4086 Anibal Ibarra sacked
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 02:37:09 +0100
From: Aron ECSEDY <aron@MILONGA.HU>
Subject: Anibal Ibarra sacked
Mayor of BsAs with much influence on the recent boom in tangolife there, was
sacked for his alleged responsibility concerning a club fire last year.
https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4783582.stm
Any comments?
Ecsedy Áron
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Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 15:17:00 -0300
From: Brian Dunn <brian@DANCEOFTHEHEART.COM>
Subject: Anibal Ibarra sacked, and future impact on BsAs tango
Aron wrote:
>>>
Mayor of BsAs with much influence on the recent boom in tangolife there, was
sacked for his alleged responsibility concerning a club fire last year.
https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4783582.stm
Any comments?
<<<
Apparently Ibarra's ouster will not have a direct and immediate effect on
tango, but there are forebodings among local tango people in Buenos Aires.
Ibarra's replacement, the former deputy mayor Jorge Teleman, was the one who
put in place the Cultural Ministry team in the city government who are
responsible for sponsoring many of the city's big recent investments in
tango culture. These include the wildly successful Buenos Aires Tango
Festivals (the latest of which ended yesterday), the Campeonata del Mundo
city-wide tango contests, and other measures.
As their former boss now takes the helm of the city, this Cultural Ministry
team remains in place through 2007. So visiting tango aficionados can
continue to expect city support for these and similar events and programs,
some of which are still under development.
The problem can be illustrated by Ibarra's bad luck in being in charge of
the city when its historically corrupt city inspections system finally found
its chickens coming home to roost with the tragic Cromagnon fire. Opponents
of Ibarra and of the President Nestor Kirchner were emboldened by the
opportunity to channel genuine grief and outrage of the victims' families
into this particular political struggle. Local tango observers are
concerned that Teleman's political position, and thus the viability of
Cultural Ministry programs he once spearheaded, have been weakened by
Ibarra's trial and conviction. Kirchner's support for his political ally
Ibarra during the trial was invisible in the face of the public clamor for
accountability.
If the city government changes in the next elections, city support for
cultural programs in a more rightward-leaning administration might well be
cut back significantly, with the cultural momentum shifting in favor of
privatized tango operations. Depending on your position on a variety of
things, you might find this to be a good thing or not, from a theoretical
perspective. But I share some of these local observers' concerns. As Aron
notes, many of these city-sponsored programs (provision of free tango
lessons across the city by top-ranked teachers, free tango concerts by
world-class traditional and contemporary tango musicians, massive outdoor
street dances, etc.) are often the only way that local young people can
further their tango education in their own cultural heritage. The
incredible upsurge in youthful energy in the current BsAs tango scene is a
testament to the success of these efforts. I can easily imagine that
privatizing tango locally would skew the available tango offerings more in
the direction of creating a cottage industry for tourists, cutting off tango
in Buenos Aires from the untapped energies of its emerging next generation.
Bottom line for tango: no overt effect through 2007, but some prudent local
wagon-circling and less local institutional appetite for bold new tango
ventures leading up to the next elections. After that, all bets are off.
All the best,
Brian Dunn
Dance of the Heart
Boulder, Colorado USA
www.danceoftheheart.com
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 19:29:10 +0000
From: Alberto Gesualdi <clambat2001@YAHOO.COM.AR>
Subject: Anibal Ibarra sacked, and future impact on BsAs tango
Dear friends from tango list
The ousting of Major Ibarra has no specific connection into tango as a social dancing.
Since the first tango festival with the cooperation of Miguel Angel Zotto and the famous " 400 tango lessons free" , there was no significant increase in assistance into tango schools or tango lessons, usually given at the same places where milongas are held afterwards.
This comment is specifically pointing to local portenios and tango as social dancing, no the steady affluence of foreign tango social dancers that keeps coming.
There are ...around 90 milongas within Buenos Aires, as listed in the tangodata site. This will made a tango community around .... 20.000 people, which is a wrong calculation, because there are people that go to several different milongas during the week .
This 20.000 people are scattered in an area of 200km2 , the size of Buenos Aires city, with around 3.000.000 inhabitants ( daylight ,maybe at night is less people, since many people live outside Buenos Aires and came to work to the city )
If you asked me , what was the main musical / popular event in the past 60 days or 90 , it was not the Tango Festival but the Carnival and murgas , that make a nightmare to travel by car , since major streets were cut without an orderly scheme , so you have to sneak with hundreds of car to find your way through to your destination.
The local milongas are not sponsored by the city government , so the y have to run on their own, covering their expenses at their own risk. Maybe, when the tango contests are held , milongas receive a cooperation in advertising, since the contestants has to compete at milongas for the qualificastion in tango social dancing next rounds.
But it is not the usual, silent, discreet step of the milongueros and milonguera that go to the milongas to dance, as other people go to watch soccer matches, or to play to horse races through the several sweepstake booths across the city, as well as the bingo and slot machines, that are here and there increasingly.
The last slogan for the tango festival was absurd " Buenos Aires, the city where the future of tango is " .??? What future ??This narrow minded vision is part of the isolation that local government has ,concerning tango as social dancing activity. It could not be compulsory made, to make people to dance. Is a personal selection , and there is no tango festival or tango contest that could make local portenios, to dance again as it was on the 40`s , when at a random weekend there were as much as 60 orchestras playing all throughout the city.
Now I am living at Almagro neighbourhood , near to Palermo, and in the past two years I noticed there are several places for amusement that opened . But there are not related to tango dancing, just musical events ( with some tango orchestras and/or singers , young people and some of the veterans ) .
I receive from other tango list in spanish, some photo gallery taken recently at milonga from the Club Espaniol, the evening milonga that is very popular. I do not know who take the photos but they are a good photo gallery of the people that goes for a social dancing , just for the pleasure of it, not expecting to earn money or to have profit with t business. Here you have
https://www.jingziphotography.com/tango/clubespanol/index.html
Maybe I am wrong , and the next year the Tango festival will made all the citiy of Buenos Aires to stop for a week their frenzy 6 x 8 beating, and walk on tango 4 x 4 or 2 x 4 stops.
warm regards
alberto gesualdi
buenos aires
Abrm tu cuenta aqum
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 17:22:45 -0300
From: Brian Dunn <brian@DANCEOFTHEHEART.COM>
Subject: Re: Anibal Ibarra sacked, and future impact on BsAs tango
Hola Alberto!
Thanks for sharing the link to those beautiful photographs with us.
Many have strong opinions about government at any level getting involved in
cultural activities - I think in general there is a balance to be found in
public and private activity in support of culture. If Brazil can pay $5
million for a single free Rolling Stones concert on the Copacabana beach
(attendance: two million people) perhaps there is a place for the City of
Buenos Aires to continue sponsoring in some way its tango heritage as well.
You are correct that the people in those beautiful pictures do not care what
the city government does about tango - they have their love of tango firm in
their hearts from many years already on the pista in privately run milongas
like for example the one at Club Espanol on Thursday evening, or at El
Arranque on Tuesday. But what I see in places like Club S.D. Villa Malcolm,
which in two years has grown from nothing to the point where they now have
tango almost every night of the week for mostly a much younger crowd, the
energy of what people do with their athletic young bodies to D'Arienzo and
Di Sarli and Rodriguez and Biagi (and sure, some Narcotango and Bajofondo
Tango Club also) is very exciting to be around. These young people can
benefit from the support of programs like the Tango Festival, as well as the
very low cost privately run practicas held there four nights a week now.
And it is not just young people. Four days ago I saw some free Festival
beginner lessons, with sixty or eighty people in each lesson, and many of
the people were forty or fifty years old, taking their first tango lessons
as part of the free programs of the Festival.
Abrazos,
Brian Dunn
Dance of the Heart
Boulder, Colorado USA
www.danceoftheheart.com
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 4:29 PM
To: TANGO-L@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: [TANGO-L] Anibal Ibarra sacked, and future impact on BsAs tango
Dear friends from tango list
The ousting of Major Ibarra has no specific connection into tango as a
social dancing.
Since the first tango festival with the cooperation of Miguel Angel Zotto
and the famous " 400 tango lessons free" , there was no significant increase
in assistance into tango schools or tango lessons, usually given at the same
places where milongas are held afterwards.
This comment is specifically pointing to local portenios and tango as
social dancing, no the steady affluence of foreign tango social dancers that
keeps coming.
There are ...around 90 milongas within Buenos Aires, as listed in the
tangodata site. This will made a tango community around .... 20.000 people,
which is a wrong calculation, because there are people that go to several
different milongas during the week .
This 20.000 people are scattered in an area of 200km2 , the size of Buenos
Aires city, with around 3.000.000 inhabitants ( daylight ,maybe at night is
less people, since many people live outside Buenos Aires and came to work to
the city )
If you asked me , what was the main musical / popular event in the past 60
days or 90 , it was not the Tango Festival but the Carnival and murgas ,
that make a nightmare to travel by car , since major streets were cut
without an orderly scheme , so you have to sneak with hundreds of car to
find your way through to your destination.
The local milongas are not sponsored by the city government , so the y
have to run on their own, covering their expenses at their own risk. Maybe,
when the tango contests are held , milongas receive a cooperation in
advertising, since the contestants has to compete at milongas for the
qualificastion in tango social dancing next rounds.
But it is not the usual, silent, discreet step of the milongueros and
milonguera that go to the milongas to dance, as other people go to watch
soccer matches, or to play to horse races through the several sweepstake
booths across the city, as well as the bingo and slot machines, that are
here and there increasingly.
The last slogan for the tango festival was absurd " Buenos Aires, the city
where the future of tango is " .??? What future ??This narrow minded vision
is part of the isolation that local government has ,concerning tango as
social dancing activity. It could not be compulsory made, to make people to
dance. Is a personal selection , and there is no tango festival or tango
contest that could make local portenios, to dance again as it was on the
40`s , when at a random weekend there were as much as 60 orchestras playing
all throughout the city.
Now I am living at Almagro neighbourhood , near to Palermo, and in the
past two years I noticed there are several places for amusement that opened
. But there are not related to tango dancing, just musical events ( with
some tango orchestras and/or singers , young people and some of the
veterans ) .
I receive from other tango list in spanish, some photo gallery taken
recently at milonga from the Club Espaniol, the evening milonga that is very
popular. I do not know who take the photos but they are a good photo gallery
of the people that goes for a social dancing , just for the pleasure of it,
not expecting to earn money or to have profit with t business. Here you have
https://www.jingziphotography.com/tango/clubespanol/index.html
Maybe I am wrong , and the next year the Tango festival will made all the
citiy of Buenos Aires to stop for a week their frenzy 6 x 8 beating, and
walk on tango 4 x 4 or 2 x 4 stops.
warm regards
alberto gesualdi
buenos aires
Abrm tu cuenta aqum
Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 07:12:43 -0300
From: Deby Novitz <dnovitz@LAVIDACONDEBY.COM>
Subject: Ibarra sacked
Thank you Alberto for your post. As someone else who also lives here, I
agree in most part with your post. The only part that I disagree is the
number of dancers in the GBA. I have consistently been told it is
somewhere around 5,000 - 6,000 people not the 20,000 you put in your
post. What most people on this list do not want to understand is that
tango for the most part is a very small part of the lives of people in
this city. There are no bandoneon players on the runaway to greet you
when you get off your plane, the customs officials are not dressed in
black with white scarves. Buenos Aires is a major cosmpolitan city that
will exist with or without tango.
Most people here not only do not dance tango, they dont like it. My
English students think I am very funny for dancing tango and having
tango music. Several of my students go as far as to say "they hate
it." (My students are 35 - 60 years in age) Most of my Argentine
friends do not dance tango and constantly tease me about it. During the
crisis the government saw tango as another way to capture tourist
dollars so they started to capitalize on it. The events you mention in
your post Brian are for tourists, they are not really for us who live
here. To be honest those that live here understand the tourist dollars
fuel our economy, but they are not thrilled to have the milongas over
run with "extranjeros" during this time.
Tango will continue here whether Ibarra is mayor, Kirchner is
president. It is a cultural tradition. Those that love it will
continue to go to the milongas, Argentines who are interested will come
to learn and dance it. The government will continue to sponsor tango
festivals as long as the tourist dollars roll in to support them.
Ibarra was not a good mayor. That is my opinion. Whether he should
have been dumped for Cromagnon is another debate. He never had a plan
for this city, and many of the issues here are the direct result of his
inability to manage. He had many enemies and they found a way to get
rid of him. Does anyone from California remember Gray Davis? Hello....
hopefully Susana Giminez wont want to be mayor. (Plastic surgery
festivals anyone?)
