Tango Lessons

by Meghan Flaherty

  There are still states of grace. Moments, rare and transient, wherein every breath is shared and I am bare and unafraid, and free.

  Every time my father asks me what I want for Christmas, my first answer is still “tango lessons.” Because tango taught me all these things and then it taught me to let go. Because it will always be there, beckoning. Because when I can, I hope. I dance.

  All that agony for three minutes’ worth of joy.

  And then it feels like flight. It sounds like ocean dusk in one ear and Di Sarli in the other. A blind moment of bliss. Body, brain, and art all come together.

  And all three disappear.

  Acknowledgments

  My working title for this book was always For the Doubts, and I’ve been lucky enough to find myself surrounded by those who’ve helped to assuage mine. For that, for all of you, I’m deeply thankful.

  Tango friends and mentors, of New York and the Triangle and the world beyond, I hope you hear my gratitude in every word.

  Particular thanks, in no particular order: To Jaime Green (my original one-hundred-thousand-dollar friend), Madeline Felix, Carena Liptak, Miranda Pennington, Caty Gordon, and Rebecca Worby—for reading me even when it wasn’t homework anymore. To Richard Locke and Patty O’Toole, for coaching me through my first rough-hammered drafts with lavish patience (and for that matter, to Patty O’Toole, for . . . well, everything). To my teachers: Margo Jefferson, Phillip Lopate, Lis Harris, Ben Metcalf. To Ben Tarnoff, for championing my early drafts. To Bronwen Dickey, for the pep talks and the Jazzercise. To Nick Stang, for the avuncular pats (and Sharpie tattoos) on the head. To Naima Coster, for the karmic link of simply sitting there with me. And to Caroline Eisenmann, for her tireless faith and virtuosic fluency in corgi gifs.

  Special thanks are due to Kris Dahl, warrior agent, for the tough love and tenacious optimism. To my editor, Naomi Gibbs, for taking a chance on a new kid and the story she had to tell. And to the entire team at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for so gently guiding this tenderfoot through unfamiliar territory—especially the thoroughly wonderful Larry Cooper and my ace copyeditor, Amanda Heller.

  This book could not have been written without the handholding of my dear friend Emily Holleman, who hates tango, but read more drafts than I’ll admit to writing. Or without the “Christine Flaherty Writing Residency for Wayward Nieces,” which is to say, the selfless gift of her bunker and a most critical few weeks of peace.

  And finally, my family. I am nothing without my parents and their unshakable belief that I might (yet) amount to something. Dad and Mum, wherever you are, you gave me everything. And Barry James—father of my dog and child-to-be—you are my husband, partner, patient critic, steadfast inspiration, and the thorn tree to my birch. Here’s a little extra love for you in print. You know, por las dudas.

  A Note on My Research

  I don’t consider myself an expert on tango, either in theory or in practice. In writing this book, I have relied heavily on the generosity and kindness of the New York City tango community—its leaders, followers, and teachers, without whom I would still be skulking around the edges of the prácticas and dancing like a frightened deer. I have stolen so much understanding from my tango betters, and dearly hope my reverence shines through in the text. Where appropriate, I have mentioned tango professionals by their real names, so that you may seek them out and learn.

  Dialogue and insights from Silvina Valz and Robin Thomas come directly from personal interviews conducted in 2012. Quotes from tango greats like Chicho, Fabián, Sebastián, and Gustavo were pulled from published interviews, in Spanish and in English. All other dialogue is reproduced to the best of my most fallible recollection.

  This is a work of nonfiction, featuring real people with real feelings in real places. It is also a work of memoir, and hamstrung by the imperfections of my memory. I have tried to recount events as fairly and as truthfully as retrospect admits. To protect the innocent, I have changed the names of friends and intimates. If you are reading this, men of my past, thank you, vos absolvo, and I hope you learned as much from me as I have learned from you. Everyone is a lesson, as my mother liked to say.

  There is a wealth of tango scholarship and theory, mostly in Spanish, some in doctoral dissertations or master’s theses in sociology or anthropology. I’ve tried to honor as much of this erudition as possible, though much of great interest, regrettably, would not fit within these pages: the work of Marta Savigliano, Maria Carozzi, Simon Collier, Carolyn Merritt, José Gobello, Christophe Apprill (in French), Maria Susana Azzi, Donald Castro, and Christine Denniston, among hundreds. As well as everything I could not quote from Robert Farris Thompson’s superlative Tango: The Art History of Love, Gloria and Rodolfo Dinzel’s Tango: An Anxious Quest for Freedom, and Julie Taylor’s Paper Tangos. Nevertheless, this material has shaped me as a dancer and a thinker, and I emerge from this process more and more convinced that tango takes a lifetime—at very least—to learn.

  Generally speaking, translations of tango lyrics are mine. I erred often on the side of resonance, rather than precision.

  Had I but world enough and time, I would have spent months upon months in Buenos Aires, dancing. I can speak only from my experience dancing where I’ve danced, and for that I humbly apologize. Tango is a big wide world awaiting you. This was just my little slice.

  Notes

  Prologue

  Tango is a sad thought danced: Though it should be translated more faithfully, this phrase has become standard in the English-speaking tango community.

  Chapter Chapter One

  “Bahía Blanca”: Music by Carlos di Sarli, recorded by Orquesta Carlos di Sarli in 1957 (RCA Victor).

  watching two porteños: Denizens of Buenos Aires, port city on the Rio de la Plata delta (in adjective form, singular: related to that city or its people).

  Chapter Chapter Three

  conventillo: A large shared tenement house of lower-class families, often immigrants, arranged around a center common space. In 1880, at the peak of conventillo housing, there were 1,770 such buildings in Buenos Aires, housing nearly 52,000 people in half as many rooms.

  the great whitewashing: The slave trade in Argentina was robust. By the early 1800s, an estimated one-third of the Buenos Aires population was of African descent. This number began to drop soon after slavery ceased in 1853—but this precipitous decline in population was no accident. It was covert genocide. There was indeed a deadly yellow fever outbreak in 1871, but blacks were also forcibly conscripted into a series of regional wars, and lashed to poverty by domestic policy. Eighteen eighty-seven was the final year Afro-Argentines were recognized in the census—forming roughly 2 percent of the Buenos Aires population. By 1895, the black population was too low to be registered.

  “more civilized”: Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism, trans. Kathleen Ross, 1st complete English ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 51. Even the 1853 constitution—drafted eight years before slavery in Buenos Aires was fully abolished with the unification of the country in 1861—declared that the gobierno federal would vigorously promote European immigration. Article 25 goes on to add, “and it will not restrict, limit, or burden with any tax the entrance of foreigners who come to work the land, improve our industries, and introduce and teach the sciences and arts.”

  Afro-Cuban habanera: “Nurtured by musicians of color in Cuba and brought to the River Plate by sailors, sheet music, and Spanish light opera . . . the pulse of the earliest tangos.” Robert Farris Thompson: Tango: The Art History of Love (New York: Vintage, 2005), 217.

  from the Ki-Kongo: Ibid., 97.

  cortes and quebradas: “Cuts” and “breaks,” core elements of the Afro-Argentine and Euro-Argentine fusion that made tango. Both are still visibly present in the dance. Ibid., 10.

  “Tango starts rhythmically”: Interview with Sebastián Arce and Mariana Montes, “Entrevista con S.A. y M.M., dos reconocidos bailarines de tango,” https://actualidad.rt.c
om/programas/entrevista/view/59200-Entrevista-con-Sebastian-Arce-y-Mariana-Montes%2C-dos-reconocidos-bailarines-de-tango (accessed April 2013).

  ocho: Legend also credits Afro-Argentines with this move, for the figure-eight patterns left in the road dust from their winding and turning during Carnival comparsas, or parades. It is also said the figure took its name from ladies’ skirts doing the same swish pattern in the late nineteenth century—this time on the dirt floors of cantinas. Thompson, Tango, 285.

  Chapter Chapter Four

  “intolerable for a decent society”: Billy Sunday, quoted in Virginia Gift, Tango: A History of Obsession (North Charleston, S.C.: Booksurge, 2009), 245.

  “ ‘old gipsy dance”: Vernon and Irene Castle, Modern Dancing (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1914), 83.

  “correctly . . . especially repose”: Ibid., 83–84.

  just plain suggested sex: Joanna Dee, “Transatlantic Encounters: The Triangulated Travels of the Tango, 1880–1914” (master’s thesis, New York University, 2008), 41.

  “that reptile from the brothels”:“Ese reptil de lupanar como lo definiría Lugones con laconismo desdeñoso.” Jorge Luis Borges, “Historia del tango,” in Evaristo Carriego (Buenos Aires: Gleizer, 1930), 117, referring to Leopoldo Lugones, El payador (1916).

  tanga . . . tangana: Robert Farris Thompson, Tango: The Art History of Love (New York: Vintage, 2005), 82.

  or claims to be: A 2005 study concluded that an estimated 10 percent of the Buenos Aires population had some identifiable black ancestry, according to DNA analysis of a sample group. Laura Fejerman et al., “African Ancestry of the Population of Buenos Aires,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 128, no. 1 (September 2005): 164–70.

  cara fea: Thompson, Tango, 222.

  Continental intimacy and Bakongo control: Buenos Aires elites got this backwards, assuming the salacious closeness came from the dance culture of the blacks, rather than from the waltz and polka: “Continuous body contact in dance had been a Western phenomenon; Bakongo couples danced far ‘apart’ (tatuka).” Ibid., 157.

  Chapter Chapter Five

  “Tu íntimo secreto”: Music by Graciano Gómez, lyrics by Héctor Marcó. Recorded by Orquesta Carlos Di Sarli in 1945, sung by Jorge Durán (RCA Victor).

  “La bordona”: Music by Emilio Balcarce, recorded by Orquesta Osvaldo Pugliese in 1958 (Odeon).

  Pugliese finish:Chan chan (tshia tshia in Ki-Kongo), the verbal expression of the last two beats of any tango. Usually a dominant cadence, sol to do—in close succession, the second heavier and more pronounced. Pugliese messed with this most famously; in his signature ending, the do is muted, barely audible, and follows a long, arrhythmic pause.

  Chapter Chapter Six

  men . . . outnumbered women: Virginia Gift, Tango: A History of Obsession (North Charleston, S.C.: Booksurge, 2009), 198.

  Chapter Chapter Eight

  “Poema”: Music and lyrics by Eduardo Bianco and Mario Melfi, recorded by Orquesta Francisco Canaro in 1935 (Odeon), sung by Roberto Maida.

  canyengue, orillero: For further discussion of these terms, see Christine Denniston, “Canyengue, Orillero and Tango de Salon,” 2003, http://www.history-of-tango.com/canyengue.html.

  “Mi noche triste”: Music by Samuel Castriota, lyrics by Pascual Contursi, recorded in 1917 (label unknown) and again in 1930 (Odeon). Established the “tango song” and the tango singer. Robert Farris Thompson calls Gardel’s rendering “a decisive moment in porteño art history.” Robert Farris Thompson, Tango: The Art History of Love (New York: Vintage, 2005), 31.

  social protest . . . “racial mixing”: Social protest and the general bemoaning of injustice was present in tango lyrics from the first payadores. Though the rise of the tango canción and singer made tango trend toward romantic tragedy, there was often an element of social critique just beneath the surface. Tango was considered, on occasion, a tool for political radicalization, inciting worker strikes and encouraging other aberrant “democratic” behaviors. Carolyn Merritt, Tango Nuevo (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012), 34.

  Guerra Sucia: The Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, a group of mothers of the disappeared, have marched in their white kerchiefs outside the Casa Rosada, the executive mansion in the capital, every Thursday since 1977 demanding justice for their missing children. http://madres.org/.

  Astor Piazzolla . . . Nuevo Tango: Piazzolla returned to his roots but broke ranks with the orquesta típica, tango singers, dancers, and public opinion. For thirty years, he developed his controversial tango, cross-bred with jazz and electronica and infected with the same atonality and chaos that shaped much of twentieth-century classical music.

  all but impossible: “There was ‘nowhere to study,’ ” recalled Rodolfo Dinzel, according to Carolyn Merritt. “[Dinzel] also claimed to be an anomaly as a young man in the milongas in the late 1960s . . . . [T]he youngest dancers were in their sixties” (Tango Nuevo, 40).

  milonga to a milonga . . . tango to a tango: Tango, milonga, and vals tandas are arranged in predetermined order (tango, tango, vals, tango, tango milonga . . . ad infinitum). Tandas can be of three or four songs, depending on the DJ and community preferences, which are occasionally controversial.

  “the man stood still”: Maria Nieves, quoted in Thompson, Tango, 265.

  fifty-fifty: The rebellion of the tango women in 1940 led to the “sharing of action” trend; see ibid., 257.

  partnering her broom: Ibid., 260, quoting Dena Kleiman, “It Takes Two Who Tango,” New York Times, October 15, 1985.

  Chapter Chapter Nine

  boleo is tangospeak: Sometimes spelled voleo, occasionally latigazo, from látigo, “whip”; possibly related to boleadoras (or bolas), the whip-like throwing weapons used by gauchos with their herds.

  Chapter Chapter Ten

  TriANGulO had a mural: Painted by Russell Buckingham, 2007.

  Chapter Chapter Eleven

  “La cumparsita”: Music by Gerardo Matos Rodríguez, lyrics by Pascual Contursi and Enrique Maroni, 1924. There are dozens of recorded versions.

  Chapter Chapter Fourteen

  the word canyengue: Also, in Angolan, “step it down” or “start to party.” Robert Farris Thompson, Tango: The Art History of Love (New York: Vintage, 2005), 151.

  Please, God: Dorothy Parker, “A Telephone Call,” in The Portable Dorothy Parker (New York: Penguin Classics, 2006), 119.

  They don’t like you to: Ibid., 122.

  “worn-out” or “tired”: Thompson, Tango, 158.

  wings fanned . . . it was praying: From Charles Bukowski’s “the mockingbird,” in Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (New York: Ecco, 2002).

  Chapter Chapter Fifteen

  I was humbled . . . hardly knew of what: Paraphrased from Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (New York: Penguin Classics, 2009), 271.

  Yet I have slept with beauty: From Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “I have not lain with beauty all my life” (no. 10), in A Coney Island of the Mind (New York: New Directions, 1958).

  godfather of “nuevo”: His methods became known as Nuevo Tango, a misnomer. That name, by rights, belongs to Piazzolla’s music. Gustavo himself is sometimes called “el Piazzolla del baile,” the Piazzolla of the dance, a title he disavows: “That would be very pretentious. Piazzolla did something devastating . . . a wonderful development, worthy of a true genius.” Gustavo Naveira, quoted in an interview with Carlos Bevilacqua for the magazine El Tangauta 9, no. 119 (September 2004), www.rincondeltango.com.

  Programa Cultural headquarters: The Centro Cultural San Martín in the theatre district of Buenos Aires.

  tomes of surgical directions: In 2008, Christine Dennison published The Meaning of Tango (London: Anova Books, 2008), a volume traversing twenty years of research and including a seventy-two-page “how-to” section.

  “opened all the doors”: Fabián Salas, in a 2001 interview with Keith Elshaw, http://oabrazo.blogspot.com/2005/01/interview-with-fabinsalas.html.

  materials already piled: That
said, Gustavo found more than ninety-eight possible boleos, discovered the “fourth” sacada, and even threw in the occasional foreign element. “Out of the three choices you normally have,” Salas once said, use “the one that nobody used before in such a way” (ibid.). Gustavo, el renovador, is frequently credited with being the first to try each step al otro lado, to the other side. Also important to note: the degree to which the number and participation of highly trained followers made this possible.

  “The‘basic step’ . . . all you can do”: Ibid.

  156 the dancehall music hasn’t changed: The dancing music hasn’t changed. Listening music and art music continue to develop: for example, late Pugliese, Piazzolla, Pablo Aslán, Pablo Ziegler, El Arranque—and electronic tango—among others.

  “athletic but not sensuous”: Gustavo Naveira, quoted by Terence Clarke in “The Greatest Maestro of Tango in the World” (2007), http://blogcritics.org/the-greatest-maestro-of-tango-in/.

  Abanker and a bricklayer: Petróleo (Carlos Alberto Estévez) and El Negro Lavandina (Félix Luján), respectively. Robert Farris Thompson, Tango: The Art History of Love (New York: Vintage, 2005), 247.

  Chapter Chapter sixteen

  “What was once orgiastic devilry”: Popular translation of Jorge Luis Borges, “Historia de tango,” in Emecé Editores, Evaristo Carriego (Buenos Aires: 1955), 146.

  Oh the comfort: Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, A Life for a Life (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1859), chap. 16.

  Chapter Chapter Eighteen