TANGO LYRICS

A B A N D O N A D O
*******************



Version en castellano English translation
Llega el viento del recuerdo aquel
al rincón de mi abandono
y entre el polvo muerto del ayer,
también volvió tu querer.
Yo no sé si vivirás feliz
o si el mundo te ha vencido...
si viviendo sin querer vivir
buscás la paz de morir.

Duda de tu ausencia y de mi culpa,
pena de tener que recordar.
Sueño del pasado que me acusa,
manos que no quieren perdonar.
Dolor amigo de estar con tu sombra,
remordimiento de saberte buena.
Dolor lejano de oír que te nombran
las voces muertas que se obstinan en volver.

Ya no sueño que retornarás
al fracaso de mi vida
ni tampoco que en tu palpitar
tendría un afán para andar.
Sólo quiero que si estás también
en la cruz del abandono,
sepas olvidarme en tu perdón...
Total, mirá lo que soy.

Pena de tu ausencia sin retorno,
pena de saber que no vendrás.
Pena de escuchar en mi abandono,
voces que me acusan al llegar.
Dolor amigo de estar con tu sombra,
remordimiento de saberte buena.
Dolor lejano de oír que te nombran,
las voces muertas del ayer feliz.

Yo no sé si vivirás feliz
o si el mundo te ha vencido...
si viviendo sin querer vivir
buscás la paz de morir.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

The wind of that memory arrives
at the corner of my abandonment
and amid the dead dust of yesterday,
your love also returned.
I don't know if you will live happily
or if the world has defeated you...
If living without wanting to live,
you seek the peace of dying.

Doubt of your absence and of my blame,
sorrow of having to remember.
Dream of the past that accuses me,
hands that don't want to forgive.
Friendly pain of existing with your shadow,
regret of knowing you are good.
Distant pain of hearing the dead voices
that name you again and again.

Now I don't dream that you will return
to the failure of my life,
nor that in your heart beat,
I would have the urge to go.
I only wish that if you are also
on the cross of abandonment,
You'll know how to forget me in your mercy...
So, look at what I am.

Sorrow of your absence without return,
sorrow of knowing that you won't come back,
Sorrow of hearing in my abandonment,
voices that accuse me when they arrive.
Friendly pain of existing with your shadow,
regret of knowing you are good.
Distant pain of hearing the dead voices,
of yesterday's happiness that name you.

I don't know if you will live happily
or if you the world has defeated you...
If living without wanting to live,
you seek the peace of dying.



Do You Have Any Questions, Requests or Comments?

CANADA2010@IN.COM

PRACTICA AT EL CENTRO DOWN TOWN

El Centro Practica
WhenSun Jul 5 7:30pm – Sun Jul 5 11pm (Weekly at 7:30pm on Sunday)
20090705T193000/20090705T230000Weekly at 7:30pm on Sunday
RRULE:FREQ=WEEKLY;BYDAY=SU;WKST=SU20090405T193000
Wheremap422 Richards, Vancouver

Created ByEL CENTRO Argentine Tango Dancing
DescriptionEveryone is welcome at Francis and Emiko's open practica. All levels and styles. No partner required. Traditional music. Refreshments served.

$8 drop-in
$50 for 10 visits (no expiry, non-transferable)
$5 drop-in for students (with student I.D.).

bctangoworld.blogspot.com: TANGO ASPECTS

bctangoworld.blogspot.com: TANGO ASPECTS

TANGO ASPECTS

M I L O N G A TALK
******************
Tango brings people together, but it could separate them.
It has some mystery and magic in it.
Every night women and men are gathering at Milongas to talk, to
meet someone, to smile and maybe feel happier. Their eyes are sad
or shine, their hearts are hurt or inspired, and their minds need some
challenge or relaxation.
They all come with the different purposes and reasons.
Most of them keep dancing because on the dance floor they can
release their tension and anxiety, enjoy the music, meet some
challenge or create a new dance.
For some it is an exercise which keeps them fit. Also, they can
forget every day problems and just relax by dancing.
Others come with the hope to escape the loneliness, and to feel
somebody next to their heart, somebody who makes them feel good,
at least for a moment.
A few found in Tango community their friends and only family.
Victor & Elena
MC - Ilmar Waldner
(behind)
Rio Rico, Bonsall-03
Many people love Tango because they can grow in it. Tango has many attractive parts
(creativity, beautiful steps, music, and exercise of the mind), which hook people for life.
When some got taste of Tango, they unlikely would ever stop ???

With this in mind, we could better understand what else is there, in the tango embrace,
what kind of psychology was running tango into the life.

VIDEOS ABOUT TANGO TERMS

T A N G O T E R M S

*********************
Please log on WWW.TANGOTERMS.COM to watch these informative videos about Tango.

LA CAMINATA DEL HOMBRE (The Man's Walk)
00:31 - Video clip supplied by Gaspar Godoy & Gisela Galeassi
LA CAMINATA DE LA MUJER (The Woman's Walk)
00:26 - Video clip supplied by Gaspar Godoy & Gisela Galeassi
EL PASO BASICO (The Basic Step)
00:48 - Video clip supplied by Gaspar Godoy & Gisela Galeassi
EL CRUCE or CRUZADA (The Cross)
00:00 - Video clip supplied by Gaspar Godoy & Gisela Galeassi
OCHO ATRAS (Back Eight)
00:00 - Video clip supplied by Gaspar Godoy & Gisela Galeassi
OCHO ADELANTE (Forward Eight)
00:00 - Video clip supplied by Gaspar Godoy & Gisela Galeassi
OCHO CORTADO (Cut Eight)
00:00 - Video clip supplied by Gaspar Godoy & Gisela Galeassi
EL GIRO (The Turn)
00:00 - Video clip supplied by Gaspar Godoy & Gisela Galeassi
EL GIRO (The Turn) [Woman's Role]
00:00 - Video clip supplied by Gaspar Godoy & Gisela Galeassi
EL BOLEO or VOLEO (Volleying)
00:00 - Video clip supplied by Gaspar Godoy & Gisela Galeassi
LA MORDIDA (The Bite)
00:00 - Video clip supplied by Gaspar Godoy & Gisela Galeassi


MORE TANGO TERMS COMING SOON!


Please send us your comments and suggestions canada2010@in.com

TANGO TERMINOLOGY

T A N G O D E F I N A T I O N S

***********************************
*abrazo: embrace (as in dance hold).
*amague: from amagar. To make a threatening motions. An amague is used as an embellishment either led or done on one's own and may be used before taking a step. An example of an amague may be a beat (frappe) before taking a step.
*barrida: sweep. A sweeping motion. One partner's foot sweeps the other's foot. Also called llevada.
*barrio: a district, neighborhood.
*boleo: from bolear. To throw. A boleo may be executed either high or low. Keeping knees together, with one leg in back, swivel on the supporting leg.
*caminar: to walk. The walk is similar to a natural walking step but the ball of the foot touches before the heel. The body and leg must move as a unit so that the body is in balance. Walks should be practiced for balance and fluidity.
*corte: cut. In tango corte means cutting the music either by syncopating or holding several beats.
*cruzada: cross. A cruzada occurs anytime a foot is crossed in front or in back of the other.
*desplazamiento: displacement. Displacing the partner's foot or leg using one's leg or foot.
*dibujo: drawing, sketch. A dibujo is done by drawing circles or other small movements on the floor with one's toe.
*enganche: hooking, coupling. Occurs when partner wraps leg around the other's leg.
*enrosque: from enroscar. To coil, twist. While woman executes a molinete, man spins on one foot, hooking other foot behind the spinning foot.
*giro: turn. While woman does molinete, man turns on one foot placing the toe of the foot in front and executing a sharp turn.
*llevada: from llevar. To transport (see barrida).
*media vuelta: half turn. Usually done when man's right foot and woman's left foot are free. Man steps forward with his right leading woman to take a back step with her left and then leads he to take two steps while turning a half turn.
*milonga: may refer to music or the dance which preceded the tango, written in 2/4 time; or may refer to the dance salon or event where people go to dance tango (see below).
*milongueros: refers to those frequenting the milongas and considered tango fanatics.
*molinete: fan. Molinetes are forward and back ochos (figure 8's) done in a circle.
*ocho: eight. Figure eights usually executed with feet together (ankles touching) instead of one foot extended.
*ocho atras: ochos backward
*pista: dance floor.
*salida: Exit, or start. It's interesting that the word for the basic step (a place to start) should be a way to get out of a figure as well.
*salida cruzada:the beginning of a pattern with a cross; i.e. side left crossing right foot behind left, or side right crossing left foot behind right.
*sandwichito: One partner's foot is sandwiched between the other partner's feet.
*sentada: a sitting action.
*sacada: see desplazamiento (don't you love glossaries that do that?).
*trabada: fastened. It is a lock step - the step that the woman takes when man steps outside with his right foot and then straight forward left, together right. At this point the woman crosses and this cross is referred to as trabada
.

CAPITAL OF TANGO

B U E N O S - A I R E S

*********************************


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This complex, energetic, and seductive port city, which stretches south-to-north along the Rio de la Plata, has been the gateway to Argentina for centuries. Portenos, as the multinational people of Buenos Aires are known, possess an elaborate and rich cultural identity. They value their European heritage highly--Italian and German names outnumber Spanish, and the lifestyle and architecture are markedly more European than any other in South America. One of the world's finest opera houses, the Teatro Colon, flourishes here on the plains alongside the river. Portenos are intensely involved in the life and culture of their city, and they will gladly share the secrets of Buenos Aires if you lend an ear and relate your own stories in return.

Buenos Aires' physical structure is a mosaic as varied and diverse as its culture. The city has no dominating monument, no natural monolith that serves as its focal point. Instead, Buenos Aires is composed of many small places, intimate details, and tiny events and interactions, each with a slightly different shade, shape, and character. Glass-sheathed skyscrapers cast their slender shadows on 19th century Victorian houses; tango bars hazed with the piquant tang of cigar smoke face dusty, treasure-filled antique shops across the way.

The city's neighbourhoods are small and highly individualized, each with its own characteristic colors and forms. In the San Telmo district, the city's multinational heritage is embodied in a varied and cosmopolitan architecture - Spanish Colonial design couples with Italian detailing and graceful French Classicism. La Boca's pressed tin houses are painted a rainbow of colors, and muralists have turned the district's side-streets into avenues of color.

For all its diversity, the elusive spirit of Argentina as a country is present everywhere in Buenos Aires. The national dance, the tango, is perhaps the best expression of that spirit--practiced in dance halls, parks, open plazas, and ballrooms.

HOMELAND OF TANGO

A R G E N T I N A
*********************
Argentina is located in the southern extreme of South America. With a continental extension of 2.791.810 Km2.(including Malvinas Islands, other South Atlantic Islands and part of Antarctica). Argentina is the second largest country in South America and the eighth in the world.
Including the Antarctic Sector, Argentina claims a total area of 3.761.274 Km2
It is some 1425 Km across at its widest from east to west and stretches 3.800 Km from the north to the south.
it is bounded by Bolivia and Paraguay on the north, Brasil, Uruguay and the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and by the Atlantic Ocean and Chile on the west and south.



Relief


The western part of Argentina is occupied by the Andes mountain range, the great mountain system of the South American continent. Here we find the Aconcagua (6.959 m), the highest peak in the world outside those existing in the Himalaya.
There also exists several parallel ranges to the east of the Andes, such as the Eastern Mountain range and the Sub-Andean sierras to the north ,The Pampean Sierras to the north and centre from the Aconquija up to the Sierras of Córdoba and San Luis, and Buenos Aires sierras systems such as Tandilia and Ventania
The central part and the east of Argentina (except for the parallel groups to the Andes already mentioned) consist almost entirely of a flat or gently undulating plain.




Climate and Regions


Argentina has exceptional natural beauties, for it comprises a diverse territory of mountains, plateaux and plains with all the climatic variations
There are several climatic and landscape regions




1) NORTHWEST
It stands out for its tropical climate, its colourful mountains, the Puna high plateaux, the gorges, the valleys and the characteristic settlement patterns that make up the history of this land.

2) GRAN CHACO
Primarily forestal area with forests of subtropical climate, swampy lands and ponds.

3) MESOPOTAMIA
In the northern part the subtropical climate prevails whereas, in the south the climatic conditions are more temperate . It is rich in flora and fauna. Its territory consists of slopes, ponds and swampy lands cut through by important rivers .

4) CUYO
With its montaneous characteristics (The Aconcagua lies here), it has an arid temperate climate. However, man, through artificial irrigation, has turned it into an ideal land for the viticulture and viniculture.

5) CENTRAL SIERRAS
The central sierras of Córdoba and San Luis offer a quite bening dry temperate climate. They posses numerous rivers and artificial water mirrors.

6)HUMID PAMPA
The Pampa with its temperate climate posseses the most productive lands of the country (and one of the best ones of the world) for the agriculture and cattle breeding. Its plain landscape is just broken by Tandil and Ventania Sierras.
The East is characterised by the vast populated beaches of the Atlantic coast.

7) PATAGONIA
The largest region with the coldest climate (especially in the southern part). The west consists mainly of a montaneous landscape peppered with spectacular woods, lakes and glaciers. The centre offers sterile plateaux and the east vast beaches with spectacular and unique colonies of marine animals for sightseeing. The southern extreme of this region makes up the southermost point of the world.





Population
Argentina has a low demographic density. It consists of around 36 millon people, mainly established in the urban centres. The 85% of the population is descendant of inmigrants from Europe. As opposed to most Latin American countries, in Argentina there are relatively few Indian half castes (people of mixed races: european and indian).

Almost half of the population of the country live in the Federal Capital and the province of Buenos Aires. The urban population makes up the 88% of the whole whereas the rural population represents the 22%.

The figures give us a population density of 13 inhabitants per km2 with an annual growing of 1,5 %.



Main Cities:


BUENOS AIRES
11 millons (Federal Capital and the Conurbation)

CORDOBA
1,2 millons.

ROSARIO
1.15 millons

MENDOZA
851.000

SAN MIGUEL DE TUCUMAN
626.143

LA PLATA
520.647

MAR DEL PLATA
519.707

SALTA
367.099




Language
Spanish is the official language and is spoken by the great majority of Argentinians.
English, French and Italian are, in lesser or greater degree, widespread languages within the country





Culture

Argentina's cultural roots are mainly europeans and that is clearly reflected in its arquitecture, music, literature and lifestyle.

It has an intense cultural activity. It is seen in the festivities, expositions, cinemas, theatres, and concerts that take place in the principal cities.
Buenos Aires has aproximately 100 cinemas and 90 theatres with a great diversity of spectacles that turn it into one of the cities with the major theatrical activity in Latin America
In the Borges, Recoleta y General San Martín cultural centres the cultural dynamics of the country and the world are exposed.
The Colon Theatre, which is among the best three lyrical theatres, stands out for its arquitecture and its perfect acoustics. It is visited by the most outstanding personalities of the classical music, ballet and drama of the world.
Other important theatres are the National Cervantes and the Municipal Gral. San Martín Theatres.
Painting and Sculpture are given great importance. This is reflected in the prestigious art galleries existing in the principal cities of the country.

The characteristic music of the city of Buenos Aires is the world-famous tango. Folklore includes several and varid rythms and styles according to the different regions of the country.
The typical Argentine food is asado (barbecue: meat cooked over live coals), appart from empanadas ( a sort of turnover meat pie or pastry that comes with a variety of other stuffings), tamales ( a dish made of corn meal, chicken or meat wrapped in corn husks), humita (dish made of grated corn, sweet peppers and tomatoes wrapped in the green leaves of corn) and locro ( dish made of meat, potato, pumpkin, corn and sweet pepper).
However, and due to the important migrating current that populated the country , there exists a quite varied international cuisine: Spanish, Italian, French, German, Scandinavian, Greek, English, Sweddish, Hungarian, Dutch, Chilean, Mexican, Basque, Jewish, Russian, Ukranian, Chinese, Japanese, Thailander and Arabian.

Our country characteristic drink is mate (infusion).
The quality of its wines and meats is worldly known and the new Argentine cuisine has reached an international level standing out due to its qualified chefs.

UNDERSTANDING OF TANGO

IMPACT OF TANGO DANCE
***************************
What happens when a dancer wants to look good? He looks in a mirror. A mirror is something which tells you about yourself how good is it what you do. You watch yourself from an outsider's point of visual view.
Are there other means to tell you about yourself? You can direct your internal eye of attention into your own body. What to look at? Move your hand in the air. You hardly can feel what does it do. Now tense your muscles, stretch you joints. Suddenly your arm, leg, foot, the whole body become "visible" to you. Maintain moving with "visibility" feeling tension and stretching. If you lose "vision" for a moment, find that mini-muscle, adjacent or remote joint, move the whole thing a micron, change the angle so that "vision" comes back. Welcome to a world of your own body!
Manipulating with tensions in your muscles and keeping joints and muscles stretched you can create an appropriate "mirror" to "visualize" each of your movements. It may require paying attention to other muscles and joints, not participating as much in a movement as one might think.
Is there something else? Each of your body parts has more than 1 muscle and it has mass. So you can scientifically speaking make that part "oscillate". My favorite example is Brazilian Samba moves. Cuban movement with pelvis is another example. Belly dancing. Corte in Argentine Tango. Oscillating movements can be very complex or very simple, but all of them are incredibly "visible" to your internal eye and deliver great pleasure when you do it right. To do it right you only have to master a synchronization technique of participating elements of the body. Of course, that involves training to obtain the skill or to develop additional muscles. All oscillating movements are done in this way: one component accumulates energy while another releases it, then they change roles, and so on.
As soon as it has been found how to do it right, the oscillating movement becomes very easy. It requires very little energy. This is called "resonance". Each resonance has one most important feature - one or several "resonance frequencies" - how fast you are to do the movement to feel right. A little bit faster, a little bit slower, and ... Boomms, here you are! It happened. Now maintain it. This is a sign of doing it right - it becomes easy. Very easy, as if it happens itself.
If you move the center of oscillation of the oscillating part to another point in space, or change tension in the surrounding muscles, or change the geometry of participating elements, the "resonance frequency" will change too. That is another way to achieve and manipulate it. Not changing the rhythm, but changing mechanical parameters of the involved and surrounding parts of the body. Because variation of the parameters changes the theoretical "resonance frequency", you are able gradually transform one oscillating movement into another one. You can incorporate additional "things" into the movement. Once they are in sync, they variate the movement - it becomes a dance.
Resonance as phenomena has one amazing property. Once you do a rhythmic movement with one part of your body, another part which has the same "resonance frequency" will resonate, vibrate, and start oscillating with large amplitude. So, it is only matter of finding the right rhythm, tension, and geometrical structure ...
Here I have to say about damping. In order for one part to resonate when another oscillates, the propagation path should not damp. The best transmitters are solid, so your arms, legs, abdomen, everything should not be totally relaxed, but as I would say, alert. Make your body a spring! By the way, one of the ways to make it alert is rotation. In a well alert body, a tap with a toe is transmitted well right through the chest to your partner!
What happens if you sharply stop the movement? Any movement including an "oscillating" one? It generates "a rebound" of all muscles, bones, and organs in the involved area. It happens because they have mass and are connected to each other resiliently. Each one of them and all of them together start to vibrate and oscillate and you feel it!
The art of dancing includes an ability to make every part of your body visible to you, vibrating, and responding. You body become an orchestra with bright sounding instruments for one important listener - yourself.
There are 2 ways of dancing Tango. In first, you do not have a strong physical connection with your partner. A female dances herself. She becomes a "Super Oscillator". Man introduces controlling influences to change kinematic and dynamic parameters of the "Super Oscillator", providing extra supply of energy when needed.
Second way is when you create a strong connection with the partner either in open or in close embrace. You establish a "transmission path", and then you are able to listen to the orchestra inside your partner. When I dance, I can "see" absolutely any part of my partner's body which she is willing to show me through her art of "making a body an orchestra". However, establishing the connection, you combine your own orchestra to the orchestra of your partner. In order to have pleasure they should "sound" in unison.
Even more. Establishing strong connection, you establish new pairs for oscillations. You are creating more instruments! And there are many more of them possible than just in a single body.
This is why I love Argentine Tango. This is the only dance known to me in which the main topic is the art of combining two bodies together to listen to intense dance inside a partner and to establish a "combined orchestra".
If you have not mastered dance - you have to have a glass mirror to control what you do. When you mastered dance you are able to "look" inside your own body. When you dance in couple, all what you do is reflected in your partner's body and responds. Your partner becomes your mirror. You are looking at the partner and you are looking at your own reflection. And if it feels right, it is beautiful.

BEGINING OF TANGO DANCE

TANGO EVOLUTION
********************
The origins of tango can be traced back to the middle of the last century - back to the arrival of the men who would make up the "generation of 1880" (amongst them the founding fathers of independent Argentina), to one of their paradigms of government: to govern is to populate, and to the influx of Europeans and Asians into the Rio de la Plata region. Thus, all the necessary conditions were in place for the genesis of "something" accessible and universal enough to bridge ethnic, linguistic, religious, historical and social barriers.To this ethnic melting pot (comprising descendants of former African slaves, oppressed American Indians, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Syrians, Turks, Poles, Portuguese, Germans and so on) were added Spanish tanguillo and Cuban habanera music - and what it produced was tango. Never in human history has there been an example of popular culture of such richness and scope and which combines such a range of contributions. And if that were not enough, tango s popular origins, which it preserved for some 50 years, gave it a firm anchorage in a country which was not yet 200 years old.Tango was first written down at the end of the last century, producing 'la milonga" - the 2/4 time (fast for what we know today as tango).And so tango was born and matured on the geographical and cultural periphery of a cosmopolitan city where the social "elite" had its eyes on Paris. El Queco, Sacudime la Persiana, La Cara de la Luna, La Morocha, are some examples of tangos from this early written period (most of which had daring, salacious and/or picaresque lyrics).With the immigration of Polish Jews, tango was introduced, along with the mazurca, into brothels (where its entry was aided by the prospect of an embrace), by two Jewish mafia organisations. It then reached the street corner (an early meeting place), later the tenements, and with the the formation of the first orchestras (duos, trios and quartets), the bars of the poorer outlying districts. By that time there existed a tango culture. There were bandoneonists, guitarists and violinists to play it, and the first tango singers, who would intone the choruses. The bar-cum-store where tango developed early on gave way to more open, spacious places where customers could listen to tango and also dance to it. They had platforms and even stages for orchestras and singers. It was the age of the first orchestras, the first singers and the first dancers.For reasons of snobbery or other motives, tango attracted good boys and girls from bad homes and bad boys and girls from good homes. This was the eve of a golden age: one of great orchestras, singers and composers who produced a series of recordings and films which were responsible for spreading River Plate culture throughout the world. Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, Laurel and Hardy, as well as Cachafaz, Tito Luciardo, and Carlos Gardel, and more recently, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Pacino, Robert Duval and Madonna have all danced tango for the cinema.Dance is one of the most basic forms of human communication. It is a ritual often used by primitive tribes to seal or celebrate agreements. This is how tango began as a dance, and how today it allows a Dutchman and a Japanese woman a three-minute non-verbal exchange.There are tangos for every occasion. Christ on the cross, the excommunicated Galileo, Romeo on the balcony, the arrogant dancer, the mother who gave her sons to the battlefields of France, pretty girls in aprons - tango sings of all of these things. It is a reflection of man and his environment. It is a mirror which does not lie. Which is why it always has been, and always will be marginalised. As in Snow White, the mirror shows us just one reality - and it is a reality that the wicked Queen (or the powers that be) could never accept.A few further considerations Tango was born not as society's prodigal son, but rather, some might say, as its stepchild, and its entire history has been a catalogue of proscriptions. Because of its humble exurban origins, it was not accepted by city people, and much less by the ruling class.The Catholic Church branded it the work of the Devil, because of its connection with pagan carnival rites which celebrated the King/God Momo. Clearly, the male-female embrace and the tenor of some of its Iyrics also played their part. In 1934, Casmiro Ain "El Vasco" danced tango in the Vatican before Pope Pius X and there received his Holiness's approval. From that point on our clergy merely tolerated it. In local festivals throughout the length and breadth of the country there could be music, choirs or folkdances, wherever they might be from, but no tango. For the city of Buenos Aires there were police edicts, and both municipal and government orders prohibiting tango in some of its forms.Even today, although the present government announced at the beginning of its term that it would promote tango culture in primary education, it took eight years to formulate a law to do so.Twenty years after its formation, the Orquesta de Tango de la Cuidad de Buenos Aires has neither its own premises for rehearsals nor a permanent venue for its performances. For over four years it has not had the necessary funds to repair the only harp in its possession. Over two years ago it lost the budget for transporting its piano to educational concerts which it gives weekly in public elementary schools. The orchestra does not have, nor has it ever had dancers to accompany its performances.The de facto government that defeated President Yrigoyen in 1930 banned tangos by Gardel which were accompanied by the guitar, and those which used lunfardo (Buenos Aires slang) in their lyrics. The government of the last military dictatorship prohibited songs by Enrique Santos Discepolo, such as Cambalache for example.Without doubt, it has been the representatives of a prudish morality who have most fervently opposed the expansion of tango culture - but they have not been the only ones. As was said earlier, musical recordings and movies helped considerably in spreading Argentinean culture and cultural models to Spanish-speaking countries. With the result that a Peruvian, a Colombian, a Cuban or a Venezuelan wanted to use Argentinean expressions, drink mate, wear lengue, and listen to Gardel, when it was required that everyone chew gum, drink coke and wear jeans. It was a question of switching one archetype for another, of bringing a corporate action against one type of culture - that of tango.As stated above, tango could be defined as a mirror of man and his environment. In this mirror the individual discovers his own shabbiness, his defects, or simply sees his feelings reflected in his expression. Add to this the rebellious nature of some of its lyrics, and it is easy to see why the guardians of main-stream culture want to BREAK THE MIRROR - that is to say, do away with tango. This is why tango does not feature in the mass media, much less in opinion-forming programmes. From an economic and philosophical point of view, we are living in a new era; with post-modernism and late neo-liberalism since the end of WWII, and now with the death of ideologies. All of which is undoubtedly more a product of intellectual theorizing than of observation. It was many years ago that the tango lyricist Celedonio Flores wrote that at Corrientes and Esmeralda, or any other street corner in any other city in the world "there is a cockatoo who thinks he is Carlos Gardel", but he could well have been talking about the likes of Fukuyama and the supposedly globalizing philosophers (who know only too well that the 'mind creates the phenomenon'). Their empty theories merely reflect the necessity of those in power to steer us towards individualism, and tango is gregarious and communal. Tango is modern.Winds of Change Blow from the NorthThanks to the travels of numerous representatives of tango at various periods, but principally thanks to the prolonged continuity of Tango Argentino, tango came to interest certain cultured, at first, and later perceived cultural elites and to finally establish itself amongst those of refined sensibilities throughout countries of the Northern Hemisphere. To such an extent that our culture is sought after and in demand abroad. Hotels, boarding houses and B&Bs all over Buenos Aires are primarily occupied by Japanese, Canadians, Americans, French; Germans Italians and so on. They are marking the beginning of a new era. They come in search of the roots of tango and are not fooled by "for export" versions. They want the real thing. Most can detect ãwatered-down'' offerings. This is the great challenge for them and for us.

TANGO IS A WAY OF LIFE

TANGO IS AN ADDICTION
**************************
The rules of addiction:One: you keep doing itTwo: every time you do it you feel happyThree: it turns your life upside down but you don't care.
Today I wrote of bloody feetAnd undone laundryAnd family being neglectedTo a woman who begged to knowHow do you take out your garbagehow do you dustAnd how do you washWhen you're a dancer andA member of tango list?
I don't, I answeredYou are rightWe just dance.
She asked:“Is chasing that tango momentout of desperationto fill the emptiness inour heart?
“Yes”, I said.
“Or is it a way to order our livesSo that we can do something thatInspires usMakes us each smileAnd the laundry be damned?”
“Yes”, I said.
Read what Cherie wrote in Buenos Aires:“During my stay I didn't shopor sleep or eat exceptoccasionallynaps andfood on the run, and I lived on wine.
At midnight I would wrap my feetAnd pad my toes and stuff themInto spike heeled pointy tango shoesAnd hobble to the elevator.I suffered tillBlessed numbness set inAn hour later.
Then the music began andI would float on air acrossThe hard cementUntil the morning.After two milongas I'd have breakfastAnd then go home and peel the shoesOff my bloody feetAnd soak themAnd then fall into bedSmelling of men's cologneFeelingDeliriously happy.”
So, go all you addictsYou dancers and poetsAnd milonguerasSpend your lifeForever running afterThe moment thatMakes you happyBecause most peopleDon't even do that.