1502  Notes from Buenos Aires 4

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 12:30:11 -0500
From: Rick McGarrey <RICKMCG@FLASH.NET>
Subject: Notes from Buenos Aires 4

A trip to the other side.
(part 1 of 2)

In my part of the U.S. the Mexicans use the phrase 'Es
un hombre del otro lado' to refer to someone who lives
on the 'other side' of the frontier, in Mexico. In BA
they use a similar phrase, meaning the other side of
the page. It means the down neighborhood,
the 'barrio, barrio'... the 'arrabal'. Last night we
headed south, to the other side of the tango world.
It is not in the city, but in La Provincia de Buenos
Aires, to the south of the city where today, as far as
I know, there are few remaining tango clubs. When our
taxi got near the club, the driver locked the doors,
and said it's dangerous. Don't walk here. But this
may have been a bit overstated. We know people who
live here and they walk around. A few minutes later
we arrived at 'Club Leales y Pampeanos' where 'Un
Cacho de Tango' milonga is held on Sunday nights. If
El Beso, which is frequented by upscale professionals,
is at one end of the spectrum, this club is at the
other. Not one in a million tourists has been to it,
and few if any of the dancers from downtown or the
neighborhoods know it either.

Admission to 'Un Cacho' is one peso (about 35 cents
U.S), and this price of admission is all that many of
these people can afford to pay. But although they
have very little money, the have other things. Your
peso gets you a chair with bowls of free mate on the
table, sugar and thermos jugs of hot water, and one of
the best atmospheres in Argentina for dancing tango.
It has a different feel from any of the other places
we've been. The name of the club is a play on words,
meaning 'a piece of tango', and it also refers to
Cacho, the organizer of the milonga, who used to be a
stage tango performer. Like some of the other clubs
away from el Centro, it is also a social and sports
club, with banners of the futbol teams Boca Jr.,
Independiente, and River Plate on the walls. We met
our friend Nestor Serra, an old milonguero from the
neighborhood, and his partner Cristina there. Nestor
is a retired dockworker, with the heart of a poet.
One of his hand written poems is framed in Alejandra's
house, and it was Nestor who had picked us up at the
airport when Alejandra's children (a busy doctor, and
a lawyer) couldn't get away from work to meet us.

Cacho4s milonga is one of those places where salsa
tandas are mixed in with the tango, and I did some
filming of the dancers, and of the walls, where there
were pictures of old time dancers and musicians,
including, it seemed to me, a lot of pictures of
Carlos Gardel (It turns out there was a reason for
this). And, as if to confirm my suspicion that life
is really nothing more than a comic opera, there was
also a full color picture of 'the Worm', Dennis
Rodman, in his Chicago Bulls uniform, conspicuously on
display.

We sat, and I got a chance to impress the locals.
Someone asked what orchestra was beginning to play at
the start of the tanda. Almost without thinking I
said 'Es Biagi?' The milongueros at the table, with
the combined experience of about 150 years in the
tango, looked surprised, and said 'Si, es Biagi!'
This was a lucky guess, because I have a lot of
trouble identifying orchestras, and it was really too
early to tell who the group was. And none of them
would have risked being wrong by guessing too early.
A discussion ensued about the different uses of piano
and violin by Biagi v. D'Arienzo, which was way over
my head. But then about half an hour later, I hit the
jackpot. Someone again asked about the music at the
start of the tanda. The music had one of those
wandering introductions that is hard to identify, but
suddenly I picked up the melody of 'Corazon de Oro',
and blurted it out. A few seconds later, the
identifiable part of the music began, and I was right
again! One of the milongueros looked shocked, and the
other, Nestor, a very serious and sincere man, who I
had never seen smile before, yelled, and jumped up and
insisted on giving me high-fives. My reputation was
made. After that I was the best dancer they ever saw,
and I could do no wrong. The lesson here is that
these people place a very high importance on the music-
maybe even more than on dancing. A person who
doesn't know the music, who doesn't dance 'en la
compas', is invisible to them.

Again, I was lucky. 'Corazon' is a vals that is very
familiar to me, although the version I know well is a
different one by Quinteto Pirincho (Canaro's
orchestra). I know it because of something from last
year. I was filming in Celia's, and commented to
Alejandra that I didn't have video of a good vals on
film. She said, well the best dancer of vals (other
than Tete) is here right now, across the room. She
was referring to Gerard, from France, who is possibly
the only foreigner in the world accepted by the
milongueros of BA as one of their own. He can be a
bit difficult, and refuses to be filmed. But she did
something amazing. First, she went to the DJ booth
and said something to Daniel, and then she went across
the floor to Gerard. I saw them gesturing, and he was
shaking his head. She laughed, pointed her finger at
him, and came back across the room. A vals tanda
immediately began, and Gerard came across to
Alejandra4s table. I then filmed them dancing three
of the most amazingly beautiful valses I have ever
seen. The second was Quinteto Pirincho's 'Corazon',
and the third was 'Desde el Alma'. As far as anyone
knows, it's the only time he has been filmed dancing.
I've watched this piece of tape a hundred times and
learned a tremendous amount from it, so the music, and
the picture of Gerard and Alejandra dancing is burned
in my memory. When we saw him last week, I told him
that although I don't know him, I feel like I know him
well because I have watched the film so many times,
and he seemed pleased. I'm getting a little gun-shy
about people on the list misreading things about the
codes. People need to understand that the rules are
important, but they are not always carved in stone.
While Alejandra's requesting a dance at the milonga
was very unorthodox, the highest code for these
milongueros is to be a gentleman. For Gerard to grant
this unusual request was very gallant. It was early
in the afternoon and uncrowded, so he bent the rules
of the milonga , and his own personal rules as well,
to do a favor for a friend. The Argentines sometimes
use the word 'gaucho' for an especially nice act like
this, done for someone else with no thought or
expectation of anything in return.

(part 2 continues in the next post: 'Notes from Buenos
Aires 5')