1588  Notes from Buenos Aires 13

Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 23:29:52 -0500
From: Rick McGarrey <RICKMCG@FLASH.NET>
Subject: Notes from Buenos Aires 13

Uruguay
(Part 2, continued from 'Notes from
Buenos Aires 12')

If tango is alive and well in BsAs, it is, well...
alive in Montevideo. The schedule says there are a lot
of milongas, but they were hard to find. Nothing
Friday, and on Saturday the advertised location was
closed and dark with no explanation. We finally
found something, a special twice a month event in a
fantastic spot called Mercado de la Abundancia. Here
is a tip. If you are tired of being far down the food
chain in the BsAs milongas, go across the river. You
will shine. You will be a veritable 'fulgor' of
tango! This may have been the birthplace of tango,
but if tango ever was here, it grew up and took the
Buquebus to BsAs.

The location was great, an old market that took up
almost an entire city block, with a high old ornate
metal roof with skylights. Four parillas smoked away
inside, but the roof was so high that the air remained
clear. There was a big crowd, made up mostly of
people who came to eat at the restaurants and watch
the dancing. It was a fun spot with nice people, but
I'm afraid I've become a bit of a tango snob, because
I have to say that the music and the dancing were not
very good. The first music played seemed to be by the
well known orchestras, but it was hard to recognize.
They had the right orchestras, but they seemed to have
picked versions recorded for a concert, rather than
for dancing. I kept asking Alejandra if she had ever
heard this music before, and she hadn't. Finally she
resorted to an old habit I had picked up in the U.S.
She went up and had a talk with the DJ. He said he
knew it wasn't much, but he couldn't change it. The
people who ran the market furnished it, and it was a
continuous tape. Finally the tape ended, and he took
control of the music, but it really wasn't a lot
better. It was a random mix of everything, and I
realized how much I had come to rely on and appreciate
the pro DJs of BsAs. There were no cortinas to
separate the tandas, and the music had no flow or
continuity. A vals followed a milonga, then Calo,
then maybe De Caro, or performance style Pugliese
followed by another milonga. We found ourselves
getting up and sitting back down like a second string
point guard being shuttled in and out of a basketball
game. It really made me appreciate and understand the
purpose of well organized tandas separated by
cortinas. It was almost impossible to find a rhythm.
We were forced to check out the start of a song, and
then maybe make our way back to the table, only to
jump up again minutes later when something we liked
came on.

And, there was another problem. The navigation was
horrendous. I haven't danced in crowds for a week or
so, and I began to wonder if it was my fault. So I
tried a test. I moved over to the right very near the
tables and inched along doing my best 'baldosa'
dancing. I stayed almost in one spot, arms in tight,
doing close giros and short rock steps. Almost
immediately the guy in front of me took a big back
step into us. Then we were brushed from behind by a
couple dancing with an open, elbows out, leg throwing
style. A minute later we were almost hit by someone
drifting out from the middle of the floor. I was
almost expecting the table to dance over and kick us
before the music ended. I asked Alejandra if she was
okay, and we gave up. We tried dancing later in one
of the aisles that led into the dining tables of the
parilla, but some guy followed us in, and began
throwing elbows and legs with his partner. Maybe it's
the empty streets. Portenos are used to charging
around heavy traffic in cars and buses, always inches
from disaster. These people may not be used to it.
Crowds fluster them, and they don't have the skills to
move in close quarters.

I don't mean to say the people are rude. Just the
opposite. They are very nice, but they just don't
seem to get tango. We talked to a woman next to us
and she said, 'We are not like portenos. We are very
shy. Dancing is hard for us.' Maybe this was the
answer. These people might be too nice to dance
tango! They don't seem comfortable with it, but they
did a lot better when a condombe group danced into the
place, drums banging away. The crowd seemed to shed
it's inhibitions and acquire a sudden grace. Candombe
is said to be the precursor to milonga, which gave
birth to tango, but it's hard to see the connection.
It is a very loose African Cuban type of thing that,
to me, has little resemblance to tango.

Sunday we took a long walk along the 'rambla', the
walkway that follows the beaches in the east part of
the city, and then tried our luck with another milonga
in a restaurant called Don Trigo that night. It was
held in the small back room of the restaurant, in
Pocitos, an affluent part of town. I sat by the floor
nursing a destornillador (for which I have acquired
quite a taste lately) and tried to play the role of
the objective reporter. Let's see: small wooden
floor, six to eight couples dancing, disco ball
spinning with lights. The dancers all seemed to be
beginners, but they were trying very hard to follow
the music in their awkward beginners' way. Again the
music, and we talked to the DJ, Daniel. A very nice
man, but he said that in Montevideo they only like
slow tangos like Calo, or Pugliese. The faster music
of BsAs doesn't suit them. But he was very nice, and
hunted up some Tanturi just for us.

Maybe it was the drink, but I began feel bad about
reporting on them. These people weren't trying to
perform for anyone. They were very sincere people,
trying to follow the music, with none of the self
satisfied smugness (sorry I have to say it) that
sometimes seems apparent in milongas of the U.S. And
I felt like I was spying on them for other people. Is
it possible I could say something that could actually
hurt someone, or maybe damage a club or a milonga down
here? I am looking over my shoulder and second
guessing, and that's not a good thing... in writing,
or in tango dancing.

Afterwards we went to eat in a nice parilla, and I
told them I needed a table away from smoke. The
waiters all ran around searching for the best spot for
me, and when two people near us lit cigarettes, the
waiter talked to them, and they immediately put them
out and apologized. I know I've teased them a bit
about being the laid back country cousins of the
portenos, but the people of Uruguay are the nicest
people I've ever seen. Why the tango scene is so
weak, I have no idea. In BsAs you have hundreds of
milongas and thousands and thousands of dancers. It's
surprising that a city of four million people just
across the water from Buenos Aires, with such strong
connections to the roots of tango seems to have only
about 20 couples dancing a few times a month.

We are off to Colonia to relax for a few days, and
then back to BsAs.

(A note from my editor, Alejandra. She says: 1. It
should be made clear that the pigeon on the head of
General Artigas in Plaza Independencia was a wild one
that landed there, and was not part of the statue, and
that: 2. The incident I described where Ed got his
foot caught in the bus door was an isolated one, and
was maybe even his fault, and should in no way be
taken as a slur on the clean, safe, and reliable
municipal bus service of the city of Buenos Aires, nor
on any of it's dedicated employees.)

End.

Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 22:22:35 -0700
From: Bruno <romerob@TELUSPLANET.NET>
Subject: En La Rambla (Notes from Buenos Aires 13)

Rick McGarrey wrote:

>Sunday we took a long walk along the 'rambla', the

walkway that follows the beaches in the east part of
the city<

There is a title of an early Tango called "En La Rambla", which is further
categorized as "Tango acuatico" (acuatic tango?) composed by Manuel
Aroztegui and played by Bill Mathiessen from his collection of piano scores,
Bill is a classic piano player based in Lanesboro, Massachusetts. Bill has a
website with the title of this tango and others from 1900 - 1920
www.bfv.com/tango Very nice tango to listen to. Wonder if this is the Rambla
that Rick's alludes in his notes from B.A's. 13.

Great reporting!

Regards,

Bruno