Carabelli 1

Tango came up fast. What was tango until the late 1920s? The names that have survived are Canaro, Firpo, Fresedo, Donato, Lomuto and the newcomer, Julio de Caro. Canaro in 1925 was metronomic. The beat is absolutely precise and controlled, march-like. It's a bit stiff to dance to, it's played without much emotion: the music is there, but there's not much depth of feeling in it. Much the same for Firpo. Feeling floods in with De Caro, from his educated classical background.

I can't resist including this photo of de Caro and his sextet. There's no doubting the year because in 1925 he took on a talented second bandoneon, Pedro Laurenz, then just 23, to play alongside the other Pedro, Pedro Maffia. But Maffia left the band in 1926. Such a marvellous photo: imagine going to a milonga and the band dressed like this, as formal as an international string quartet, although de Caro, just 26 himself, stands a bit at ease, slightly proprietorial, one hand resting in a pocket, his Stroh violin and bow hanging from the other. A 26 year-old who's achieved something new and very popular. In 1934 Laurenz was to leave and start his own orquesta – with Osvaldo Pugliese as pianist.

So, tango at the end of the 1920s. Here's Canaro, Tengo Miedo, 1929.  (These tracks open in YouTube, as it's easy to access.) It's fun, but compared to the tango we know now, the beat is very precise, it's stiff to dance to, it's rather 'straight'. Perhaps it suits canyengue better than tango. The notes are there, but hardly the feeling we expect. 

Here's Julio de Caro in 1930. It's closer to what we expect, but it still doesn't quite make it. There's much more feeling, perhaps too much in the violin, and at the expense of rhythm.  De Caro recorded a lot, but it's rare to hear his music in the milongas now. A kind of sentimental late romanticism creeps in, slurring over the notes as if to disguise the rigid beat, as if he was uneasy with overly rhythmic music. I like listening to it, but it's not great for dancing to. 

& since 1925 there had been a new band, the Orquesta Tipica Victor. Here's their version of Coqueta in 1929. (It's the first track on a playlist.) Suddenly we're in another world, and it's a more familiar tango world. It's simply a beautiful piece of music and it's beautifully played, full of feeling. It sings. There's variety in the arrangement, alternating smooth, legato phrases with stronger rhythmic chords, and using orchestral textures, the high violins and the lower sounds of the bandoneon and, I think, a cello. The phrases surge with life, and fit effortlessly together. The rhythm is clear and assured, but it's varied and never overwhelming. Easy to imagine yourself dancing to this late at night with a favourite partner: it's music full of tenderness. 

The OTV was directed by Adolfo Carabelli, who had his own orquesta too. & if Coqueta sings, the Orquesta Carabelli's El Pensamiento (1932) swings. My ear caught the bass line behind the singer: it sounds so familiar you hardly notice it. OTV and the Orquesta Carabelli swing throughout: they have the trick of playing one note a little long, and the next slightly shorter (or vice-versa) so the beat is emphasized. & somehow the sound is full and consistent, whereas the sound in Canaro and de Caro seems to be patchy as if they're not quite sure what to say. With OTV and Carabelli I suddenly begin to hear a kind of tango that is fully recognisable. Tango didn't take the direction of Canaro's formally precise beat, nor the romantic excess of De Caro. 

Of course, there are examples and examples. Canaro in 1929 could sound more sensitive,  and there's a great clip of De Caro playing both for stage and social tango: his music here is a much more recognisable tango. The film, Luces de Buenos Aires (1931), features Gardel, and shows how successful De Caro was. Incidentally, the clip shows stage tango from 1931, exaggerated then as now: the social dancing in the clip is relatively smooth.  

 So who was Carabelli (1893–1947)? He was older than de Caro and a few years younger than Canaro. Todotango has it that Canaro grew up playing a home-made violin for coins on the back streets of San José de Mayo in Uruguay, while Carabelli studied composition, harmony and counterpoint as a child. A prodigy on piano, by 15 he had performed in Buenos Aires concert halls, so he was sent to Europe to continue his studies. He was accepted at the Lyceum of Bologna, where he studied with Busoni, himself a child prodigy, a piano virtuoso from an early age. Busoni is chiefly known for his opera Turandot, and for an unfinished opera, Doktor Faust. He's also known for many piano arrangements of J S Bach, music he seems to have had a close feeling for. He thought of music as without prescriptive labels, and in 1907 he had written about the possibilities of microtonal and even electronic music.

At 20, in 1913, Carabelli graduated as a Master in Composition. (The first performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring was in May that year, which Carabelli must have been aware of.) At the outbreak of the First World War he returned to Buenos Aires, where he played the classical repertoire with the Trío Argentina.

Then in 1917 he met the Russian pianist Lipoff, who was touring as pianist to Ana Pavlova, innumerable dying swans worldwide in the twilight of her career. In 1914 she'd left Europe for the USA with her husband, her touring career in Europe presumably cut short by the outbreak of WW1. (In 1917 she also danced in Lima, Peru, where an English boy called Frederick Ashton was taken by his parents to a performance. He was so impressed, he made dance his life. Sir Frederick Ashton became famous as a choreographer, a co-founder and director of the Royal Ballet.)

Todotango adds: 'Lipoff had a wide knowledge of jazz music; Carabelli marvelled with this expression and he devoted to it definitively'.

What was jazz in 1917? Ragtime: Scott Joplin died in 1917. Blues: WC Handy, 1873 – 1958. Buddy Bolden 1877 – 1931: his band was a top draw from 1900 onwards in New Orleans. Stride piano: Jelly Roll Morton, 1890–1941, was in New York in 1911, and writing down his compositions from 1914. (Both Handy and Morton made use of the habanera rhythm, too.) King Oliver was just getting going in 1917, and Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith came a few years later. 

The earliest jazz recordings were made in 1917. They were successful, and led to the worldwide popularity of the music, but in 1917 you probably got to know jazz from written music and by listening live. If Lipoff was Pavlova's pianist when she arrived in New York in 1914, he must have heard jazz live there, and he could probably reproduce what he heard. He could also have had a folder of sheet music as it's said Scott Joplin, WC Handy and Morton published sheet music. A broad range of pre-bop jazz existed in 1917.

Inspired, Carabelli started the River Jazz Band in Buenos Aires. In 1925 he was hired by Victor to lead an orquesta that could play jazz or tango, and he made his first tango recordings. He was able to choose excellent musicians. He recorded under his own name, and also as director of Orquesta Tipica Victor, with many of the same musicians. He directed the orquesta, played piano, wrote the arrangements, and rehearsed the musicians, many of whom would have trained classically in local conservatoires. The personnel varied, and included prominent players from the other orquestas of the time. Pedro Laurenz and Anibal Troilo both passed through OTV, as did other excellent musicians and vocalists. Carabelli continued recording jazz too, as well as versions of all the other popular dances of the day.

Carabelli was innovative in other ways: he recorded Milonga Sentimental with Carlos Lafuente in 1932, possibly the first recorded milonga in tango history. The words had been written by Homero Manzi the previous year. (It's on the Buenos Aires Tango Club CD of Carabelli.)

In 1936 Carabelli gave up leadership of the OTV, and made his last recording, a fox trot, in 1940, retiring to his home town where he lived by teaching until his death seven years later.

Villa Urquiza

Thanks to Jantango for passing on the link to another of those remarkable archives of videos that grow day by day on YouTube. This one is the channel of José Luis Ferraro, and Jantango characterises it as Villa Urquiza tango, some 80-odd videos filmed in Sunderland, Glorias Argentinas, Sin Rumbo, and elsewhere, and uploaded over the last seven months.

Perhaps it's a good time to remember what Villa Urquiza really stands for, since many of the wildest young Argentine teachers who come to London claim to dance Villa Urquiza. Watch El Chino Perico, his utmost calm and effortless sophistication on the floor: I get the sense of someone marvelously courteous, and I believe that is real Villa Urquiza, not the antics young teachers try to impress us with. I get the impression that tango was a civilizing influence: that young kids came in off the streets and learned how to behave with courtesy and dance with elegance, and if they didn't they weren't welcomed back. Tangoandchaos has a bit of the history, the story of El Chino and his friend Alberto Dassieu and their tutelage under Luis Lemos, the patron of tango in the Villa Urquiza barrio.

There's a variety of dance styles in these videos too. There's a marvellous clip of Carlitos Anzuate, a kind of dance I suspect goes back to the 1930s in which it is the man who has all the 'decoraciones' and the lady follows him around in a kind of minimal tango. It reminds me a bit of Osvaldo and Coca. (A number of these clips share the same opening sequence of social dance before the 'solo' sequences.) Then there's another couple in the archive who dance a tango that seems much closer to canyegue.

It's José Luis Ferraro's chanel, and about half the clips are of him. This is where I find it a bit less edifying, as I don't find triple voleos and high kicks that impressive. Just my opinion, but I believe it's far harder and much more impressive to dance like El Chino than to dance like Ferraro...

An Open Letter

Silvia Ceriani has published a translation of one of Tete Rusconi's Open Letters to tangueros everywhere and always. Also a wonderful description of Regin milonga in the 1990s: from its description as 'on the first floor of Riobamba and Corrientes' we recognise it as what is now El Beso: no longer broken green neon I think, but green curtains.

There are several of these open letters covering much the same ground. They reveal how earnest Tete was about tango, however much he might joke. About tango music, '...this very impassioned music gives us life, energy, pleasure'. As to the dance, he sees danger: '...we are losing it by not respecting it'. Tango is not a business; 'Tango is a part of our lives, part of our grandparents, parents, mothers, brothers and friends. It’s our life'. It's good to remember how the older generation see it, even if we can't match their passion.

Carablanca

Another excellent evening of dance at Carablanca. The music was much appreciated, and set me wondering just how a DJ manages to keep us all on the floor all evening. The answers are pretty much on his website: ensuring that the tanda begins well, which means an extensive knowledge of the music from a dancer's point of view, and meticulous technical understanding of, and attention to, sound quality. I found the sound was particularly remarkable: the music felt warm and rich, with an excellent spacious feel to it, although the tracks are mono. The various lines of melody and rhythm were clear, without the slightest discernible distortion. When you've got sound and a selection of music like that, you feel you can relax, trust it and enjoy it. Bernhard has played in that hall before, so he knows it and the speakers there, and knows how to make the most of it. In any case, it's a good space for music.

As for the dancing, I'm sure it's a lot calmer and smoother than it was a few years ago. I've never seen Carablanca seriously crowded*, but it can feel that way when people aren't skilled in dancing on 'una baldosa' – on a single tile (as they say in Buenos Aires milongas). Out of the dancers there, there were perhaps only one or two with that skill. If everyone had that skill you could just about double the number of dancers and it would still feel perfectly comfortable.

(*On one occasion – but that was virtually a private party.)

Carablanca... and some more YouTube stuff

I should have drawn attention to this last week: Carablanca has a late licence for Friday 8 March. Dancing, great music and empanadas from 8 until 2. DJ Bernhard Gehberger.

While I'm at the keyboard, some more YouTube stuff. Recently I came across bariodorizontal's YouTube channel which is a real cornucopia, mainly of clips of music and food. Over 700 clips to be precise (they seem to include the whole of El último Bandoneón, with Rodolfo Mederas). This clip* shows 'el maestro Oscar Barrios' who was first bandoneón with the de Angelis orquesta. The events seem to be a series of recitals in a cafe somewhere in Buenos Aires, organised by Los Amigos del Galpón de Mingo. I found it worth hunting around on the channel as there are a great many clips like this, usually two instruments plus sometimes a vocalist. The setting is relaxed, and the music is wonderful. It's very simple and charming: a small audience, people sitting chatting at tables over by the window, the traffic outside. 

*PS: For some reason, bariodorizontal has removed the video of Palomita Blanca with Oscar Barrios from the YouTube channel: a pity because it was a wonderful piece. However, all the other clips seem to be still there, including several clips by the same two performers from the same afternoon, and a great version of Pedacito de Cielo with a singer: you can find them on the channel. There are other tracks from Oscar Barrios, too: there's a super version of La Maleva, Oscar with a second bandoneon. 

There's plenty to watch - and listen to - there, and you can 'Load more' videos for a very long time. I've not watched that many, but the music and the setting are wonderful in everything I've seen.

Cacho Dante and the embrace

I hadn't intended to write any more about the tango of Buenos Aires and the tango of Europe, and then I remembered a basic exercise. But it was when I discovered a video as well that the keyboard started to rattle. & anyway, I think it's important. When it comes down to it, the outstanding differences between those two tangos seem to be in the embrace and in the way the music is followed with the body.

The exercise is occasionally (too rarely) used in classes here: the leader leads without using the right arm and hand. Holding the right arm behind the back forces the leader to rely exclusively on using the sternum-to-sternum contact to lead. (It might require the 'follower' to use the left arm a bit more firmly.) It always surprises me how sensitive this is: the slightest move from the lead is picked up and responded to immediately. This exercise is great for practicas, and really encourages a clear, firm lead from the chest.

& the video? Sadly, Cacho Dante has injured his right hand. Does this stop him dancing? No way! Here he is giving what appears to be a class demo. I don't remember him giving formal demos in classes but he would dance a bit, aware that we need to watch a lot in order to learn. The video shows clearly the embrace and how it is used. Of course, Cacho is a different shape to many of us, but I assume he was slimmer when he danced as a young man and could still lead well. With regard to body shape, a friend who has danced with him and many others tells me: 'They just lift you onto those big bellies and dance away with you!' & I wonder about that lifting: thinking about the embrace, I've recently noticed that dances where I have the feeling of lifting from the core are successful: those where I can't get that feeling, less so. Entirely subjective. & pushing up from the core means pushing down onto the floor, being grounded.

With thanks to Lonesol.

Posture is central to the embrace. As a young man and as an older man Cacho was unlikely to have spent days hunched over a terminal, and being upright was probably much more part of his culture than it is ours. Myriam Pincen said leaders should stand up straight and breathe in fully as they embrace: '...you are then in the right position'. That's easy to do as a drill: the problem is staying in that position throughout a tango. The moment a leader's posture slumps, the embrace loses its firmness and clarity.

Cacho is dancing to Pugliese, and I take this video as a masterclass in dancing Pugliese too. It's a different kind of music, and we're likely to get one or at most two tandas a night, so we don't dance much to it. The abrupt energy as well the lyrical side of the music are there effortlessly in his lead. I'm not sure how he does it, but I'd guess he's so precisely on the beat he doesn't need to exaggerate his movements. That final step is an example; it's firm but not at all demonstrative, and yet it has great energy.

There are two other recent clips of him dancing Pugliese at the Lujos milonga in Plaza Bohemia. His right hand is bandaged, and although it is behind his partner's back you can see he doesn't hold her with it. It's a great lesson, but I hope the hand has healed. 

The two other clips are Lujos 1 and Lujos 2. & two tangueros in each: I'm sure the guy in the white shirt with the elegant lady in pink is Eduardo 'El Nene' Masci. I note he's relatively slim and can still lead effortlessly; encouragement to many of us. & sorry, I don't know who the lady in pink is.

PS. Ah, Lujos milonga! Just look at that big floor, perfectly normal lighting, people turning up to eat and drink and dance for hours! Isn't that civilized?

Ricardo Vidort at Confiteria Ideal, 2003

The drip-drip of appearance of films of Ricardo Vidort's tango is slow: I hope he will still be remembered by the time everything there is appears! Although there probably aren't that many, but at least they keep coming.

This one is great: Ricardo (in the light-coloured jacket) dancing in a milonga at Ideal, and dancing with a lot of energy and fun, weaving all over the floor. Nobody else seems as grounded and sure of themselves. It's great to see such enjoyment of the dance, and as ever it's a wonderful lesson. & it's such an individual dance: tango, but unlike anyone else's tango. Clearly tango from an era before professional teachers who all dance alike and teach the same things.

A pity there's not more: there is a Part 1, but he doesn't appear in it. Moreover, the camera seems to be surreptitious, and dwells on the other dancers too. But thanks for the few moments; a pleasure to watch!

Video with thanks to Tango Vida

'Coming back from Buenos Aires to dance in …' 2

I keep remembering those BsAs tandas that become so hushed you can hear the swish of the soles of many shoes kissing the floor, although the music is loud and clear. Everyone is that attentive to the music, and that precise on the beat. It makes me hold my breath for fear of disturbing it. It's an experience worth any number of long-distance flights. I've noticed it occasionally, for a moment or two, in London, late in a milonga. It's strange that I think of it as very moving, but it is. That degree of absorption in the music and in each other, by a number of couples moving as one. At that level all the fears and uncertainties about connection have evaporated, not as a result of training but just because there's something infinitely more enjoyable to be absorbed in.

London milongas can seem a bit raucous by comparison, but I wouldn't want to suggest that there's no fun in BsAs milongas. There's a lot of fun, and probably duplicity too. But there's also an incessant attention to the partner and the energies of the music. The overall feeling is often of very warm affection. Look at any couple dancing, and you'll see why tango is called the dance of love: they look blissfully absorbed in each other even if they are total strangers. & then the music stops, they laugh and go their different ways. Sadly, love doesn't usually work quite like that.

I think that attention to all the energies of the music is what we should aim for, and I think we're getting there. Not so long ago, in the 'nuevo period', music was often background to a lot of gymnastics. Now people are listening, and know the music better, are discriminating about the music played, and dance more closely with it. (In fact, not so long ago it was actually hard work getting tango CDs, and YouTube and internet streaming were in their infancy.)

Learning to be open to all the energies of the music takes time, and listening. We can learn about the music and its structure from musicians and dancers like Joaquín Amenábar, who offers a lot of insight into the music and how to dance to it. But responding to the music as the older dancers do? I don't know how we can develop this, apart from dancing as long and as frequently as they've done. First of all I think we need to be aware that it is a possibility, something to aim for. I guess it takes a lot of listening and practice, with old friends, with newcomers, with both experienced and inexperienced dancers, to become that confident with the music and the embrace. Perhaps Tete's advice is useful: sin pensamiento! Without thinking what you're going to lead next, just letting your whole body react to the music.

Guided practicas might be more useful than formal classes because they are places where you can let yourself go a bit. Classes suggest a topic to be learned and mastered, with all the discipline and competitive learning of the classroom, with the feeling that you've 'got it' (or not), and then it's over. Practicas are an immediate and hands-on way of developing a feel for the dance and the music, a continuing process that doesn't end with the class, since a practica is more like a milonga, a place where people can share experience. But guided practicas, practicas observed and 'moderated', not free-for-alls. Or classes like Cacho Dante's classes, combining exercises, new material and a lot of free dance, closely observed by Cacho.

What Pedro and Osvaldo Centano do in those videos is instinctive; they couldn't really teach it, but Pedro gave me a big hint when he pointed out that I must have learned to dance in London because my dance was all with my feet, and he went on to point out how, in stepping to the left, there can be a dip then a lift. We all started out learning tango as steps, and thinking we need to learn more steps, and keep on learning steps in class, so it's not easy. True, you've got to learn the footwork for ochos, giros and so on; you need to learn how to move on your feet. The problem arises if no one suggests to you that there's more to it than that: getting your feet in the right place might be only the basis to the dance, not the actual dance.

'Listen to the music!' as Pedro would say. &, 'Take it easy!'

'Coming back from Buenos Aires to dance in …' 1

(… fill it in with wherever you are...) 

It's a familiar sentence. Dancing Soul wrote it recently: Random Tango Bloke said something similar in a comment a few weeks back, and I've written it several times. No doubt the technical abilities of dancers outside Buenos Aires are excellent, even 'comparable with the dancers in Argentina', as Elizabeth (Dancing Soul) puts it. So what do we miss when we come back? 

RTB suggested that it's the actual embrace that is different. Elizabeth describes the Buenos Aires embrace as 'stuck-to-your-sternum', although it varies a bit. It would be great if it was that simple: get the hold right, get your technique together and you're away. But... no. Elizabeth suspects that reluctance to touch is the problem, and this must be a big part of it. Lead/follow perspectives are different: my experience of the Argentine embrace is one of uninhibited, immediate giving. No hesitation. It's the kind of embrace you'd expect from someone you are close to and haven't seen for a while, not from some stranger on the dance floor. (But then that's cultural: strangers in general are welcomed as friends in Argentina.) But there it is. Certainly no reluctance to touch there. Trusting and enjoyable. 

(I'd like to add here how invaluable the experience of women like Elizabeth is, women who have visited BsAs and turned up night after night in milongas available for dance, which means not sitting with a male partner. I know, and know of, a few women who've turned up alone in milongas there over the past ten or so years, yearly visits, for a month or so at a time. They have danced all night long with the dancers whose experience of music and dance is lifelong and goes back to the era of live music, including a number who are no longer with us. Their experience is invaluable to those of us who are trying to get a feel for the tango of the milongas. Guys can get a lot from visits too, but they aren't going to get that close.) 

I think there's one factor that might turn out to be even more difficult than reluctance to touch, and that's musicality. I'm sure this, not the embrace, not the technique, is the defining characteristic of the tango of the milongas. First of all there's the compas, the beat, the emphatic thumping of bass, piano, bandoneon. Musicians practice hard and work hard to make sure they are absolutely at one in their compas, and generally dancers keep meticulously to the beat. But then there are the violins, the piano or bandoneons carrying the melody, and they take more liberty with the beat. So as well as compas there's the melody, and the emphasis and phrasing of melody, and I think it's with melody that we can be all at sea. We're used to dancing more or less with the beat: we simply aren't used to dancing melody, and we aren't used to dance music as complex as this. It's rich in possibilities for dancers but it takes some getting used to. 

Perhaps this is where the dance of the milongas is really unique. Here's an example, Pedro Sanchez dancing with Hsueh-tze Lee, slowed down about 50%. (It's just 20 seconds.)

 

Beautiful! as Pedro would say. The full video is on Tzetango's channel and the full song and a translation are here.

It seems so clear what is going on. You can see that Pedro is enjoying every note of the melody and it's apparent in the movements of his upper body. The little trill of the bandoneon at the start is reflected in a dip of the shoulders, then that elongated note in a long gliding movement, then there are emphatic movements as the music surges towards the end. He follows the music with his upper body; it looks as if his feet are just there to move his upper body as needed. It looks to me as if he's doing more than dancing with the beat, he's responding to the melody. (A friend who's danced with him a lot says his dance is a constant flow of emotion.) Any one of us could do what he does with his feet, and probably do it just as well, but from a follower's point of view I think it's the upper body they feel, they are in contact with. When you sit and watch dancers of Pedro's generation you begin to see how their torsos move with the melody. On a number of occasions, while some ever-so-familiar number is playing, I've become aware of a line of melody I hadn't noticed before because I've seen how the torsos of a couple were following it.

This might be particularly noticeable with D'Arienzo. Watch even good European dancers dance D'Arienzo, and although their torsos rotate smoothly (their feet are perfectly placed), their dance looks rather lifeless. I became directly aware of this while dancing to D'Arienzo with Enriquetta Kleinmann in one of her classes. Clearly bored by my dull lead, her torso suddenly came to life and in effect she back-led the torso movements she would have expected from a local dancer. Great lesson, that! My feet were doing fine, it was the torso that was boring. Even if I still can't lead like that, I know it should be there. Lively music, and a dance that's full of fun. (& perhaps not for those with reservations about body contact!) 

I found another dance to the start of Amarras. This is Osvaldo Centeno and Ana Maria Schapira dancing in El Beso. The lighting is poor, and the dancers' positions are different, but it's still possible to see the torso movement. The full video is on tangaso's channel. (The sound is dreadful slowed down, but at least you can hear what the dancers are following.) 

Watch the torso movement of any decent bandoneonista! Extravagant gesture is part of the creation of the music. Maybe we should accept that some of it can enter into our expression of the music. 

(PS: I hope Hsueh-tze Lee (Tsetango) and Tangaso will not object to me posting these very brief extracts from their videos as illustrations. I think they show us a lot about the dance of the milongas. Tangaso, incidentally, has an extensive collection of videos, including one of Tete and Silvia dancing Amarras. I prefer Pedro's version.)

A young milonguero

Monica Paz has interviewed many of the older dancers at her Practimilongueros events, but a couple of months ago she broke with this and invited a young Argentine, Matías Alberto Trípodi. It's a fascinating glimpse into how a perceptive and engaging young Argentine, with much the sensibility and education of a contemporary European, came to tango. & articulate: it's virtually a monologue. It's full of interest about tango from a perspective we find more familiar than the perspective and background of the older dancers. He found tango attracted him and he started to talk to the older generation. In many ways he was lucky to grow up in that environment; a good friend who knows Buenos Aires well said to me recently, 'They learn fast over there!' Absolutely the environment for it. 

A few points: there's a lot more. He talks about the problems of entering a traditional milonga, encountering a different language and code, and his reactions to this. Many of us will find this familiar. He wonders how far an outsider, even a young Argentine, should adapt to the codigos: he says the older dancers would simply laugh if a young person like him turned up in a suit and tie. He talks about the sensation of attraction and rejection: you want to dance but it's not always easy to get someone to look at you. You have to arrive without expectation, and despite the rejection you stay because you love the activity. The beautiful experience of the moment when eyes do meet; how democratic that moment is.

He's travelled and danced in milongas outside Buenos Aires too. How you find the landscape of another being without knowing them, how this experience, this encounter, is what is common to all tango dancers. The milonga as a refuge for the encounter, for the music, the poetry. He finds milongas outside Buenos Aires lack this context, but function as a focus for other experiences: maybe the context needs to be passed on better, in addition to the technical aspects. 'You have the language but not the circumstances in which to use it.' Which might generate new behaviours and circumstances, but he's confident that the re-encounter of the milonga, the truth of the dance on the floor, will survive.

He dances other forms of tango, but always misses the intimacy, the emotions, the strength of encounters, the subtlety of the 'milonguero', the behaviour at a traditional milonga, the delicacy of the invitation. He sees the milonga as a refuge for all these aspects. 

The translation isn't always clear, but he speaks very fluently and his thoughts are sometimes complex. I think it's worth persevering with it. Incidentally, the next guests of Monica Paz will be the brother of the late Tete and his son, Tete's nephew.

Nostalgia de la luz

Nostalgia for Light, a beautiful and remarkable Chilean film. Astronomy is prominent: the astronomers of the Atacama, that 600-mile strip of high altitude desert, in parts of which there is complete dessication, no plant or animal life, where it might not have rained for 500 years, where the daytime skies are so clear the planets can be visible, where the astronomers look back in time, sorting through the memories of the big bang. & the night skies there are astonishing.

Archaeologists also work in the Atacama. The oldest deliberately embalmed bodies found in Atacama are several thousand years older than the oldest mummies found in Egypt. But within sight of the observatories, groups of women with spades in hand sift painstakingly through the desert, searching for mass graves from the Pinochet era, searching for and sometimes finding the remains of brothers, sisters, husbands, children. In one place they found a concentration of small bone fragments. They alerted the archaeologists, who examined the site with great care and concluded that it had been a mass grave, but that it had been ripped open with a mechanical digger, and the remains loaded onto trucks. The military said the remains of bodies had been tipped into the sea. Searching the site, one woman found the leg of her brother, identified by the shoe.

The women see themselves as the lepers of modern-day Chile for their insistence on remembering, in a society that wants to move on into a prosperity fuelled by the sale of mineral rights to multinationals. But what else can they do? They, and others, see too much willingness to forget. It was similar in Argentina, in Germany after WW2, in Spain after the Civil War. But if you forget your past, you no longer know where you come from, who you are.

An architect was in five of Pinochet's camps. Every night he would draw what he had seen that day, then tear his drawings into fragments in case the room was searched at night, and at dawn he would dispose of the fragments in the latrines. Released, in exile in Denmark, he was able to remember and recreate all his drawings, and make detailed plans of camps the military denied had ever existed, had 'disappeared'. Memory. If I understand the film correctly, the constitutional relation of military to state hasn't changed, while the standard manual still in use by the military was written some years ago – by Augusto Pinochet.

Lujos

To console myself for a trip I couldn't make to Buenos Aires late last year, I watched this several times because it's at a milonga I'm familiar with, and to remind myself how simple and relaxed the dance there can be. (I get complaints if I embed a video of a dance floor with only one couple on it... can you believe it? After all, a milonga starts with just one couple.) This is Lujos in Salon Plaza Bohemia, last Sunday night I guess, since the clip is very recent: there's Oscar making sure all the tables are just right (it's his milonga), and the familiar waitress taking first orders. I should have been there! From Marina2x4's excellent channel. Thanks!


& something I just read. (A long article, scroll down to the end.) We interpret movement by following it unconsciously with our own muscles, even if we aren't actually moving: thus we come out of a cinema feeling we are walking differently, we've absorbed a way of moving, we can mimic it. Watching dance helps us absorb the movement. Sadly, the reverse is true. A French research paper has recently shown that people who have botox lose some of their facial movement, and accordingly they lose some of their ability to interpret emotions on other people's faces.

Feliz año!

Peace, love and tango in 2013!