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MUSIC OF DEATH
TANGO PASSION
Overview
The Tango, often called 'The Argentine Tango', is Argentina's contribution to the world of dance. The Tango came from the brothels and low cafes of Buenos Aires at the turn of the century. However, at it's very beginning, it was a ballet-like dance between two men, which, just a little later, became the obscene dance of the brothels where both men and women had the opportunity to rub their bodies together. Over the years, the Tango has changed becoming an elegant and stylish dance; one that evokes a picture of high society, with women in sleek glittering evening gowns and men in tuxedos and tails.During the last 25 years of the nineteenth century, the desperate poverty of a disintegrating Europe caused a great migration - "to make America" was the saying. Many landed in Buenos Aires with their few tattered belongings and a pocket full of dreams for a better life in the 'New World'. Although a few emigres did bring their families, generally it was the men who came first to build a home and then later sent for their wives and children. Many found a new home in the outskirts of Buenos Aires during the 1880's.
Here, instead of their dreams, they found the stark reality of the meat packing houses along the Riachuelo in Buenos Aires, and near the port in Montevideo, Uruguay. In places like the Mataderos district of Buenos Aires and El Cerro in Montevideo; or along the docks on both shores of the mud colored Rio de la Plata, they worked from dawn till dusk amid the heat and the stench of spoiling meat.
Many lived five and six to a room, in various housing conglomerates that came to be called "conventillos", while others lived in sewer pipes stored on an empty lot belonging to a Frenchman named A. Touraint and, in the Argentine vernacular, became known as the "atorrantes", - a slang expression which today still describes homeless 'bums'.
Nights were often the worst times. Italian, French, Turkish, Irish and German immigrants would congregate on street corners of the "arrabales" (the city's outskirts), or crowd into the bars where they could dull their desires with cheap wine and sing mournful Andalucian and Neapolitan love songs to the women left behind.
In this 'male world' there was often violence as the alcohol and the cocaine took effect. Knife wielding toughs, called "compadrones," ruled the arrabales. In the beginning, the Tango was danced by two men - "the tango of the compadron". They danced not arm in arm, but in something of a ballet-like, style, expressing a tale of two men locked in symbolic mortal combat (and often ending in real combat). The expression 'ballet-style' may be confusing. In the Spanish ethos, there is a history of men dancing either alone, or in a group. Nowadays, we can conjure up a vision of modern day male Flamenco dancers dancing in bolero jackets, with a hat pulled low over one eye, and such. So too, with the early Tango. It was danced by one man alone, -expressing his sorrows and hopes, or by two men expressing some sort of moral combat. This is the type of dancing to which 'ballet-style' makes reference.
In time, women - many of them prostitutes - made their way to the ports. They too, found their way into the Tango. The "kilombos" and "enramadas" (brothels) where they plied their trade around the turn of the century became show places for the Tango.
Many men found momentary respite in these brothels of Buenos Aires. Here, both the new immigrants and the 'portenos' (men born in Bueno Aires) could find some companionship and drown their troubles in a few drinks. The grey stone and muddy streets of their barrios (neighborhoods) echoed their sadness. Only the rising sun would dull the pain of memories. It was a time when the Tango belonged to the night.
This eclectic mix of cultures, the European emigres, the peasants from the Argentine hinterland, and the disadvantaged "portenos" became a new social class. They began to create their own cultural expressions. This "Tango culture", -the particular slang, usages and customs of the group, is earlier than Tango dance as an artistic expression.
Today it is generally accepted that the Tango borrowed from many nations. It took the relentless African slave rhythms -the 'candombe' and the beat of their drums (known as tan-go), and added the popular music of the pampas (flatlands) called the 'milonga', which combined Indian rhythms with music of early Spanish colonists. (As an aside, it is interesting to note that 'True' Tango music does NOT use any drums in the ensemble.) The Salon dances, -those involving men and women embracing, were the precedent for the dance, which was refined until it became what we now know as Tango.
These early immigrants and societal outcasts, seeking escape from their own emotions and feelings, would soon develop a music and a dance that epitomized their loneliness and desires. The wail of "their" Tango spoke of more than just frustrated love. It spoke of fatality and of destinies engulfed in pain. It was a dance of sorrow.
The Tango dance originated as an "acting out" of the relationship between a prostitute and her pimp. Tango songs and dances, often highly improvised, had no lyrics, and were generally quite obscene. Titles usually referred to characters in the world of prostitution. During this period, Tango music largely consisted of the melancholy wailing of a bandoneon, an accordion-like instrument imported to Argentina from Germany in 1886.
About the turn of the century, some young Argentinians, visiting Paris on an annual pilgrimage, introduced the "indecent" Tango to some of their friends. The dance took Paris by storm and this helped make the Tango "respectable". It was soon re-imported to the shores of the Rio de la Plata and featured in the cafes and clubs frequented by rich Argentinians.
But it was no longer the Tango of the compadron - the two men in combat. "The compadron was replaced by the "compadrito" who dressed like him; the "fungi," a wide rimmed hat thrown over one eye, a white handkerchief tied around his neck, the short coat and tight trousers and, as a last connection to the toughness of the port, the knife at his side. But it was all 'looks', he had none of the compadron's substance."
By 1912, the Tango, helped by Argentina's passage of Universal Suffrage, was becoming absorbed into the larger Argentine society. While the dance lost some of it abrasiveness, it's structure remained intact, and soon the Tango developed into a worldwide phenomenon. One writer said that even the Americans were doing it, although noting that "some ladies were given to wearing "bumpers" to protect themselves from rubbing a bit too closely against their male partners".
"Eventually, the evolution of the tango took it to the better dance halls closer to "el centro," (downtown) of Buenos Aires. The "fungi" and the silk neckerchief were replaced by the black tuxedo, patent leather shoes, spats and silk top hat."
In this new culture, the tango musicians were now elevated to professional composer status. Roberto Firpo, an early pioneer of the genre, created the typical Tango orchestra. The piano and double bass carried the rhythm. The melody, with strong counter melodies and variations, was played on the bandoneon and the violin. Performance stars of this era included such men as Osvaldo Fresedo and Julio de Caro.
In 1918, writing Lyrics for the tango became all the rage with singers such as the tragic Carlos Gardel and celebrated salon orchestras like Francisco Canaro's giving the music a new legitimacy and acceptance. Carlos Gardel is still revered today, five decades after his death.
In 1930, an Argentine military coup ended universal suffrage. No longer able to vote, the citizenry became largely apathetic with a concomitant depressing effect on dancing the Tango. A rather pessimistic philosopher/singer of the Tango emerged at this time. Enrique Santos Discepolo is perhaps most famous for his lyric, "The 20th Century is a trash heap. No one can deny it..."
The late 1930's saw a Tango revival when Argentinean's regained a good measure of political freedom. Celebrating their social rise, the Tango again became a symbol of solidarity and a part of people's daily life. Tango musicians emerged taking the form into new paths. Among those musicians were such men as Fresedo, de Caro, Pugliese, and Anibal Troilo.
Even wealthy intellectuals, far removed from the working class "orilla", were writing new lyrics for Tango songs. Due to their influence, The Tango became more romantic, more nostalgic, and much less threatening, -"a sweet remembrance of youth in an idyllic society that never existed".
In 1946, Juan Peron rose to power and the Tango reached a mew pinnacle of popularity in Argentina with both the generalisimo and his wife Evita embracing it wholeheartedly. But with Evita's death in 1952, the Tango again fell from public favor. With the advent of American rock-and-roll, the Tango once again seemed out of step with its times.
Out of favor, -perhaps, but the dance still lives. Immensely popular (it is virtually the "national" dance of Finland), the Tango is again enjoying a world-wide renaissance. Several shows have already appeared on New York's Broadway stages, and it remains a very popular ballroom dance.
A TANGO GLOSSARY
ARRABAL: Outskirts, suburb
BARRIO: Neighborhood or district
COMPADRE: Haughty, proud, brave man living in the arrabales (suburb)
COMPADRITO: Typical character of the suburb, a bully and a braggart
CONVENTILLO: Housing edifice with multiple rooms and no basic comfort where the immigrants of different origins live: workers, failed craftsmen...
FUEYE: the Bandoneon (accordion-type instrument)
GUAPO: Nickname for a man who practises the cult of courage
LUNFARDO: Slang of Buenos Aires
MILONGA: Popular music of the pampas and the Rio del Plata
PORTENIO: Term for the residents of Buenos Aires (port-area)Further reading:
An Essay by Jorge I. Oclander: "TANGO: So That You Know Who I Am" (available to read at the 'Forever Tango' link below.)
Daniel Trenner: "Bridge to the Tango Articles"
Daniel Trenner: "Spanish-English Dance Vocabulary"© Copyright 1994-1997 Murray L. Pfeffer. All Rights Reserved
