[Tango-L] Early dancing in Argentina

[Konstantin Zahariev]

On 9/13/07, Sergio Vandekier <sergiovandekier990 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Konstantin says,  "Numerous tango dancing manuals exist from the 1910-1925
> era - most of
> it before Azucena ever stepped foot on a stage. They all assume a
> man-woman dance."
>
> They do but they did not touch each other.


That is not true at all. They hold hands on one side and have some
sort of embrace on the other. There are pictures available in at least
some manuals, apart from the text descriptions. By the 1910s tango has
already exploded in Europe and everyone and their dog was busy writing
dance manuals. I can type up a list of about 30 (tango) dance manuals
all between 1911 and 1915 (some are even accessable in local libraries
in North America if not elsewhere - like the Castles manual from
1914!). But why would I spend the time and what would it prove to you?
I think you are pretty set in your opinion on this (no doubt since you
think the facts are on your side), and you seem to take at least an
implicit offence at what I write.

Separately, there are pictures from around 1905 of tango dancing at
Hotel Victoria, men with women with holding hands and embrace. It is
at the Archivo General de la Nación.

Additionally, there are tihngs like a Sep 16, 1896 description in La
Nación of mixed (man-woman) couples dancing in various types of
holding hands and embraces.

There are even earlier descriptions like in La Nación from Oct 20,
1880, of gatherings in the Plaza Constitución that involved people of
both sexes drinking , dancing and talking by the light of kerosene
lanterns, with chorizo sausages cooked on grills, etc.

Women did not dance with men until 1920s? Tango was a man-man dance up
until then? It is possible. Other possibilities exist as well.

With best regards,

Konstantin
Victoria, Canada

>
> Horacio Salas in "El Tango" page 27 writes :   " June 6, 1880, Benigno B.
> Lugones explained in the newspaper 'La Nacion" , that the Quadrille, the
> Lancers, the Contradanza, the Minuet, and in general all dance of couples
> dancing separated (without and embrace) could be accepted and were accepted
> even in the best places. "But The Polka, The Mazurka, The waltz, and other
> dances that are prohibited in the dancing halls of good customs, (habanera,
> schottische, danza) are abominations of the highest degree".
>
> I would like to know what manuals are we talking about, last time I
> researched this topic (June of 2003) I wrote in tango-L about THE MANUAL  OF
> NICANOR LIMA.


>
> I said then :   ***This is only my opinion.
>
> Nicanor Lima wrote his method to learn Argentine tango in 1916.
>
> He was obsessed with the idea of making this despicable, immoral dance
> acceptable to the Argentinean society.
>
> His book has two parts:
>
> The first one is dedicated to an introduction of the dance in general terms
> and also (this is important) has a long set of rules where he discussed the
> healthy effects of the dance, the proper etiquette, and the pitfalls to
> avoid in order not to fall pray of lewdness, immorality and disease.
>
> He is forced to clean the real tango of everything that was objectionable to
> society.   He had to ignore the people, the places, the form in which tango
> was being danced. He new further, that tango had been fully accepted in
> Paris in a sanitized form as danced by Argentinean boys of high society.
> **He took this form of dancing to make it acceptable to Argentineans as
> well.
>
> The second part describes posture and choreographic figures.
>
> The book which I had the chance to examine about three or four years ago has
> illustrations.
>
> The posture is erect, the bodies are close but do not touch each other. The
> names of the figures are similar to the one we use today.
> Ochos, sentada, media luna, etc. He introduces Paseos and other figures that
> I do not know.
>
> So he wrote his book with the main purpose to make tango acceptable to
> society. He had to sell his soul to the devil to do so.
> His tango was a foreign dance to the those that gathered in the suburbs to
> dance it, it was sanitized, no cortes, no quebradas, danced erect and
> somewhat rigidly, it had lost all the original vitality.
>
> It was this book that fell in the hands of Richard Powers who was very happy
> to see with his own eyes that the tango he knew correlated very well with
> the original, authentic Argentinean version.
>
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