was home, that I had found my heart beat.

So I was acquainted with tango music and the 2/4 tango rhythm. But Argentine tango dancing ? Until I saw Tango Argentino at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood in 1988, I had never seen tango danced. My late husband and I left the theatre, exclaiming, wow, to dance like that!

Years later, when I was a widow and alone, I ran across a flier promoting a series of eight Argentine tango classes. I took the eight lessons, and then went to Buenos Aires in 1997 on a group tango tour.

The rest—my continued visits to the Mecca of tango on short vacations, my move to Mexico and my frustration with tango there, and finally, my permanent move to Buenos Aires in 2003—is history.

Cherie Magnus  from USA

" Agorá "

- How much have you got?

- mmm... 2 euro

- What? That's great, the four of us and we can't even put together enough money for a pizza.

The concert of The Wailers had just finished and we were waiting the slowly spill out of people from the Giardino Scotto. Stands of ethnic clothes and smoking equipments fenced the way out. The now-lonely bar was closing with a huge profit. The beers had been outrageously expensive and had dissolved all our money. The hot night and the dancing called for more beers but the maximum we could have hoped for was a couple of 'Moretti'. 66cc. A classic. The cheapest.

Pisa, summer 2004. An expedition from Florence to attend the concert of the band that had played with Bob Marley. The next day we were to go back to our studies, preparing for the developmental economics exam of late July.

- Well guys - said Spazio with his strong Sicilian accent - I know a place about 10 minutes from here. If it's open we should be able to get a drink and may be some nice music.

He knew the city better than us as he had began a course here before moving to Florence University. The suggested place was called 'Agorá' and was linked with ARCI, a cultural association that included a vast network of theatres, music halls and other generic social venues. ARCI had long represented the creative soul of the once-called Communist Party, and Tuscany was particularly rich of ARCI places, as the region had been governed by the left ever since the end of World War II. However, most of the newly-opened ARCI bars held nothing of the communist iconography, and were just alcohol-spilling venues that took advantage of the State' support to culture. Nevertheless, we were to discover that the Agorá maintained and old touch, hosting a number of courses and art workshops that made it stand firmly in the city's creative vein.

We walked through the little streets that characterize the centre, in which tarmac had yet to substitute the hundreds years-old paving stones. Cars and litter often obstructed the footpath. Many buildings carried signs explaining that between 200 and 400 years ago a certain painter or architect or poet was born in that house, though most of the signs were barely readable. The view opened up when we crossed the Arno river, which also allowed a little breeze to run though the city. It was a quite night and the almost-full moon could be seen just above the mountains that surrounded the north of Pisa.

We arrived at the club at little past-midnight, which was quite late for a Thursday. A simple sign, with the word 'Agorá' printed in red over black background, was on the left of the open door. It gave access to a little hallway whose walls were covered with posters advertising live music and other cultural activities. We stopped a couple of minutes checking out what was on offer and evaluating the possibility to pay another visit to Pisa in the next days. Most of the advertised events were to be hosted in three venues that were well known outside city-limits, but where only one of us had previously been.

At the end of the hallway, a little door guarded a large room, about 10x15 meters in size, that hosted the bar and few tables, which had been moved to the side to allow dancing to take place. The illumination was very low, with only 5 small spotlights pointing at the shelves holding the liquors. About 10 couples were dancing holding each other tight, and another 6 or 7 persons in their 40s were sitting at the bar desk.

Initially, I felt like invading someone else's privacy by entering in the room. It was like attending a wedding, or a funeral, of people I did not know. There was a sort of energy in the air, something that connected the audience in a unique emotional state. The reggae music that still beat in our ears made me feel out of place, and it took more than a few seconds to adapt to the new environment. The music was full of passion, played slowly but energetically, clearly lacking the 2 instruments that give the tempo to most modern musics: drum and bass. The sound that came from the speakers was sad and joyful at the same time, bringing back emotions related to past lovers and looks full of hidden meanings. It was warm and carried a somehow universal note. It could have been conceived for a secret encounter behind the Blue Mosque in Istanbul or played in the Gypsy barrios of Seville, most likely filling the smoky rooms of Latin American bars.

The dancers seemed to be carried by a magical force. Their movements were coordinated but yet free of a clearly defined structure. Men and women floated around the dance floor, celebrating the impossibility of rejoicing while embracing each other. A paradox that maintained a constant tension between the dancers and kept them moving into new emotional territories. Mixed feeling were springing from my stomach: desires of crying, hugging, making love, celebrating loneliness, dancing to life and tossing to death.

We stayed like this, standing at the entrance, enchanted, with our mouths open, for at least 5 minutes. The spell broke when my eyes met the grin of the barman. I made my way to the desk and asked - what is this?

- This is tango - he replied while serving a whiskey to an elegantly dressed man sitting in front of him.

Tristano from Italy