A return to Summer Assault FREE outdoor series
Siempre Tango’s free outdoor Summer milonga series Summer Assault for 2010 has been locked in. Summer Assault brings the beauty of the Argentine Tango to the public in an opportunity to relax in the beautiful surrounds of the River Torrens. Everybody is welcome so bring your friends and family along too. Dance under the stars at the following events

• 7.30pm Friday January 8th La Rotunda (Elder Park)
• 7.30pm Friday February 12th La Rotunda (Elder Park)

Don’t forget that Summer Assault is free. You can see photos from previous milongas in the gallery. Don’t miss it especially if you haven’t had a chance to experience it yet.

Here is a handy map of the location

Update: This event is licenced, so you may bring along your favourite beverages. Please drink responsibly and only within the designated area.

Our last event for the year was a week ago. Pictures from the event are now in the gallery. It was billed as a practica, but you can see that most folks glammed up and gave it quite the touch of style. Thank you to: Irene and Claire for transforming the practice hall into a swishy ballroom; Mark and Megan for their elegant performance, Andrew for focused and stylish publicity and design; Ben and Anabel for generous work in supplying raffle prizes; Janett for organising and plugging the raffle so well (both on the night and in the weeks prior); and to all who came along, carried a chair or two, bought raffle tickets, and danced, danced, danced.

Siempre Tango’s End of Year practica December 10th, 8-11pm @ North Adelaide Community Centre... not just any ordinary practica. Music, performances, prizes and raffle draws. Bring along a plate of food and your favourite drink. $5.00 entry fee. See you there.

For those who missed it, here’s a segment on the tango featuring our friends Pedro and Sophia Alvarez from Sydney.

http://today.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=864722

The new six week block of classes commence Wed 26th August at St Theodores Church Hall in Toorak Gdns.

• Intermediate 7.30-8.30pm
• Advanced 8.30-9.30pm

Course cost is $75/50 conc

Hope to see you there!

Pugliese’s music has a strong rhythmic beat and he is regarded as a pioneer in the use of syncopation and counterpoint and influenced Horacio Salgán (1916- ) and Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992). La Yumba (meaning dance in Creole Ki-Kongo), Negracha (Black Woman) and Malandraca (little rascal) are amongst his most famous pieces. In the 1940s La Yumba became recognised as an anthem for his orchestra.

In the 1920s he wrote Recuerdo (Fond Memory), one of his most successful early pieces and dedicated to the people with whom he played pool and drank in cafes. The lyrics are by the poet Eduardo Moreno (1906-1997). Pugliese started playing professionally at the age of 15 in the Café de la Chancha. For a short time, in his early life, Pugliese played in a band with Francisca “Paquita” Bernardo (1900-1925), the first female bandoneonist in tango.

Throughout the years Pugliese’s orchestra was banned from being broadcast as a means of political censorship due to his espoused communist leanings. To alert the dance hall when Pugliese was arrested, a red carnation or rose was placed on Pugliese’s piano by the band members as a ‘symbol of absence’ (simbolo de ausencia). He was a member of the Argentine Communist Party for most of his life, and he ran his band as a cooperative with equal pay cuts for all players. He was jailed by General Farrell (1887-1980), and Juan Perón (1895-1974) for 6 months in 1955 and also by the military regime that ousted Peron. (In 1983 there was a return of democracy).

Pugliese’s statue is on the corner of Corrientes and Scalabrini in Buenos Aires and his tomb, in Chacarita, often has red carnations on it.

Information source:

Thompson, Robert Farris. 2005. Tango: the art history of love. United States: Vintage Books. P200-203

and

TodoTango

…about Carlos Estevez, a tango dancer & one of the first writers of tango

Carlos Alberto Estevez, a bank clerk and tango dancer, wrote about tango, ‘its prowess and its defiance,… for the in-house journal of his bank, Banco Europa para America Latina (BEAL)’. These articles helped place tango in its historical context.

Estevez was nicknamed ‘Petroleo’ (gasoline) either because his famous spins reminded people of ‘the whirling pinwheel in the glass dome of the 1940s gas pumps’ or ‘his beverage of choice was cheap red wine, called petroleo in lunfardo because of its dark colour’.

NB: Lunfardo is an argot (ie a secret language and means ‘slang’ in French, Spanish & Catalan). It was developed at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century by people from the various less wealthy socio-economic groups in and around Buenos Aires and Montevideo possibly to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations.

Information source:
Thompson, Robert Farris. 2005. Tango: the art history of love. United States: Vintage Books. P 247-249.
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunfardo and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argot

Tango parody

The ‘hard’ (duro) style of tango, stiff arms, faces side by side, was seen in Paris before World War 1. This was parodied in films such as Some Like It Hot (1959), Last Tango in Paris (1972), and Soldier of Orange (1978).

Juan Carlos Copes (1931- ), the first person to choreograph Argentine tango for professional dancers on the stage, said it looked as if the male and female involved were ‘looking for someone better to dance with’. It is believed the prowlike stance was invented by men dancing with men.

Information source:
Thompson, Robert Farris. 2005. Tango: the art history of love. United States: Vintage Books. P 219-221.
and
http://www.totango.net/copes.html