3582  Pedro & Graciela speaks (winners III Metropolitan Championship)

Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 11:40:55 -0300
From: Alberto Gesualdi <clambat2001@YAHOO.COM.AR>
Subject: Pedro & Graciela speaks (winners III Metropolitan Championship)

Dear friends from Tango list
An interview to the winners of Metropolitan Championship of Tango salon has been published , I would translate for you . Please note some comments concerning the budget that this couple run, and how the daughter of Graciela, give some money to help them for the entrance fee, take them to the milonga and pick them up afterwards . Is a nice tale
Warm regards
AlbertoGesualdi
Buenos Aires




DANCE | INTERVIEW WITH PEDRO VUJOVICH & GRACIELA CANO

A Tango Romance

The winners of the III Campeonato Metropolitano de Tango Salsn talk about their engagement with the rhytm 2x4.



Laura Falcoff. -Clarin pressroom-


Through the window of a bar at Brasil and Defensa you can see Pedro Vujovich and Graciela Cano arriving to the appointment.

They are coming from Sarandm ( n.t. an area in south the province of Buenos Aires, around 15 km from downtown) where they lived since many years ago , but this place were we are meeting is also very familiar for them : just a couple of meters away is the ortodox russian church over Brasil street,where they married 44 years ago.

In the nearby Parque Lezama , Pedro, just coming oput from his childhood, started thoroughly to make his tango practices.

The couple Vujovich is the brand new winner of the III Campeonato Metropolitano de Tango Salsn, organized by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires (they contest representing the milonga Glorias Argentinas), and the jury of the tournament give this long desserved prize to this couple, who bear some of the most characteristic and authentic aspects of this gender of tango social dancing : a long presence on tango dancin floors,. musicality and style.

Both were born in Buenos Aires he at La Boca neihgbourhood, she at Parque Patricios they have three siblings and as many grandchildren.

Pedro, which will be seventy years old in a few days and is retired , woerked as maintenance supervisor of steelmetal companies. Graciela, closed to be sixty five years old, worked at an assembly lines of a television factory until she got married.

They met one each other at the dancing floor of club Bohemio, La Boca neighbourhood ( n.t. the Club still exist and still has a lovely milonga on saturday nights ), a day of great heat at the end of the yearl 58.

"Before meeting Pedro says Graciela, I was accustomed to go with my aunt , my brother & cousins , to dance to matineis of clubs at San Isidro, Beccar, Tigre, Olivos ( n.t. zones of the suburban NE Buenos Aires , around 10 to 20 km away downtown ).

To the confitermas at downtown , no; my mum do not approved this.
I learn to dance when I was 13 years old at family parties that were organized at the houses, those so called "asaltos/bring your food ,soft drinks and paste music disks", looking and acting as guinea pig for the men of the family.

Graciela, when you dance you make "embellishments" very personal with your feet. ?Are your creation?

Yes. A friend of Pedro told me once that I mix steps of tango with steps of fox trot or dixieland. I dind t have noticed before.

And you, Pedro, ?how do you started to dance?

I started when I was 14 years old ( n.t. around 1949, the golden era of tango).
We came here, to Parque Lezama, with a bunch of boys: Petrsleo (not the one of Villa Urquiza, other one bearing the same nickname), Lalo, Poleto, Martmn.

Although I lived at La Boca I make friends everyvhere. We brough with us a mechanic paste disk player, only music from D Arienzo4s orchestra, and we started to draw up steps ; one of the boys : " you know, I have seen a guy that put his feet like this and then crossed it like this . "Show me ", we said ; and on and on until we got the step .

?And your first formal dance?

Once the boys told me: "Skinny , come with us , we will take you to dance". "No, no, what happens it they found I am underage and they take me to the police precinct ", I told them. Since I was underage. " I will smuggle you as my niece", one of the elder guys said. And they take to Rancho Grande (n.t. a milonga that is not more open ), de Quilmes ( n.t.;25 km south Buenos Aires). "Pinocchiothose days they called me Pinocchio , due to my long nose, take out that woman, she is staring at you".

I thought they were pulling my leg, that I was goping to bounce with the woman, that maybe it was a joke and she was lame.

But no. That was the way I started to go outwith the elder boys. Also I went to some social clubs where there were not so many restrictions m,and to the.
pic-nics, where it was customary to dance also.

But , how many times that my dad was called from downtown to came to the police precinct to take me out ........

?And how does he cope with this situation?

Imagine, he was a montenegrino (n.t. a zone at NW Italy , close to the border with Serbia ).

Afterwards , when I was 16 years old, with my good height reached and not shaving for a couple of days , I begun to enter easily to the dancings more reos/heavies : Palermo Palace, Kakuy, La Enramada, Palacio G|emes, Mi ranchito, El Palmareqito (n.t. all gone places,mostly at Palermo neighbourhood).

?How do you achieve to find your style?.

I know millions of figures, but my style started to change when we started to go to ... may I say the name ?? , to the Savoy ( n.t. this hotel at congreso neighbourhood still has tango activity , but not so intense as the days when Pedro is referring now. There were live transmisions from radio broadcasting during the 504s , with a band called "the Mackee Macks " that played Glenn Miller style and some other salon music. It have a huge success with dancers, and it was always crowded. Elegant attires were required ).

There was so many people that at one moment you were unable to dance. I deleted the "eight" from my dancing because if I do it I kick the guy in front of us, and instead I start to invent steps to be able to follow the rhtym.

For instance, since there were no room to make giros, I put the "vuelta americana".

?When was happening this ?

Pedro: At the sixty .......

Graciela: On the 80's , because we have already moved to Avellaneda (n.t. south suburban neighbourhood, boder with the city ). We take the bus number 51 to Constitucisn neighbourhood and then to the Hotel Savoy with the bus number 60 ( n.t.:the buses are still running ).


?What orchesta do you prefer? I mean orchestras for dancing.

(Both answered simultaneously) Di Sarli.

Pedro: s the "orchestra that speaks"; and is not me who says this, Mariano Mores said it.

?Glorias Argentinas is the salon that you go most to dance?

Graciela: Even as it is a bit far away home we like a lot the music they play. sometimes my daughter calls me on a saturday, which is the day that I take to paint my fingernails. "?Are you going out today ?", she asks me.
"No; daddy will collect their retirement payment the following week".
"Wait for us, we will pick you up ", she says me.
She came with the car with her husband, give me some pesos, take us to the milonga, then they go to a bingo or to another place, and at 3am they turn back to pick us up at the milonga.

?Do you go to other milongas?

Graciela: If we are tired we go to an evening milonga in Avellaneda, from 5 pm to 12 pm .



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