3982  Circuses, theater, tango and 5 star hotels.

Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 18:53:19 +0000
From: Sergio Vandekier <sergiovandekier990@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Circuses, theater, tango and 5 star hotels.

Igor received a letter that he published :

" This is from a letter I have received recently:
"..You should see Buenos Aires, no one works and dances all day and night!
But I went with a guy who spoke Spanish otherwise I would have been sunk!
You have to taxi everything there for sure if not you get kidnapped, I
swear! Their five star hotel is more like a three star here and the
beautiful milonga halls are so run down, its sad. But the people are
wonderful. No one has a dime so what else can you do but dance.....anything
to distract yourself from the crazy politics over there... "

->Do you think the situation before 1900 was any better?
Well, there were no taxis and American tourists."

Dear Igor,
I imagine that you have never been to B.A .

The letter says: "Nobody works" :)) somebody must be working
since Argentina has the 24th largest output in a ranking of 150 nations of
the world.

5 Star hotels: Do you think that The Hyatt Buenos Aires at 600 dollars a
night, the Sheraton, the Hilton, The Caesar Park, the Marriot, etc, to
mention a few ones belonging to foreign chains look like your *** stars
hotels? I would dare to say that they exhibit more luxury than in many
places abroad. But there are hotels of all kind and prices.

As to milongas they are held in all sort of places, some in very beautiful,
elaborated buildings, like Hotel Espaniol, or Palacio Sarmiento, other in
regular clubs, some in run down places that could be very interesting due to
a diversity of reasons. There are many milongas every day and night, some
open and are a failure from the very beginning, other stay open for years.

Circuses traditionally in Argentina included theater performances in their
programs, as described by Bruno.

The working class here has always distinguished itself, for their high
degree of education, their good taste in dressing and high level of
organization (even at the beginning of the last century).

During the recent economical crisis of 2001, many nations came down here
trying to recruit workers to emigrate to their countries, including Spain
(come looking for big families to repopulate their small towns) Italy ,
Israel (paid high incentives to any family wishing to relocate), even the
USA publish an advertisement in the local newspapers to entice people to
participate in a "Lottery diversity program" that grants 50.000 immigrant
visas a year.

Tango was introduced in theatrical performances at the beginning of the last
century as described by Bruno.

I can understand that some tourists come down here and end up in "el bajo"
San Telmo , La boca and other poor areas of the city where tango was born,
they mostly deal then with displaced people from other South American
countries or from the Argentine "interior" (rural areas).
I suspect that the author of the letter you published was the victime of a
practical joker.

Best regards, Sergio

PS. The Airport at Ezeiza. They charge U$S 0.50 per cart now (they accept
pesos, dollars or Euros). The Blue and white taxis charge about 20 U$S or 53
pesos to go downtown.

Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 12:26:36 -0800
From: Igor Polk <ipolk@VIRTUAR.COM>
Subject: Re: Circuses, theater, tango and 5 star hotels.

Now seriously.

As everybody mentioned, something important happened with tango in
1900-1905. Good musicians, composers started to make better music, shows
appeared, tango started to get attention of higher classes and started
spreading throughout Argentinean society and the whole world.

Sergio,
If you take this period 1900-1905 as a point on the time-line of tango
development, where would you put it? At the beginning of the line when tango
was just taking shape as a separate cultural phenomena, in the middle, or at
the end where it is completely developed and approached perfection, highest
peak?

Igor Polk