[Tango-L] Interview with Gustavo Naveira, Part 1

[Barbara Garvey]

The interview with Gustavo is a wonderful contribution to the List, I'm 
eager to read further installments. Al and I attended many classes at 
the San Martin Cultural Center, not in the '80s but 1990-92; it's 
interesting to learn that these centers were established by the Alfonsin 
government. And it's fascinating to know how instantly popular tango 
became in those years.

However, something puzzles me: we did not see young people and new 
dancers in the milongas in the late '80s, early '90s. Al and I did see 
lots of young dancers in classes such as the Dinzels' or Copes' and at 
the practica run by Gustavo, Fabian Salas and/or Mingo Pugliese at 
Cochabamba 444, but almost never in the milongas in the center or in 
neighborhoods like Mataderos and Villa Urquiza. With the notable 
exception of young dancers who were professionals, like MiguelAngel 
Zotto and Milena Plebs, Carlos Copello, etc. and aspiring professionals 
(almost all those we knew are now on stage and/or teaching 
internationally). We saw almost no other young or apparently new dancers 
in the milongas until at least 1994, (by which foreigners or tango 
tourists were noticeable in milongas and classes). Perhaps previously 
the young/new dancers went only to practicas because they were smart 
enough to know that they weren't ready for the milongas ?????? ;-) Or, 
since we didn't go to every milonga, perhaps they were at Parakultural 
or La Catedral in the years before we checked out these spots.
Barbara

> On Sat Jun 23 18:19 , "Brian Dunn"  sent:
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>> 
>>There was something very important for the development of tango that
>>happened at this point, relative to the political situation in Argentina.
>>Yes, democracy returned to the government in 1983 – but the military
>>dictatorship was not the reason that tango had been dying out as a social
>>dance – even in the Golden Age of tango, we had Peron, who was also a
>>military dictator!  In Argentina, many people like to blame many things on
>>the government, because then it means that they don’t have to do anything
>>themselves.  It’s a problem we have.
>> 
>>No, the important thing for tango at this time was that the new president,
>>Raul Alfonsin, took a very significant step.  He created a network of
>>cultural centers throughout Buenos Aires, and created a program to hire
>>people to give classes in a wide variety of subjects to the people of the
>>city, at no cost to the students.  
>>
>>What they discovered was that, while someone would teach photography and
>>have five students, or teach painting and have ten students, or teach guitar
>>and have fifteen students, people who taught tango dancing had fifty,
>>seventy, a hundred students in their classes.  
>> 
>>One time, at the cultural center where I was teaching, the class size limit
>>was supposed to be one hundred and fifty students.  The administrators were
>>supposed to stop taking applications for the class after they reached the
>>limit, but someone forgot to do that, and just kept accepting applications.
>>When I went to class on the first day, there were five hundred students
>>packed in this tiny room!  I could barely get in the door!  I got a chair in
>>the middle somehow, stood up on it, and said “All right, everybody to my
>>left, stay here - everybody to my right, come back in July!”
>> 
>>This was very new - a large-scale structure and program that made it really
>>easy for anyone to learn how to dance tango.  And all the teachers taught as
>>best they could, with no organization to determine who was “right” and who
>>was “wrong”.  I know many teachers who are claiming to be "authentic tango"
>>teachers, who started dancing tango in my classes!
>>  
>>Many people in other countries think that it was the show “Tango Argentino”
>>that triggered the "rebirth" of tango in Argentina in the 1980’s.  But that
>>show didn’t return to Argentina until late in the decade – by that time I
>>had had hundreds and hundreds of people in my classes at the cultural
>>centers and elsewhere.  That show went to Paris at about the same time as
>>the popular interest in tango was unleashed in a flood in Buenos Aires,
>>but the flood didn’t start with the show – people just wanted to dance, they
>>just wanted to move their bodies.  So people in other countries heard about
>>the tango from those shows – but in Argentina it came from inside the
>>people.  And this desire to dance, to move - it wasn’t just happening in
>>Argentina, with its return to democracy - at that time all over the world,
>>you saw the same thing – people became interested in participating in
>>sports, running, triathlons, aerobics – health clubs suddenly became very
>>successful and popular – anything to be moving!  In Argentina, for many
>>people this movement took the form of learning to tango.
>> 
>>When it was time for me to start teaching my first class, naturally before
>>the classes I was busy working on what I would say, how I would teach.  So
>>of course I was sitting down with a paper and pencil, designing the
>>classes.  Olga and I created extensive notes before the first classes we
>>taught, which I still have – yes, here they are. (Notes, charts, tables,
>>diagrams, drawings - more than thirty pages worth! –Ed.)  In a way, that is
>>what I have been doing ever since - sitting there with that paper and
>>pencil, analyzing and synthesizing, looking for the structure underneath the
>>social dance that surrounded me.
>>=============
>>(To be continued)
>>
>>As part of their visit to Boulder next month, we're planning some roundtable
>>discussion format events where we'll get to explore Gustavo & Giselle's
>>experiences in more depth.
>>
>>Abrazos,
>>Brian Dunn & Deb Sclar
>>Dance of the Heart
>>775 Pleasant Street
>>Boulder, CO 80302 USA
>>303-938-0716
>>www.danceoftheheart.com
>>“Building a Better World, One Tango at a Time”
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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