The Tango-L mailing list archive
Digest from 5 Apr 2000
to 6 Apr 2000
Reply-To: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
To: Recipients of TANGO-L digests <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 03:00:06 -0400
Sender: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
From: Automatic digest processor <LISTSERV @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: TANGO-L Digest - 5 Apr 2000 to 6 Apr 2000 (#2000-93)
There are 8 messages totalling 296 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Three records
2. Nostalgia yesterday and today
3. Motivations to be in Tango
4. Tango in South Korea
5. New Tango motives
6. Dancers and Music
7. FWD: Tango Postcards
8. URL Borges talks about tango
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Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 09:37:03 +0200
From: Wojciech Baginski <wb159122 @ZODIAC.MIMUW.EDU.PL>
Subject: Three records
Yesterday I got three records on MDs without any description. The only
thing I know are the artists. Could you possibly identify this records:
Alfredo de Angelis
16 tracks, 6 & 12 - Valses, the rest - Tangos
Miguel Calo
16 tracks, 13 - Milonga, the rest - Tangos
Pablo Banchero
13 tracks, 4 & 12 - Milongas, the rest - Tangos
I would be grateful if you could add info about:
1. Titles of the albums
2. Artists
3. Year of recording
4. Producer (copyright owner)
5. Titles of the tracks
or tell me where I can find detailed info about this albums in WWW.
Thank you very much,
Alberto
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2000 22:05:03 -0400
From: Sergio Suppa <sersupa @INFOVIA.COM.AR>
Subject: Nostalgia yesterday and today
Frank G. Williams asks two most interesting questions. Nostalgia and tango,
any difference today from what it was before?
What motivates the new generation to be involved with tango?.
Nostalgia - Greek - nostos: return and algos: pain - Sorrow caused by the
absence of the (Patria) motherland.
Fig. Sorrow caused by remembering something that was lost.
This element, nostalgia, has always been present in tango lyrics.Yesterday
and today.
It correlates very well with the music temperament as a cultural expression
of the city of Buenos Aires.
The world of an Argentinean, other than his own country was limited to
Spain, Italy, France and England, till the end of WW2. England was the
commercial center, Italy, Spain and France the ancestral land. For practical
purposes 75% of the world art was within Italy, the rest in France and
Spain. Germany had provided great musicians and Russia musicians and
literature but France was the cultural center; in order to be accepted as
talented one had to go to and succeed in France first.
Many tangos make reference to that great nation. "El Marne" - "Comme il
faut" - "Canaro en Paris" - "Anclao en Paris" and many other. While abroad
this nostalgia would become unbearable. This pain was the source of
inspiration for many tangos.
The sorrow caused by remembering something lost (youth, money, love, good
health, the old neighborhood, etc.) is another recurrent theme.
Modern poets use the same subject from a different angle.
Hector Negro uses the city as the background of his daily life.
"Mi ciudad y mi gente" " My city and my
people"
Aunque me de la espalda de cemento, Even when she shows me her
back of cement,
me mire transcurrir indiferente, and looks at me with
indifference,
es esta mi ciudad y esta es mi gente this is my city and
these are my people
y es el sitio donde a morir me siento. it is the place where I
sit down to die.
!Bunos Aires!... Buenos Aires!
Para el alma mia no habra geografia For my soul there won't be
any geography
mejor que el paisaje... better than the
views...
de tus calles, of your
streets,
donde dia a dia me gasto los miedos where day in, day out, I
spend my fears
las suelas y el traje... the soles of
my shoes and my suit...
He ends with:
No podria... I could not...
vivir con orgullo, be proud,
mirando otro cielo que no fuera el tuyo. looking at a different sky
than yours.
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2000 22:36:40 -0400
From: Sergio Suppa <sersupa @INFOVIA.COM.AR>
Subject: Motivations to be in Tango
What motivates the new generation to be in tango?
Musicians as players and composers, writers and poets, dancers, are all
artists. What motivates an artist to express his art?
A great need to be creative, to bring out his feelings by doing, to show the
world what is inside of him/her, to be appreciated, to be successful, to
feel that his contribution is important, to succeed economically. Would be
those, enough motivations?
There are modern poets writing tango lyrics.
Horacio Ferrer, Hector Negro, Eladia Vazquez, just to name a few.
They write about the city or to the old tango ladies " La ultima grela", or
"La bicicleta Blanca" (The white bicycle).
They also write about Porten~os, their habits and characteristics.
It is interesting to see how musicians from other areas, jazz, rock,
tropical music are starting to include tango in their repertoirs. Some were
drafted by tango and gave up their former musical vocation.
It is also interesting to see how the "New tango" as a dance adapts itself
to vangard music such as Piazzola or Raul Garelo;
even when they never meant their music to be good to dance to.
There is no doubt, a change is taking place under our own eyes.
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 00:00:35 +0900
From: Sang Hyeon Chang <chang @BARAM.PHYS.TOHOKU.AC.JP>
Subject: Tango in South Korea
Recently I heard from some people in Korea that
AT activities in Seoul, South Korea.
Sometimes ago, I posted an article about Mr. Kong from
BsAs, who is the first Korean professional Tango dancer in
BsAs. He opened tango school in Seoul this month.
Also, a young Korean couple, who were originally Salsa dancers,
visited BsAs and stayed 3 months there to learn Tango. They having
free lesson and party in Seoul every Monday.
Another person in Seoul who is teaching Tango is Argentine who
lives in Seoul, his name is Raul. He has a small salsa bar in Seoul
"Macondo" and he teaches Salsa and Tango in weekly base.
It is just a start, and only a handful of people.. but when I left
Korea at 1995, there was no latin bar or single person who dance
latin dance... but now in Seoul, there are 6 Salsa bars and a few
hundred salsa dancers. I am quite positive on the future of Tango
in Korea. From the ancient time, Koreans were famous of their
keen sense on rythm and love of dancing.
Long political suppression makes them apart from dancing.. and many
of traditional rythms are forgotten.
Now many young people listen forigen musics like black music, latin
music.. when they heard the music, they had great eager to dance, only
they didn't know how.
When some guys opened latin bars and started dancing, this places are
imediately filled with new young dancers. Now in Seoul, there are Cuban,
Columbian, LA, NY Salsa dancing, every night. It is amazing that
only 2-3 years ago, there was no Korean who knows what is Salsa and
merenge. When I visited Seoul a few month ago, I was quite impressed
by this new dancers, some of them also started to dance swing in Salsa
bar. And many of them wanted to learn AT, too.
I don't know when it will come, but some time in future I wish to post
tango events, festivals, milongas in Korea in Tango-L.
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 07:59:33 -0800
From: Karima Cammell <karima @DROMEDARYPRESS.COM>
Subject: New Tango motives
Dear list,
>>What motivates the new generation to be in tango?
>>Musicians as players and composers, writers and poets, dancers, are
all
>>artists. What motivates an artist to express his art?
Until now I have been a silent listener to this list. That is because I
am new to tango and felt I had much more to learn than to contribute.
But here is a question that I feel I can answer from my heart.
I am 25, from California, and a painter. I am also just starting on the
slow road to learning the bandoneon. Why tango? Here is a music that
is not my culture, not my history. Who am I to think I will be able to
contribute? How can I think that I could ever know enough to even
partake? The only reason I move forward with it is because I feel that
the music chose me. Just like watercolor chose me for painting.
I first fell in love with the music when I was very young (my father
came home one evening with The Tango Project recording and we danced
around the dining room - later I heard Astor Piazzolla and was hooked).
When I heard the music what I heard was not connected to the culture and
the history - it was just music that spoke to me. I was a medium that I
instantly connected to and I heard a part of myself in it. I felt that
if I could learn how to play I would have found a voice that somehow I
needed. It was later that I learned that the history and the culture
are all frameworks to the medium that one also needs to learn. But
every medium has its culture and history to learn - learning it gives
one freedom to move more freely in the medium. Tango may just be more
difficult from afar since it is still very much connected to a place and
a people. And then there is the fact that the Bandoneon is simply very
difficult. Good thing the journey is so much fun. And it is nice to
know that many of you are on the same road with me.
Sincerely, Karima
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 14:38:12 EDT
From: "Lisa E. Battan" <Battanle @AOL.COM>
Subject: Dancers and Music
Dear List,
I like Rajan's idea (or jest?) of having Fabian Salas dance with
microsensors. It reminds me of a performance I saw years ago by Laurie
Anderson. She fitted herself with sensors which made different percussive
sounds as she danced (or walked or jerked) on stage. The performance was
weird and delightful at the same time.
While dancing tango, a dancer may choose to dance one particular instrument,
i.e., the violins or the bandoneon or the piano. The dancer can also choose
to dance different aspects of the music, i.e., the melody or the rhythm. The
leader may move his feet to one rhythm while he leads his follower's feet to
dance a different rhythm. In these manners it may be said that the dancers
are expressing or interpreting the music.
However, isn't is also possible to say that the dancers are themselves making
music with rhythm, melodies, phrases, tempo, punctuation, etc.? Is this
sense, do we actually need the sensors to detect the new music? Or, are we
too dense to listen to or understand the music we make while dancing without
the sensors? Isn't there a sense where these dancers/artists are creators,
not just expressers?
Regards,
Lisa
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 17:14:16 -0400
From: Matej Oresic <matej.oresic @CORNELL.EDU>
Subject: FWD: Tango Postcards
I am forwarding this message for Floyd Baker from Buffalo...
---
Hello everyone..
Just wanted to drop in and say I'm still around and that we just
increased the A/Tango postcard collection on my page. I've added
another 25 cards. The new ones have beveled edges instead of colored
borders, to identify them. In addition, we finally organized them
into "sets" as much as possible and also broke them into 3 download
groups to break up the time a little. Still the same total time but it
doesn't seem quite as long.
http://www.wzrd.com/buffalo/tango/cards.html
I'll be happy to hear what you think of them.
Thanks.
Floyd
p.s. And thanks to Matej for relaying this note. My subscription name
and my email name are now different and I cannot post my own.
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 20:19:38 -0500
From: "kata @pitton.com" <kata @PITTON.COM>
Subject: URL Borges talks about tango
In "El Porten~o" there's a 1982 interview (in Spanish) with Jorge Luis
Borges where he talks a little about tango.
Go to http://www.elportenio.com/ and click on the link J.L. Borges: De
bastones y putas.
Borges' spoken Spanish is much easier to read than his literature, and I
think most people with some ability to read Spanish can get something out
of this interview. It's interesting to read his point of view.
Kate
End of TANGO-L Digest - 5 Apr 2000 to 6 Apr 2000 (#2000-93)
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