3406  Tango brings tourism to Buenos Aires

Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 18:32:26 -0300
From: Janis Kenyon <jantango@FEEDBACK.NET.AR>
Subject: Tango brings tourism to Buenos Aires

Sunday, May 8 edition of La Nacion: The traditional rioplatense dance is
good business. Tourists are attracted by the tango. Buenos Aires receives
20% of the world-wide tanguero pie that moves $400 million dollars annually.
Four out of ten tourists mention the tango as the reason they travelled to
Buenos Aires. Tango generates dividends in restaurants, fashion,
transportation, and other areas. Tango brings $80 million dollars annually
to Buenos Aires.

The article goes on to mention the third city-wide tango competition which
began on Thursday and which continues to June 5. They expect an estimated
800 to participate this year; last year there were 600 dancers in the
competition. The top finalists go on to the world competition in August.

There is an interview with Carlos Anaya (35), described as a renegade, since
he has no interest in tourists or their wallets. He watches the invasion of
foreign tangueros with disdain because they don't respect the old codes of
the milonga, those he learned from his parents and grandparents. Carlos
greets friends and invites them to a milonga which he organizes on Mondays
in an undisclosed location, where the hat is passed for the entrada. One
has to be personally invited to his milonga which has no name nor any
publicity. Buenos Aires has 68 registered milongas in the city, and his is
not on the list. The Secretary of Culture estimates an attendance of 60,000
each month in the milongas. Carlos says, everything is good for the
tourists. Before there were always the same people in the milongas. They
changed the codes to please them, and made the dance floor smaller by adding
more tables. The idea is to have more people and no one cares about the
quality of the dancers. Carlos and his business partner Patricia Ramirez
want to preserve that in their milonga.

The article mentions Ramon Monges, 45, unemployed, who earns 20 pesos an
hour as a taxi dancer with tourists who want to dance with him. He says,
before I drank nothing, now they pay my drink. I can buy a good pair of
dance shoes (110-200 pesos). I try to survive. Today, people who do
something with tango can live because of the tourists.

A sidebar to the article has a diagram of how the basic step of tango is
danced. "The man positions his right hand on the back of the woman and she
puts her left hand on his shoulder. The man steps back with his right foot
and she steps forward with her left." The drawings show how to dance
separated from one's partner. The article contains a photo taken in
Confiteria Ideal where no one has the dance position described in the
diagram.


Janis Kenyon
School of the Milongueros
Buenos Aires

Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 14:48:48 -0400
From: Tanguero Chino <tanguerochino@NETSCAPE.NET>
Subject: Re: Tango brings tourism to Buenos Aires

The article can be found at
https://www.lanacion.com.ar/702490.
(Spanish only)

Janis Kenyon <jantango@FEEDBACK.NET.AR> wrote:

>Sunday, May 8 edition of La Nacion: The traditional rioplatense dance
>is good business. Tourists are attracted by the tango. Buenos Aires
>receives 20% of the world-wide tanguero pie that moves $400 million
>dollars annually.........

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