Re: [TANGO-L] Early tango and Ballroom tango

[Ruddy Zelaya <ruddy@MILONGAS.COM>]

Hola Naifas y Garabos,
    Once again, Godwin's Law is proven correct:
   As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law )

Damm you Hitler! Not satisfied with working overtime to kill millions of people you took the time to ban Tango!!
Oh, wait, the Nazi party came to power in 1933 -- a good 20+ years after the Tango arrived in Europe... hummm.
Maybe you meant Kaiser Wilhelm who reputedly forbade his officers from dancing tango while in uniform. Not because
he didn't care for Tango per se, mind you, but because the Vienese Waltz, aside from being Germanic,
made the strapping young men in their fancy uniforms and their majestic handlebar moustaches look soooo
gay... I mean good  :-) 

On a more serious note, I would like to address one of Tom Stermitz' comments.
   I do know from my readings and talking with Eduardo Arquimbau and Juan Bruno that many clubs in the 
   late 1930s and 1940s did not permit cortes and quebradas, as they were considered vulgar.

Cortes y quebradas were banned way before the 30's and 40's. According to a report
by J.A Diego  (as quoted in Jose Gobello's, Cronica General del Tango) "on September 9th, 1862,
were arrested at the tenement house of Paraguay 58, Daniel Molina, Feliciano Orsine,
Rufino Olguin and Jose Sandoval as well as the women Catalina Barsolo and Francisca Diaz
for 'bailando y tirando cortes' [dancing with cortes] which is 'prohibited'."

So, what is a "corte" and what is a "quebrada"? why were they banned?

A corte (literally translates to 'a cut') was a specific move that a dancer performed as
a prelude to a quebrada (literally translates to 'a break').
Vicente Rossi describes the corte: "When the dancer's reptilean movements in the correct
path (that was called 'bailando corrido') comes to a sudden turn and stops to show off his
abilties [as a dancer] or to perform a disconcerting quebrada, the famous corte was born
because the interruption literally cut the march [forward progress] of the couple."

Carlos Octavio Bunge wrote in Nuestra America, 1906:  "'bailar con corte'" that is
"con puro corte a la quebrada" in other words, to break [bend your partner backwards at her waist]
and balancing on top of her, come into full body contact and move slowly and rythmically
to the music. The contact is so complete and intimate that there was "no light" [no hay luz]
between the dancers."
The society at large was not ready to tolerate such immoral behaviour (the quebrada) and thus
it banned it and the step that led to it (the corte). To wit:

"El tio de la novia, que se ha creido / obligado a fijarse si el baile toma / buen caracter, afirma,
medio ofendido, / que no se admiten cortes, ni aun en broma"
[The bride's uncle who thinks is his duty to make sure that the dance remains respectable
asserts (half miffed) that cortes are not permited, not even as a joke.] Evaristo Carriego's
poem "El Casamiento" [The wedding], 1913.

There are many written accounts of what the (for lack of a better term) "pre-purification" tango
looked like. Here's one from the Revista de Policia [Police Gazzette], March 1904:
 "The public dances demand effective police intervention. The tango before, and the tango and the cake-walk now, 
threaten to do to our theaters what the Can-Can did to the Paris theaters of yesteryear. Moreover, [the tango] is a 
low class spectacle with its contortions and the inpudent gestures of its figures. It's worth noting that several of the
competitions that are born out of the elements that like it, have ended at the tip of the knife."

Getting back to Tom's desire to learn about the early tango. As you know, Tango, the dance, 
predates Tango, the music. That is, people started dancing tango steps to existing music (polcas,
mazurcas, tarantelas, etc.) before there was real tango music to dance to. [Therein lies
the ultimate irony to folks (like me) who dislike "alternative music tango". Tango started as
alternative insert-dance-X-here !! i.e., dancing tango steps while listening to non-tango music (sigh)]

In the beginning there were two types of tango with a gray area separating the two.
The "real" tango was obscene, wild, full of lust and bravado. The same adjectives can be
used to describe its practitioners. The written accounts present a picture that by modern
standards would be defined as a date-rape done to music with lots of groping, fondling
and violence. The second type was a more circumspect version of the first. This was the
kind danced at places like Hansen's, at the theaters, or in public. Here the clientele
was better educated, had more wealth and had to behave within the confines that
society has declared as rules of acceptable behavior. The gray area was where these
two worlds met: the brothels, carnaval, private parties, tenement houses and such.

Here's an example of the raw tango from a work written by Ramon Romero in  1886, 
Los Amores De Giacumina. I'll do my best to translate but be aware that the original
was written in "cocoliche genoves" (a form of derogatory/stereotypical slang used to make 
fun of italian immigrants, something like "Mamma mia! Datza a greata meetzaboll!" 
should give you an idea).

"Giacumina took the opportunity to go to the mascarade dance at the Politeama theater.
On the way there she bought a green mask to get in to the theater. As soon as she was
in she was confronted by a group of long-haired compadritos that wanted to dance with
her. Some of them tried to grab her skirt as she passed and she defended herself by hitting them
with her fan. Just so that they would leave her in peace she agreed to dance with one of them.
But this savage compadron was breaking [doing quebradas] so much and would place his
legs in between hers that the poor girl's legs were becoming swollen [...] After they finished
dancing the milonga, the long-haired compadrito took her by the hand into the storeroom
that exists right there at the theater [...] as soon as they were inside they started dancing
a 'cuadrilla cancaniera' [a quadrille with a can-can beat] The compadrito put on a white
kerchief around his neck, adjusted his hat and started to dance. Giacumina wanted to dance
like a little lady but what her partner wanted was to shimmy a lot, lift up her legs high, hit and make
gestures with his hands, squeeze her forcefully and rub his face against her. Giacumina
wanted to leave, but the other compadritos would grope her and lift up her skirts so that the
rest of them could see her fat legs."

The circumspect tango was, one can only hope, devoid of the sexual abuse. Puting aside the
quebradas, the figures done to it were similar. Media lunas, sentadas, corridas, calesitas
and just plain walks were part of the repertoire. One has to remember also that the music was 
"happy music", i.e., El Queco, Don Juan, El Entreriano, La C...ara de la l...una, Ataniche, El
Portenito, etc. all demand a faster style of dancing and a bit more "sway" in the steps.  
Because tango was being danced to non-tango music as well, some of the steps used in other
dances became part of tango as well. Thus, the canyengue hold presents a strong simile with 
the chamame hold. Some orillero steps were borrowed from malambo, vals cruzado got some 
bits from the waltz and some from the polca, etc.

So, where did the purified tango come from? Well, that's another posting....
Best regards,
--
ruddy