348  Club Premiere in Buenos Aires

Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 16:59:50 -0300
From: Janis Kenyon <jantango@FEEDBACK.NET.AR>
Subject: Club Premiere in Buenos Aires

I attended the "one night only" milonga at Club Premiere in the barrio of
Caballito. The outdoor sports court was transformed with lights, tables and
chairs and music for a night of tango. December weather is usually warm,
but this night was unseasonably cool, which kept many of the advance ticket
holders away. Elisa Fardella and her husband Antonio had been planning this
night for months.

In the 1950s, this "club de barrio" held dances on Saturday nights where
young girls went escorted by an female relative or family friend. They sat
at tables along the walls while all the young men stood in the middle of the
court waiting for the opportunity to invite a girl to dance by making eye
contact.

A few of the men who danced at Club Premiere in the 1950s returned for this
special night. There was an aire of nostaglia for them as they remembered
their younger years. Pedro Sanchez, Roberto Alvarez, Guillermo, Juan
Toppalian, Mario Santamaria, Jose Luis Aceto, Osvaldo Centeno, Eduardo,
Hector Delgado, Ernesto Delgado and Miguel Angel Balbi took a step back in
time to recall those days while they danced under the stars on this evening.
Pedro told me how beautifully polished the floor had been in those days.
Eduardo said "it's cold tonight, but it's beautiful." Then the DJ selected
Recuerdos by Osvaldo Pugliese to begin the next tanda.

Miguel Angel recollected (almost 50 years ago) when he was dancing at Club
Premiere on Saturday nights. He said "words don't exist to express the
feeling of happiness I felt here. I have so many memories. Premiere was
one of the best places to dance on Saturday nights. All the men stood in
the middle of the floor, while the women sat at tables along the wall.
There were nights with more than 500 people."

I could see how much this club meant to Ernesto Delgado when he told me that
this was where he met the woman he eventually married and who gave him three
wonderful sons.

I incorrectly called Club Premiere a milonga in my earlier posting. It was
and still is a neighborhood club. The young teenage girls who danced in the
clubs de barrios would never have been permitted to go to a milonga in the
central part of the city. Women who went to the milongas didn't go
escorted. This is an important distinction between the milongas and the
club de barrios of the 1940s and 50s.

Pichi
Tango Tourist Services