3304  We are all immigrants in tango culture

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 12:26:16 -0700
From: Brian Dunn <brian@DANCEOFTHEHEART.COM>
Subject: We are all immigrants in tango culture

Dear list,

Tango was created by the clash of cultures in the Rio de la Plata starting a
hundred plus years ago. Immigrants poured from Europe into Argentina and
Uruguay, drowning and distorting the local culture with strange music and
dances. The sailors who worked the ships who brought the immigrants hung
out in the waterfront bars, partying and drinking and fighting like sailors
do when they reach land. The immigrants, with names like Maselli and
Jundanian, O'Connell and Rubinstein, Newbery and Pistarini, Alvarez and
Piazzolla, sometimes learned a new language (even Spanish-speakers
confronted lunfardo), and all had to learn a new way of achieving respect in
the strange, vibrant new hybrid culture around them. The bandoneon took its
place as immigrant in a musical culture dominated by the guitar. The waltz
and mazurka interbred with the milonga and habanyera.

The locals resented the influx of immigrants, but appreciated the torrent of
wealth that accompanied the influx, and along with the clever ones among the
immigrants, figured out how to profit from the turbulent new situation.

XXXX

Rich young Argentines took this bastard child called "tango" to Paris, and
caused a cultural earthquake with the collision of raw Southern/Western
hemisphere passion with tired Old World culture. The Europeans'
fascination, their money and their influence rippled back to Argentina, like
tsunami waves rebounding off the edge of a round ocean when a meteor hits
the center. Basking in the returning waves of admiration, appreciation and
raw lusty human needs, Buenos Aires pulsed and convulsed, and brought forth
the Golden Age of tango in response.

The locals made fun of the foreigners, who wanted ridiculous things like
"gauchos dancing tango" to satisfy their half-baked ideas of the nature of
this passionately arousing vessel that had reached their shores. But while
making fun of them, they struck deals with the clever ones, sold them the
goods they seemed to want, creating "tango for export", while still going to
their own milongas and creating their own tango, which was
however...changing...in response to the rebounding waves from the tango
frontier spreading outward around the globe.

XXXX

Tango again returned to Europe, but this time, not in a ship - instead,
aboard an Argentine Air Force plane returning a defective Exocet missile,
post-Malvinas, for repair or replacement. Aboard the plane were Argentine
dancers and musicians bringing "Tango Argentino" to a one-night stand in
Paris. Again the meteor had landed, and again the ripples spread out around
the globe, and again returned, rebounded, amplified, as people around the
world again found their passions awakened and fueled by the soulful flames
of Argentine culture.

And a new wave of immigration began - an immigration of hearts, of souls,
who thanks to jet travel and the internet, now could partake of tango
culture more directly than their grandparents had. When they returned home,
inseminated by tango culture, infected with tango fever, they created more
frontier tango communities, they started internet list-servers, they told
stories and rumors and myths and lies to each other, but they saved up their
dollars or Euros or Kroner or Marks or francs or pounds or yen until they
could again "hop a fast ship" to Argentina and again become an "immigrant of
the heart" - sometimes learning a new language, sometimes inadvertently or
purposefully insulting the locals, and sometimes (again) learning a new way
of achieving respect (or not) in the strange, vibrant new hybrid culture
around them.

And again, the locals made fun of the "gil" foreigners, whose ignorant
naivete made them easy marks for all sorts of schemes, to be laughed about
later over a morning cafe doble. And again, they sold them the goods they
seemed to want, while still going to their milongas and dancing their tango,
which was however...changing again...

Immigrants always change a culture. La vida es asi, no?

Grateful for the passionate shared viewpoints of ALL my fellow immigrants,

All the best,
Brian Dunn
Dance of the Heart
Boulder, Colorado USA
www.danceoftheheart.com