[TANGO-L] Blacks and tango III

[Sergio Vandekier <sergiovandekier990 @HOTMAIL.COM>]

Dear Bruno,
                Thank you for your honesty and integrity to acknowledge
that you were at least partially erroneous when you said "tango was the
creation of Black slaves".

My initial answer was that all modern ballroom dances originated in the
American Continent (except for a few, that originated in Europe) by an
interaction between African and European forces.

So we have Jazz, swing, rock &roll, blues from North America, Bolero,
cha-cha, mambo, rumba from Cuba, Salsa (actually a variation of mambo) from
Puerto Rico, Cumbia from Colombia, Samba from Brazil, Tango, milonga, vals
from Argentina. All the other nations of the continent have their own
variations of Ballroom dances.

Black dances such as Candombe were already described by me in detail in
another note. They are done without embrace, women and men dance apart from
each other with little or very primitive choreography or plainly in free
style. I have seen Candombe in Uruguay myself, they still dance the same way
as before to the rhythm of the drums.

If we were to hypothesize that ballroom dances were originated by blacks, do
not you think that they would have been born in Africa rather than in
America?
Africa produced no ballroom dance,   they all originated in the American
Continent due to the interaction of the two cultures.

You should not be mislead by the use of the world tango, for it is used, as
Aron says, in reference to places and dances that had nothing to do with our
tango.

The government of Buenos Aires decreed in 1807 that Tangos, their Candombes
and other dances done by blacks are forbidden inside or outside of the city
due to their immorality, and fro preservation of decency. Established a
penalty of one month of public service for those that disobeyed.

There is documentation that the Cabildo of Montevideo (city hall) as early
as 1811 forbade "the tangos and dances of blacks" as they were noisy and
interfered with public order and decorum.

This is a reference to the places were blacks danced and also to their
dances that had nothing to do with our tango.

The word tango was used in Spain, in Mexico and in many countries were
existed slaves before than in Argentina. Slave traders also called "Tango"
the place(both in Africa and in America) were they held the slaves to be
transported or to be sold.

Spain used this word to describe a way of singing similar to flamenco "Tango
Espanol".

PS. In another note I will discuss your sources: Andres Carretero's Book
"Tango Testigo social" and also the web page you kindly provided.

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