Re: [TANGO-L] Ballroom and Argentine tango revisited

[Barbara Garvey <barbara @TANGOBAR-PRODUCTIONS.COM>]

This comment is a throwback to the discussion a little while ago about the
history and relationship between Ballroom and Argentine tango.  I've been
sorting out papers and files and just came across Richard's Tango
Bibliography: Primary Sources with Tango Descriptions, chronological listing
to 1930. This bibliography which contains dance manuals, and magazine and
newspaper articles consists o 2/3 titles in English, quite a few in French
and a sprinkling in German, Italian and Spanish, with only one article
(1905) published in Argentina. Moreover Richard does not speak Spanish. So
unless his research has been greatly updated in the last 5 years or so, I
suggest that his expertise is concentrated on ballroom tango as understood
in Europe, the UK and the US.

There are very few documents describing tango as it was danced in the early
years in Argentina -- Richard cites Cuello "Baile de Moda" 1905 . This is
quoted in El Tango, by Horacio Salas: Cuello sees the dance at Carnaval,
"Only in these crazed days could it be tolerated"; he calls it libertine,
lascivious, voluptuous, with contorsions, unexpected postures, foot stamping
and rocking movements. The next well-known commentary is by the anonymous
Viejo Tanguero who wrote after tango had been influenced by its sojourn in
Europe. He indicates that the tango of the mid-teens was much smoother and
cleaned up than that of the turn of the century. So it is really hard to
know what differences and changes occured between 1908, when Guiraldes and
his friends took the tango they had learned in the slums of Buenos Aires to
Paris, but it seems obvious that ballroom tango somehow derived from
whatever was popular in early 1900s BA but with major changes, and the tango
brought back to the middle class salons of Buenos Aires bore little
relationship to its origins.

Therefore the question is not "which came first" -- obviously Argentine
tango came first but was transformed into "tango liso". But Cachafaz ' style
did not resemble ballroom tango at all. What I would deduce is that the
tango in its original poorer barrios and suburbs probably continued,
developing more slowly maintaining its vitality but adapting to tile, marble
or wood floor surfaces and gradually incorporating a bit of subtlety from
the folks uptown.

Ruben has access to much more research than I including early photos and
films -- perhaps he could weigh in.
Abrazos (and especially to you, Ruben)
Barbara


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