Going out of myself to be with someone else
My link with dance began with folklore. I was born in Santiago del Estero, but I always lived in the city of Buenos Aires. My house was a cultural embassy of Santiago, among poets, guitars, and dancers. That’s where I started studying; I was 8, 10 years old. Later, in high school -the Nacional Buenos Aires- there was a tango teacher workshop with Alba Ferreti and Mauricio Seifert. My sister used to go and told me to go, but it was an older man’s thing for me. Until one day, in my first year, I tried it and got hooked.
I studied tango for many years until I needed to expand my performance possibilities. I started a career in contemporary dance at a private level. My primary reference was Cristina Barnils. She had a very open school in terms of aesthetics and discipline. She is my artistic godmother, the oracle of dance for me and for many people. She opened a whole path for me; from there, I began to gain experience with choreographers and choreographers of contemporary dance.
At some point, I evaluated studying at a public academy such as the San Martin or the UNA, but I always felt I needed more time to enter. I had been working a lot, being a professional tango dancer, but the challenge of making a career was complex for me. Besides, at the same time, I studied law -which perhaps replaced a dance career- and it took me many years. Likewise, the law was helpful to me in cultural production and management -which I developed without having studied- when it comes to thinking, arguing, and projecting.
Tango and contemporary dance allowed me to be with others, be they colleagues, dancers, or the public. Dance brought me to the theater, to the rite of sharing. It is a space of development that goes beyond oneself: it is going out of myself to see how I am with others and how I complement myself. It also brought me to my wife, whom I met in this field. Contemporary dance also brought me contemporary art, thought, and the union of study and practice. And the enjoyment of what is beyond the material: what anyone can do. You don’t need to spend two pesos or buy an instrument; anyone can do it, and the enjoyment of that is central to my life..
In recent years, I have been less and less as a performer and more as a choreographer or director, looking for intermediate places between popular dance and contemporary art. What I culturally sucked at home awakened in me a popular fiber. I was called by the arrival, the connection, to reach a heart. Folklore was so vivid that it marked my preferences. Even though I did not dedicate myself to folklore, it gave me a certain rootedness with the people around me. Besides, folklore about technique has served me well; I have applied it in contemporary dance works. It has also helped me to offer myself in an eclectic way to other choreographers.
The maker of the machinery
Tango is very generous to those who do it with love: you can work, get to know other cultures, travel, and study different things simultaneously. It offers the possibility to make a living from dancing – I’m not referring to being a teacher and occasionally dancing but to dancing as a central activity. It brings great happiness to those who practice it through communication, improvisation, venturing into unknown places through dialogue, through encounters with others. That is a unique, distinctive, authentic, and genuine characteristic. It is delightful, which is why, being so intrinsic to us, it is an activity that has expanded enormously worldwide.
The practice of tango has two main drivers. One is the reference to the past, the legacy of the golden eras, a rich and invaluable heritage that Buenos Aires and Argentina possess. On the other hand, the cultural industry has been growing for about four decades. The tango maker is immersed in a machinery that surpasses them. In this sense, one can dedicate themselves to tango without necessarily reflecting on the act of doing..
As a cultural activity, tango has always needed more local recognition and an overestimation abroad. This trend began around 1920 or 1930: in Europe, it was danced in grand ballrooms, while in Argentina, it was danced in low-end establishments, cabarets, and underbelly places in Buenos Aires – back then, the term ‘underbelly‘ wasn’t used, but that’s what they were, non-sanctified places. Then came the 1940s and 1950s, the golden age of social tango. Tango could be heard in homes and on the streets.
In 1983, Tango Argentino premiered in Paris, a symbolic show featuring social tango dancers and others from academic and folkloric backgrounds. At one point, they were so successful that they wanted to create two companies, but there needed to be more dancers at that level. That marked the beginning of an explosion of tango dancing worldwide. Many shows were created, replicating the format that had worked with solo dancers, couples, or couples and groups. It opened doors in artistic circles and began to have an impact on social scenes.
Schools and milongas (tango social dance events) began to be organized everywhere. People all over the world were looking for tango teachers. The cultural industry started to take shape – driven by a trend, a need for closeness, and embracing an imaginary world, a cliché. It was a golden age for the dance field worldwide. However, like any industry, it has its ghosts, in this case, related to the standardization of the offering and cost-cutting. In industry, you need to innovate when everyone makes the same thing. But in the cultural sector, who is the entrepreneur? It’s difficult to determine, as there are thousands, millions of individuals doing it worldwide.”
This year, forty years after the premiere of Tango Argentino, Juan Carlos Copes passed away. There’s something symbolic there. It might be too early to say that the golden age is over, but the number of shows traveling abroad has noticeably decreased in recent years.. In our country, there’s less presence of tango in theaters, and milongas have seen a decline in their audiences. The circulation once driven by the industry now needs to be rethought. We must reflect on our activity and consider how to project it into circuits leading to theater and contemporary dance.
Tango has gradually lost its place in art, folk dance, music, and contemporary art festivals. It remained in the commercial circuit, with proposals that must meet the audience’s demands. The audience formed around the tango ended up closing in on itself without new audiences being created. The pandemic, with the impossibility of practice, led to virtual meetings that became spaces for reflection on what we had been doing. The need arose to link tango with state spaces – which previously served mainly as showcases for what was happening in the commercial circuit. Official rooms showcased what was happening, but there needed to be an action plan or forward-thinking.
Public policies can consider what to do with this heritage. ENTA (National Space for Argentine Tango) is a Ministry of Culture of the Nation program conducting activities since 2012. It has always been focused on tango dance, but now it has expanded to include management, thinking about actions and projects, and understanding tango’s particularities and specific challenges. It’s more of a training ground than a school. The goal is to preserve the legacy of dancers and teachers from other times to build a bridge between the students who arrive and the references from previous generations. Few educational experiences in tango have a method. The systematization of all the knowledge held by dancers and teachers, who may be sixty, seventy, or eighty years old, needs to be better developed. ENTA is also a space for reflection on how we receive that legacy today, with the influences of social changes in practice.
Buenos Aires has historically been a magnet for tango, creating an asymmetry in training and professional opportunities. But tango has constantly been enriched by musicians, poets, and dancers from all countries. There are policies aimed at reversing that magnetic tendency of Buenos Aires, very successful actions like ETI (Tango Encounter of the Interior). Individual practice is also a tool for decolonization. The reference to great teachers and the belief that “I’ll get better training in Buenos Aires” stifles the artist who is localized and has their territory, their community. One can engage in their appropriation of personal development, which contributes to their way of dancing and aesthetics. Localism should be further developed, that pride, that valuation. because tango happens in any town in the country. Even in Europe, they have less respect for it. It’s not about saying, “I have to go there for them to pass the torch to me.” No, I appropriate it and can do whatever I want with tango.
From an educational perspective, we must emphasize the appropriation of knowledge in each circuit. Seek to change the logic that values a show more if it comes from Buenos Aires. See how to enhance local shows and local teachers. Fortunately, at the regional level, there is cooperation between localities to support the efforts of a festival or milonga.
More than dance
Tango is an endogenous, closed community. You can recognize someone from the tango by how they walk or talk. A tanguero (passionate tango dancer) will say, “Do you dance? I don’t; I dance tango”. If you say you’ll take a dance class, they’ll ask if it’s jazz, tap, classical, or contemporary. No, I’m going to my tango class. But it’s as if tango is more than dance. I’ve been reflecting on this: why is tango so isolated, so enclosed within itself? Part of it may be due to its autonomous development, without the need to connect with theater or contemporary dance. But nowadays, tango is beginning to reflect on itself. If it asks for a National Tango Institute, it has to consider whether being part of a National Dance Institute would be viable. These reflections need to be made, both from tango and dance.
When I say the word “dance” in concrete terms, I’m talking about contemporary dance, the most politically active, the one that has been reflecting on its activity, positioning itself in curatorial roles, on juries, in programming, and in defining public policies. Concerning the actions of the emergency front, the movement for the law, and the federal movement, we need to see how many people from contemporary dance and how many from tango are involved. It’s clear that from the tango side, we don’t feel as represented, appealed to, or included within what is dance. But tango also needs a wake-up call: you’re trying to connect with programming or circulation spaces, but will your project become part of that machine that produces identical shows?
There needs to be reflection: thinking, from the dance side, about how to invite tango and give it spaces for decision-making and curation. And from the tango side, thinking about how to start occupying spaces historically belonging to contemporary dance. There needs to be dialogue; there needs to be interaction.
As a cultural industry, tango cuts across disciplines: it’s education, it’s music, it’s artistic dance, it’s social dance. In a milonga, an orchestra and a cultural manager develop the space and teach. From its three pillars (music, dance, and the social aspect), ancillary activities such as record labels, publishing, communicators, design, lighting, and costume design are derived. Plus, everything related to tourism. It’s a source of employment for many people.
A future to work on
The pandemic came to say that dance, in Argentina and around the world, is the prohibited one par excellence. One hundred years ago, it was banned for indecent; now, it’s for health reasons. We started to think about ourselves, to recognize ourselves as a sector, and to have a dialogue with various state actors who may have the tools to promote activities that cannot rely solely on the commercial circuit. The pandemic came to do something terrible to the tango sector or offer an opportunity. In other words, let’s stop and reflect on what we were doing. Let’s see our challenges to return to activity and reconquer artistic circulation spaces. Recently, tango has been in purely commercial areas, such as those shows in China that go to the Luna Park or the Celtic Folklore.
Tango is recognized as a community, and the organization that emerged during the pandemic is exciting. The National Tango Network has deep roots, especially in the provinces. The way of thinking about projects is genuinely federal. Tango begins to rethink itself, comes into contact, and enriches itself with what is happening in other artistic disciplines and social movements.
Everything can change: the music and the way of dancing can change. What I doubt can vary -it wouldn’t be tango anymore- is the contact. If there can’t be contact and in-person interaction, people who used to do tango will look for tools to continue the activity. That’s where virtuality comes in. But with the expectation, in the short or medium term, of returning to contact and in-person interaction. If I can’t bear that contact in dancing, I would dedicate myself to something else..
The boundaries that were so fixed in tango were forced to change. The challenge is to find in tango a cultural event with authorship, with something of myself. I don’t want the industry to make me just another cog, but to think about what I do with my tango and where I want to take it. Someone could develop it without contact. But a very intimate and non-rational fiber is the sensation of touching another person. That is almost inexplicably difficult to question, and it is what captivates everyone. In Argentina and around the world, tango is about the sensation of going to an unknown place with someone you don’t know. And, of course, it is about physical contact. That’s why I sometimes say that tango will be the most fashionable dance in the post-pandemic era.
Buenos Aires and Argentina should be the beacon to see where we are going. If we don’t propose something unique, something different from what happens in a medium-sized city in Japan – which indeed has tango – why would anyone go to Argentina? Tango is already a cultural heritage of humanity, and we shouldn’t lose it. On the one hand, there is public management, and on the other hand, personal practice.. I appeal to colleagues and participate in a platform called Platea (Platform for Contemporary Tango Theater), where we try to create environments, public spaces, and different formats that have tango as each person defines it or wants to interpret it. With a crisis that is an opportunity, there is a future to work on.