[Tango-L] Origins

[Jake Spatz (TangoDC.com)]

As for the evolution of tango and its origins (apropos the remarks of 
Konstantine, Sergio, et al)...

I've read various arguments, each of which centers on a different 
"pivotal" moment, emphasizing different details to arrive at the desired 
historical climax.

Some claim that the dance came first (when treating its urban history), 
and that the music developed afterward, to support & encourage the dance.

Others claim that the early city-dance was an import of the gauchos who 
moved into (or were at any rate nearby) the city outskirts, and who 
influenced the compadritos. And also that the gauchos had campfire 
dances, which skewed the (not from the Pampas) habanera into the 
earliest milongas.

Others claim that the compadritos were mocking traditional (?) dances of 
the blacks.

Others claim that the blacks were the original tango dancers.

Then there's the whole brothel thing, which Borges said not many 
aficionados even believed.

So how it started, and who gets the credit, is anyone's guess. The only 
verifiable fact seems to be that some schmucks took it to Europe, and 
that by the time it came back to Argentina, there were lower-class 
people dancing it "old-school," and bourgeois types learning it 
new-school Euro style.

THEREFORE...

Since the original export eventually became a different dance (aka 
Ballroom)...
And since the re-import clashed with the pre-import, which hardly had a 
national character...

... the only viable conclusion, however you slice it, is that the first 
_inauthentic_ tango dancers were Argentine.

According to each other, anyway.

I hear the first exporters were idolized in Europe as the genuine 
article though.

Spatz
DC


Konstantin Zahariev wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It seems to me that the statements below need some significant qualifiers.
>
>
> On 7/17/07, Amaury de Siqueira <amaurycdsf at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   
>> [...] Little does she know about the history of the dance.  That the
>> Argentines on the turn of the last century condemned Tango (and disowning
>> it)and the French welcomed with open arms.
>>     
>
>
> That is not true on its face. A more accurate statement would be that
> the _wealthy_ or high society Argentines (i.e. the ones that could
> shape the discussion, the ones with the voice to be heard the loudest
> and recorded) condemned tango (before the French accepted it). This is
> not an insignificant detail. The working class Argentines created
> tango and obviously embraced and liked tango from its beginning. I
> don't think they were less Argentines than the upper class were.
>
>
>   
>> That theTango is not an
>> Argentine product, but the product of fusion between afro-Caribbean and
>> European rhythms.
>>     
>
>
> Rhythm is only one of several parts of a musical form though. Even so,
> pre-1920 tangos borrowed the Cuban habanera rhythm pattern of
> dotted-eight, sixteenth, eight, eight. However this pattern was
> imported from the slaves in Haiti, and they were brought to Haiti from
> West Africa. I do not know what European rhythms are referred to here
> when we talk about tango (and not vals, for example), but in any case
> the evidence shows that any syncopated rhythm pattern (one example is
> the habanera pattern above) that was imported in "civilized" Europe
> ultimately came from West African and other black people's drum lines.
>
> In fact the theory is that the habanera pattern came as a 3-2 rhythm
> pattern (alternating or mixing 3-long and 2-long rhythm blocks is
> something common in African drum lines) which was something
> incomprehensible, with its implied 5/8 time signature, to western
> Europe. So the sailors and others distorted the 3-long block and
> shortened it to fit into a 2-long block, thus "straightening" the time
> signature into a 2/4 or 4/8 and the pattern into the habanera pattern
> mentioned above. The other consequence was that whenever songs had
> accents or notes on all three eights of the original 3-long block,
> this became a triplet (to fit into 2 eights). Habaneras are filled
> with these triplets, as were very early tangos. See even Bizet's
> Carmen - the famous habanera (which was really Sebastien Yradier's El
> Arreglito habanera that Bizet borrowed thinking it was a folk tune.)
>
> I don't think all this rhythm genealogy business makes tango less
> Argentine or somehow a derivative from Europe. The habanera rhythm
> pattern is not tango.
>
> Rhythm aside, it was Argentines who took, at first, whatever portable
> instruments they had, later the bandoneon and piano and violins of
> different sizes, and created the musical form, and it was Argentines,
> mostly immigrants from Italy and Spain, and others, who created the
> dance form in conventillos.
>
> With best regards,
>
> Konstantin
> Victoria, Canada
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>