The birth of the tango
This article originally appeared in T.O. Tango and Dance Review, June, 2004.
Tango has been called many things- “a secret danced between two people”, “not a dance but an obsession”, “a sad thought that is danced”, “that reptile from the brothels”. It has been said that “tango is not in the feet. It is in the heart.”
Tango is both a musical style and a dance. Its origins are obscure, and even its name remains a mystery. Tango is a place name in Angola and Mali, and in some African languages, tango means a “closed space”. Buenos Aires had been one of the main ports of entry for the slave trade, and in the mid 19th Century, a quarter of the population of Buenos Aires was black. In the Spanish colonies, tango referred to a place where Africans gathered to dance. Some historians believe the word was picked up by African slaves from their Portuguese captors. Perhaps tango comes from the Portuguese tanger, (to play a musical instrument), from the Latin tangere (to touch). Or was it the Spanish fandango?
Tango music and dance were born in the streets, bars, and brothels of mid-19th Century Buenos Aires and Montevideo, Uruguay. During the 1880’s, immigrants (mostly men) from Europe flooded the cities with dreams of a better life. The well-known tango dancer, Carlos Gavito has said, “Tango was an immigrant music, so it does not have a nationality. Its only passport is feeling.” Lunfardo, the language of tango, is a hybrid of European languages. The bandoneon, the instrument that is the musical soul of the tango, was an immigrant from Germany. Carlos Gardel, the icon of tango and one of Argentina’s great heroes, was born in France. From this mix of cultures emerged the collage that borrowed from all of them and became the tango. Its roots lie in African candombe, Cuban habanera, and the waltzes, mazurkas and polkas of Europe.
Reality for the immigrants was very different from what they had dreamed. They worked long hours in the slaughterhouses and tanneries and lived, crowded five or six to a room, in the conventillos (tenement houses). At night, dreaming of the women they had left behind, they looked for comfort and distraction- a few drinks, companionship, and a little happiness. The tango arose out of the melancholy, nostalgia, pain, and desire of ordinary people far from home. In a world where men often outnumbered women five to one, men had to wait in lines at the brothels to visit a prostitute. The bordello owners, not wanting to lose customers who got tired of waiting, hired musicians as entertainment. The first tango lyrics were improvised and usually about sex. The first great tango artist was the singer and guitar player, Angel Villoldo, who, in 1905, wrote and recorded El Choclo (the corn cob), a comedic song, which he made more respectable by loosely disguising its bawdy lyrics.
The first “academies” of tango were the cafes and bars in the arrabales (suburbs), where the waitresses could be hired for dancing and more. The men had to be skilled dancers to entice the most desirable prostitutes. It was not uncommon to see men practicing tango among themselves. Dancing well was a sign of masculinity and the tango was a prelude to sex. Without women, there would be no tango.
In this world of men, violence was common. Compadrones (toughs) with knives made their own laws and settled their disputes with knives. Some of the early tango dances re-enacted a fight between two men or the relationship between a prostitute and her pimp. Tango lyrics are filled with words and expressions in Lunfardo, a language developed in the underworld of Buenos Aires. In Argentina, the word lunfardo means thief.
In the early 1900’s, tango became popular with rich young men who searched for the exotic in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Tango worked its way up into the high-class bordellos, finally finding its way into respectable dance halls, cafes, cabarets (such as Armenonville and Hansen’s in Buenos Aires) and even dance schools. Tango, the “reptile from the brothels”, dressed itself up, painted itself with a veneer of sophistication, and went to Paris with the sons of rich Argentinean families, sent to France to study. The salons of Paris welcomed the tango with open arms. The English writer, H.G. Wells, called 1913 the “Year of the Tango”. Tango became the rage, influencing fashion, art, music, and opera. In Germany, Juan Llosa dedicated a tango to Greta Garbo. Rudolph Valentino danced the first Hollywood tango in the movie, The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. The tango has since been danced (mostly badly) by many luminaries of the cinema- Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Peter Ustinov, and even the Flintstones!
When the tango came home to Buenos Aires, more respectable and subdued, smelling of French perfume, it was embraced by every level of society. Classically trained musicians, such as Julio de Caro, started playing tango. Tango music competitions were held and the winners were recorded. Tango musicians were in demand as accompanists for silent movies. Tango venues flourished and multiplied, and people flocked to places like the Café Nacional on Corrientes Street, the Pigall, and the Petit Parisien. The triumph in Europe, and the adoption of tango by popular singers, ushered in the Golden Age of Tango, when the orchestras of Juan D’Arienzo, An¡bal Troilo, Carlos di Sarli, Miguel Caló, Lucio Demare, Alfredo de Angelis and Osvaldo Pugliese were at their peak.
Since 1930, Argentine tango has survived military coups, censorship, and social upheaval and is now experiencing a new Golden Age. We are fortunate to be part of its worldwide Renaissance.
Linda Walsh Casas
If you would like to know where you can get your free copy of this month's issue of T.O. Tango and Dance Review, please go to www.tangosoul.org
For more information on Argentine tango, click on www.tangolirico.com
*Photographs taken in Buenos Aires. Oscar & Mafalda
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