The Tango-L mailing list archive
Digest from 14 Sep 2000
to 15 Sep 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: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 03:00:32 -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 - 14 Sep 2000 to 15 Sep 2000 (#2000-249)
There are 7 messages totalling 349 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Subject: Forever Tango
2. Tango Guesthouses in Buenos Aires
3. tango - los angeles vs san francisco
4. Brass bands
5. Best Tango Album - Latin Grammies
6. What was it like for women in the Golden Age?
7. NA-W: Early Warning: Tango Christmas Party in Colorado
Send "Where can I Tango in <city>?" requests to Tango-A rather than to
Tango-L, since you can indicate the region. To subscribe to Tango-A,
send "subscribe Tango-A Firstname Lastname" to LISTSERV @MITVMA.MIT.EDU.
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 10:41:47 -0400
From: Luda and Gabriel <magaldi @SYMPATICO.CA>
Subject: Subject: Forever Tango
Sorry, folks, for laying that piece about Forever Tango on you twice. It
was strictly a "people glitch". My trusty computer had nothing to do with
it, except send it out. ;-)
Luda
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 16:51:02 -0300
From: Janis Kenyon <jantango @FEEDBACK.NET.AR>
Subject: Tango Guesthouses in Buenos Aires
I strongly recommend living at one of the guesthouses if you are coming for
the first time, and especially if you don't know Spanish. I have met people
who did not realize the problems they would encounter coming alone. And
without the language, it is even more difficult.
Nora Leda Portela owns Casa Tango, located on Independencia 2277 at
Pichincha. Convenient to the downtown area of the city with a short walk
and a bus ride. I have known Nora for about two years. She speaks English
and French; so does her boyfriend David who handles the reservations. The
house was built in 1906. This second floor home has six bedrooms and two
bathrooms that are available to tango guests. Everyone who I have
recommended the house to has enjoyed their stay and many return to her home.
There is a tv room and a telephone for guests to receive calls. There are
bus routes at the door and subte line is four blocks away. A large grocery
store is two blocks. Nora has decorated the rooms with antiques and
artwork. One large bedroom next to the kitchen has a double bed and is
beautifully furnished. The bedroom in the front of the house has two twin
beds and a desk. It is too beautiful to describe. You have to see it. I
felt as if I had stepped back in time to another era in Buenos Aires. Nora
and David will help you with tango information. You can write her about
availability at noraleda @hotmail.com See photos of the house at
www.casatango.com.ar A room for one person is $150/week; $200/two people.
Another guesthouse I have seen is Casa de Gerard, located at Trienta y Tres
Orientales 249 near Quito in Caballito. Gerard has a passion for tango so
he divides his
time between his home in France and the milongas of Buenos Aires. He bought
this enormous house at the beginning of the year and completely renovated
it. I saw the work in progress and the finished product. There are ten
bedrooms (singles and doubles), six bathrooms, and two kitchens (one
upstairs/one downstairs). There is a large practice room upstairs and a
tango salon with wood floors downstairs for private lessons. The house has
a roof-top terrace and a lovely patio. Single room is $150/week; double
room is $250/week. alojatango @aol.com Write him in French or Spanish, or
very plain English.
I do not know about the other guesthouse mentioned but you can get info
about the San Telmo Guest House from lina @internet.siscotel.com
www.ssdnet.com.ar/tangoguesthouse
Yes, Buenos Aires can be hot or very hot during the summer months
(December-March). None of the guesthouses have air-conditioning. But then,
neither do most of the milongas. The milongas are not desserted during the
summer months as they are in Europe. Be sure to make your reservations far
enough in advance. I hear they already have reservations for March 2001.
You will be asked to wire a deposit to hold your room and then pay the
balance in cash upon arrival.
Pichi
Do-It-Yourself Tango Tour in Buenos Aires
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 15:58:54 -0400
From: Larry Carroll <larrydla @JUNO.COM>
Subject: tango - los angeles vs san francisco
I have been to San Francisco a number of times, & occasionally I'll spend a long weekend there as a sort of vacation from Los Angeles - not because LA is bad but because dancing in a new venue can be exciting. There are many terrific dancers & a number of good milongas in SF.
But it's ridiculous to give points to cities & compare them on a simple bad-to-good scale. More important is who YOU are, & what you need, & what you can give (because that relates closely to what you will get).
Not every milonga is the same. If you're my age but you go to a SF (or LA, or NY, or whatever) milonga that draws mostly twenty-somethings, chances are you won't dance at all, or only with those who grudgingly do so before they go back to someone their own age. Or if you like traditional music only & you go to a milonga with a lot of new tango music, you'll likewise be unhappy. Also, remember that metroplexes like LA, SF, NY, & so on are very large. If your job requires you to live in one area, & your favorite milongas are 50 miles away, you have a real problem.
Other people will respond to your message & try to characterize a city & its tango scene in simplistic ways. Listen to them, but remember - you & the universe & the cities in it are marvelously complex. No such simple-minded characterizations should be your guide.
Larry de Los Angeles
http://home.att.net/~larrydla
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 18:04:40 EDT
From: Charles Roques <Crrtango @AOL.COM>
Subject: Brass bands
Greetings,
Barbara wrote:
<Did you all know that in the very early days of tango it was played by
brass street bands, as well as the original flute, guitar and violin trios??>
I'm curious about this. I've never heard that brass bands played tango
although early groups had tubas as basses and also the occasional flute or
clarinet but I do know that tango's most famous song "La Cumparsita" was
originally written for a marching brass band. (If you imagine the melody done
by horns, it makes perfectly good sense). Roberto Firpo heard the song and
convinced the composer, Matos-Rodriguez to transpose it for a tango ensemble.
As they say, the rest is history. It was eventually recorded by Firpo and as
far as I know that is the original version.
Anyone else have any other information about this?
Cheers
Charles
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 20:20:25 -0400
From: Larry Carroll <larrydla @JUNO.COM>
Subject: Best Tango Album - Latin Grammies
The winner of the Best Tango Album at the Latin Grammies last night was
"Postales Del Alma," Lito Vitale & Juan Carlos Baglietto
Anyone have opinions on this album?
Larry de Los Angeles
http://home.att.net/~larrydla
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 19:09:04 -0700
From: Ruddy Zelaya <ruddy.zelaya @ENG.SUN.COM>
Subject: Re: What was it like for women in the Golden Age?
Astrid,
I read with amusement bordering on astonishment your
message dated Wed, 13 Sep 2000, that stated among
other things the following:
"The only thing I really miss about the Golden Age and
especially the ages before that in Argentina, is that
the men outnumbered the women, and all the men had to
compete with each other in becoming better dancers. In
those days a girl could become a milonguera and be payed
for dancing with the men that came to that milonga. It
was considered to be prestige to have your own milonguera."
Let me state for the benefit of the perennially angry
people who pullulate the list the following: I don't mean
to jump on Astrid. That is not my intention at all. I just
want to shed some light upon the fascinating subject that
is the tango and her message is convenient. So please
don't take this personally but rather as if we are sitting
at a cafe sipping some wine.... chill out ;-)
Having said that, first of all, by the time the so called
Golden Age of tango rolled by (a period in time roughly
marked between 1937 -when Juan D'Arienzo brought the dancers
back into the dance halls with its return to the older, more
danceable forms of tango- and 1955 -year when Juan Peron's
second administration was overthrown by General Eduardo
Lonardi and the backlash against the "descamisados"
-the common man- got underway) the gender composition of the
population of Buenos Aires was radically different from that
of the turn of the century. According to data from the
Argentine National Institute of Statistics and Census, the
male index had gone from 15.5 more men per hundred women in
1915 to 11 in 1925, to 9 in 1935 to 5 in 1947 and 4 by 1955.
Women finally surpassed the male population some time between
1965 and 1970 when the index went from 102.3 to 98.6 men per
hundred women. As of 1990 it is 95.6 and falling.
Now, that was the population at large. Alas, no such
statistics exist for the dancehall customers. Nevertheless,
one can only extrapolate and surmise that the much talked
about gender gap has been exagerated at least for the
period we are talking about. That is not say that it
didn't exist (there is ample proof of that). All I'm saying
is that photographs showing men dancing tango with other men
as proof of the shortage of women fail to mention that the
pictures were taken in places and neighborhoods where *angels*
would fear to enter, let alone a woman; that society's mores
frowned upon men and women touching, let alone dancing together;
and that by the 1940s the gender gap had been greatly reduced
and the society was leaving behind some of the old customs. As
a datapoint, it wasn't until the late 1930s that a married man
could kiss his wife goodbye in public without fear of being
censored by those who saw them. But I digress.
You are right to say that men strived to become better
dancers but the fact is that males have always competed
amongst themselves for access to the females of their species,
ours included. Dancing well is just an edge that some males
use to increase their value as potential mates. There are
other methods. As someone else pointed out on this list,
youth, attractiveness, money and power are also extremely
effective aphrodisiacs and more often than not will trounce
dancing well on any given day. That competition is alive
and well today and will continue until the day that as a
species we lose the sexual urge to reproduce, i.e., shortly
before mankind becomes extinct.
The second half of your statement is the one I find most
troublesome because it denotes an absolute -and forgive me
for being so blunt- ignorance of the historical facts.
Women getting paid for dancing for men is nothing new.
We can go back to the biblical tale of Herodias' daughter
who got paid with the head of John The Baptist for dancing for
King Herod [Mark,6:22-28] as a gruesome example. Contemporary
examples can be found as near to you as the Ginza district
of Tokio or any of the so-called "gentlemen's clubs" of any city
or town you care to mention. We just don't call them "milonguitas"
or "milongueras" anymore but rather lap dancers, exotic
performers, mistresses, "kept" or "loose" women. In Japan, a
close equivalent would have been the traditional Geisha, who may
or may not have been a prostitute but nevertheless accepted money or
presents from male customers and (important distinction) danced
*for* them not *with* them. By the way, the Golden Age of Tango
was a time when with very few exceptions the sobriquet "milonguera"
was meant as an insult not as a compliment and almost always
designated a woman of "easy virtue" or "loose morals". Mud's
flower like the lyrics in the tango "La Ultima Curda" say.
The "prestige" that you mention with such longing has its roots
not on glamour or the thrill of dancing with a good follower, but
rather in the unholy relationship between the powerful and the
dispossesed. It was between men with money, fame, power
or all of the above and women whose sole assets were their youth,
and/or their beauty, and their body. Prestige from having your
own milonguera, as you put it, went to only two types of men.
Those who had money to pay for her favors and as such what was
admired was the bankroll and its purchasing power, not the man,
or those who -unencumbered by morals- made their money from them,
the pimps and ruffians.
The life of the "milonguitas" (girls as young as 14 but not older
than their early 20s) and "milongueras" (women between 25 and 40) was
a hard one. They were condemned by society, persecuted by law,
and exploited by the men in their lives. It was a life of shame,
violence, alcoholism, drugs (heroin in particular), and disease.
The rates of syphillis and other sexually transmitted diseases were
alarming (despite the widespread usage of penicillin) reaching as
high as 36.1% in 1947. Death from tuberculosis was common. It is
important to remember that TB is a poverty driven disease, due as
much to the bacillum as it is from exposure and malnutrition.
Being a "milonguera" was not a career choice but rather what happpened
to you because of poor decisions, bad luck, necessity, hunger,
fate, or the evil of man.
By way of conclusion I would like to say that you, as a woman, are
very fortunate to be living in these times and not then, as we all
are. It is all too easy to lose track of the realities of that era
and see only the good, or as you said, "Oh, yes, how I long for the
old days when women were considered precious and treated like it was
an honor to dance with them, and men would not go to a milonga unless
they were sure the women would not reject them for their poor dancing."
It was also an era when women were no more than appendages to their
men. With very few economical opportunities. Whose only escape
from a domineering father was the street or marriage. Whose only
exit from a bad marriage was poverty or the grave. An era of
unemployment or a 10 hour workday and low pay. And if you think that
women were not rejected because of their poor dancing... think again,
as the lyrics of this tango amply demonstrate:
Segui mi consejo [Follow my advice]
...
Si vas a los bailes, parate en la puerta,
[If you go to the dances, stop at the door]
campanea las minas que sepan bailar,
[check out the women that know how to dance]
no saques paquetes que dan pisotones.
[don't ask out those embarrasments that will step on you]
!Que sufran y aprendan a fuerza 'e planchar!
[Let them suffer and learn from sitting [out the night!]]
....
Best regards to all,
--
ruddy
"Contemporary Argentine Tango tries to create an atmosphere embodying
those lost ideals that are found in medieval romances: chivalry, courtesy,
and honor. We recreate the milongas as they ought to have been; doing away
with the strife and pestilence and emulating the beauty, grace, chivalry
and brotherhood." -- C. Fanfunfa
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 22:14:15 -0600
From: Tom Stermitz <stermitz @CSN.NET>
Subject: NA-W: Early Warning: Tango Christmas Party in Colorado
Tango Christmas Party in Colorado
No there won't be an outdoor milonga, but we are welcoming visitors
to come the first weekend in December for a weekend of Christmas
parties.
This weekend will again be of particular interest to the Milongueros
style dancers due to high percentage of Milonguero Style dancers in
Colorado and the presence of Brigitta Winkler.
The locations we have reserved permit dancing into the wee hours.
>>>>>>>>>>
December 1, 2 & 3: Colorado Christmas Tango Weekend.
- Friday: Elegant Milonga
- Saturday: Tango Colorado Ball
- Saturday & Sunday: Workshops with Brigitta Winkler
- Different milonga locations from the Labor Day weekend.
- Please stay tuned for more information, but feel free to make
travel arrangements (see timely information below):
http://www.tango.org/dance
>>>>>>>>>>
United Airlines is offering some very cheap airfares if you purchase
soon (by Sept 22nd?). There are $200 round trips from the West Coast,
and $300 from the East Coast: http://www.unitedairlines.com
--
Tom Stermitz
stermitz @ragtime.org
http://www.ragtime.org/ragtime
http://www.tango.org/dance
End of TANGO-L Digest - 14 Sep 2000 to 15 Sep 2000 (#2000-249)
**************************************************************