Encore
(Last modified: 26 march 2008 - scroll for tangoclips)
Tango dance as had many forms and style changes over time. How much has the social context changed since the danceform first received its name? Are we, being absorbed into tango workshops, still able to feel the "original" meaning of tango as a "social" dance? Or has each generation its own language in terms of its own most urgent needs, assimilating towards the real world which continues moving forward? Which sensitive nerve strucks the Sentimental Tango today? Is there still a longing for the romantic close embrace, or is it destined to fade away, gradually disappearing as if driven out of existence by identifiable external forces of time? Or, how could a simple underwear become a seduction symbol?
The story of tango is part of the urban changes that turned Buenos Aires into a metropolis. As the city began to expand with "los barrios" or districts, new career paths made it possible to move up the social ladder. In a relatively short time, the Buenosairean society was diversified and became more complex. Between end of the first decade of the 20'th century and the 1940's, people of the districts began to frequent "los cafés" or coffee houses and cabarets in the buenosaires center, and politicians looking for votes walked the districts making political campaigns. The extension of the free time outside the family homeworld, offered to many new encounters with great opportunities. A new, consuming public was profiling, common people, of the districts, that listened to tangos and danced, read newspapers, magazines and went to the cinema, frequented new socialization fields, from the local club to the "society of promotion" and the bar. The result of this embourgeoisement or aburguesuamento, is that more people are incorporated into the middle-class. The expansion of the transport network facilitated an endless number of interchanges between the world of the districts and the center. Buenos Aires had not only grown but was also more communicated. The mainstreet in the heart of the city, "La calle Corrientes", became the "neutral territory" or "abstract space" on which the culture of the center and the one of the districts "were to taste".
Through time, as the male / female population balance was getting more equal in Buenos Aires, dating became more normal and the scene changed. Now, both men and women went to crowded tango dancehalls and confiterías, where they danced very close, the woman’s head over her partner’s right shoulder, so he could whisper in her ear and visa versa, this romantic "cheek to cheek-style" was called apilado, piled up, packed tightly together. Later, with the appearance of the tango in the milonga danceclubs and the salón in the family houses, the tanguero public transformed. From 1940, the tango had to express something else than the eroticism of the bordelles and cabarets louche. The aesthetic focus was no longer on sexual desire and carnal pleasures but on the elegant appearance. And as the social setting changed, what about the magnetic material inside tangodance, did the original intent become uncertain? Did the spirit remain or is the forbidden dance merchandised? Is it been translated by the media, by stereotyping, by anyone wanting to do it. They say that the moment you start commercialising, you kill something, becoming a marketing practice in which the image is used to sell.
Since the First World War, the period in which tango became a worldwide phenomenon, Buenos Aires and the rest of the world underwent a transformation. Seen through the eye of urbanization, it looks as if it was rescued from a dubious past of red-light districts with gambling, champagne and cocaine. The World War and the industrial age changed also much of what we assume to be the personal self. That transformation of the personal self is, especially in the last decade, still increasing and influencing public perceptions. Today, we are not in "Les années folles". Today's "timespirit" expresses a certain “language” to act like the others in society. Sameness or similarity tend to be perceived as belonging together, making it a safe unit. But it is more than a drive or tendency to uniformity, it is self-objectification, a form of self-consciousness that is characterised by constant self-monitoring of one's outward appearance to a prescribed ideal image. With each group that is assimilated, a culture vanishes and life becomes more uniform.
The aesthetic perceptions experienced today, mark a general perception transformation. It looks as if beauty is no longer seen as an object of desire, but as a public object of scientific research and styling. Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) term this particular perspective "self-objectification", and describe it as a form of self-consciousness that is characterised by habitual and constant self-monitoring of one's outward appearance to a prescribed ideal image. This has created a completely new form of behavior which Ariadne von Schirach calls "Der Tanz um die Lust". Esthetic withdrawal, wrapped up in desirability. Tangodance as a lifestyle-oriented social promotion. To be seen at the place to be. The gaze and the exhibition are one and the same, as bound in a looking mirror. Coco Chanel once said: "Elegance is refusal". As a result, nothing happens, they do not move. An example is Samuel Beckett’s famous play "Waiting for Godot". Belonging to what is classified as the theatre of the absurd.
Time changes the atmospheric and biological energy. Some aspects of globalization are establishing uniformity. Uniformity or objectification seems to be a historical process, the result of progress. Zeitgeists refers to forces that have operated for centuries at all levels of human activity. A time change is a phenomenon based on destiny where something simultaneously happens everywhere at a certain time, moving in the same direction.
More Tango Reflections, video illustrated:
Dance interpretations on Gallo Ciego
Walking the tango rhythm: 2x4 dos por cuatro
Walking Seduction
Dance is a physical need
Tangowals vals Milena Plebs Ezequiel Farfaro clips
Online Tangolessen videoclips videolessen updated
Carlos Gavito and Maria Plazaola
Showclips Forever Tango - great milongueros
Spirit of the Times (Zeitgeist): The "timespirit" does not indicate a homogenous state of affairs in which everyone goes along with the same idea, but rather expresses the fact that in any given society, there is a certain “language”, culture or range of concepts in which every dispute, every contradiction must be fought out. This “terrain” which is expressed in the Zeitgeist operates “behind the backs” of the participants, changing their minds, using persuasion. There is an inbuilt drive to act like the others in society, an urge to duplicate, it creates an unconscious recurring pattern of behavioral codes. Imitation is a part of prosperous relationship building, which is an important concept to understand if one is to adapt and function effectively in society. Sameness or similarity tend to be perceived as belonging together, making it a safe unit, a close group. Style, fashion, vogue.
Today's modern Western social imaginary, the way a given people imagine their collective social life, is primarily characterized an economy for exchanging goods and services to promote mutual prosperity, the public sphere established by the community is imagined as a metaphorical place for discussion among strangers on issues of mutual concern. Unspoken strict rules called etiquette model the manner of conducting yourself. Peculiarly the conversation piece is important. Contemporary imagery values are not preoccupied with sensory dimensions. Yet despite or perhaps because of the fact that in today's social life there is a rejection-culture of significant bodily contact, an increasing number of young and older people turn to (couple) dancing. A contradiction? The primary focuses of the social dancing are sociability and socializing.
Tango is a social dance originating in Buenos Aires, rioplatense. History suggest that tango encounters were an intense competition between men who sought to win the bodies of the women. It was also a catalyst for racial and class tensions augmented by the invasion of European immigrants. Between 1853 and 1930 Argentina got 6.000.000 immigrants. As 70% of the immigrants were masculine, a demographic imbalance was produced between "Damas y Caballeros". European prostitutes were imported, Franchuchas and there was also a women-traffic from Warsaw, from the ghetto de Varsovie et les villages juifs de la Pologne, but this mixture is the port-story of La Boca. The coloring chemistry of all this makes the suburb, orillero, the expanding border of the city of Buenos Aires. Yet the outcome, tangodance, tangoing, is more than a symptom, magnetic material lives inside the unexpurgated core and is longing to come at the surface, yearning for an occasion, a perfect habitat such as at the beginning of the 20th century.
As a reflection on developments of everyday life, one can say that urbanisation has an immaterial side. Urbanisation organizes contemporary our life. It has its own mechanisms for construction, bodies are included or excluded. In a way, the environment works as non-verbal communication and as the most important messages between people are nonverbal, the environmental conditions are an important factor in modelling behavior. Surroundings have a distinctive atmosphere, vibrations which can evoke or suppress things. As in Playtime, the movie of Jacques Tati, the landscape is continually changing under the influence of many different forces.
Selection YouTube tangovideos:
1. TangoClass - instructional vídeos - TangoLessons
2. Milonga and Candombe dancing
3. Tangovals clips - Tango waltzing - Valse - Tangowals
4. Various Great Tangoclips Online fast internet access needed
5. Fast Links to Selected Tango Dance Video Updates
What about the tango spirit ?
As in drama, there is tension in tango, made by the opposition of characters in a dueling embrace, a reason why tango is called the forbidden dance. Without drama, tension, especially humor, a moment of alertness, awareness, the space to do something amusing, unsafe, the movements have no real meaning.
Tangowals tangovals clips
online Tangolessen videoclips updated
Tango's core can be infectious and as body and mind are indissociable, dance can intensify this bound and transform a person.
In this transformation, the act of repeating is essential.
Only through repetition does the subject appear, repetition incorporates both pleasure and pain, the elements of passion.
Acquiring more accurate movement control can change the self-perception, which is always subjective, leading to a higher self-confidence, self-esteem and sense of well-being.
Through the body one can even have the experience of finding one's true identity, as if the body was locked-up and the self-image was't one's own reflection, as if one was not living inside the body, being unbound from it.
As tango is a couple-dance that can give sensations of true contact, this close embrace makes it easier that the same act of changing happens in relations. These changes are like a trance. A trance is the natural resource state and all trances are not created equal, everybody experiences it differently, apparently unaware of one's own vacuum.
It is possible that there is also an influence through the content, the meaning of the tango-movements.
A gesture has an emotional intention, expressing an idea and like words, movements have impact. The environement in which tango is born, rests in it, a dance has roots. These roots meet the body through the art of dancing. The contact with the power of this embodied culture, evoke a bodily feeling from within and that relates to the world beyond the limits of one’s skin, a true sensation like discovering something lost. As if there is an embodied collective memory that can be remembered when the body takes over.
There is nothing more "tango" than seamed fishnets. Sexy seams lengthen the leg. In tangoshows, the seduction of the Forties comes back in seamed pantyhose with naughty details. The traditional show themes play on old stereotypes, featuring male dancers dressed in faux 1940s tough-guy garb and women in their fetish fashion, outfits like the symbolic fishnet stockings, very highheels and skirts with long side slit sheer to the waist. These outdated clichés are more complexe than they seem. These costumes alter an appearance, the clothed body refers to conscious and unconscious uses of disguise. It is an act of re-imaging an entity, masking the so-called original, masquerading till a new authentic identity is acting.
Dance involves taking on a role, revealing a character and playing a play, like enacting the power of the prostitute metaphor which is in stark contrast to the ideal of marriage. The prostitute metaphor is first applied in the Hebrew Testament. The marriage and prostitute metaphors continue in the New Testament. The prostitute was seen as having magical powers. She seduced men and lured them with her wiles – through the clothing she wore, through her physical and social charms, and through her cosmetics and perfumes. The dance of sexual interplay between man and prostitute was also marked by tolerance of violence toward the prostitute. The sexuality of the prostitute embodies the evil nature of female sexuality, and a woman's potential to hold a disturbing power over a man in the sexual realm. The prostitute was viewed as a temptress, who lured men through their carnal desires.
In Hebrew the meaning of the word fornication is "broader" than adultery. To fornicate or to play the whore, becomes virtually synonymous with engagement in idolatry, the worship of idols, images that are not God. No metaphor, especially as it symbolizes the practice of idolatry, is more powerful than the woman as whore, in all of the captivating sexual imagery it symbolized. But the dancing is in this not the crucial thing, it is the attractive woman. If a man is performing the dance, it will not bewitch the audience so intense, there will be no general arousal of the public mind and the dancer will not get a bad reputation, he does not embodies the fantasies of society as it is.
more on this topic of religious constructions
Looking at the origines of tango, you can ask how it feels to be poor and alone in such a rivalrous environement. Or: Why do people dance? Why generate a new way of dancing ? What is the emotional content, drive behind the technique? Is there an intent on committing something valid? Why develop tango, when there are other couple dances ? What is the surplus pleasure ? Is it a more sensual sense of being? Why is one overwhelmed by pleasure? Can this way of dancing, this leading and following which is a non-verbal conversation, can this bodylanguage fullfill fundamental biological needs ? The need for a profound fysical, mutual understanding must have been real for the solitary immigrants arriving in a highly competitive environent, where one must be eager to surpass others to survive. Maybe also a great craving for dominance, compensatory striving behavior to appear strong.
So... looking at the fascinating panorama in which tango is born, one can ask if the past is really folklore, out of date, finished. Chronology is a nice way of putting things in perpective, it creates an illusion of evolution, yet a phenomenon appears through time in different shapes. Thus, all layers are always there but not always obvious. History creates a more complete sculpture, revealing less consoius influences in the art of moving. A living thing has many dimensions, they become visible when the time is wright.
The way of finding new points of view and looking for how and where the transformations are already occurring, is related to the NLP deep-modelling process. It is setting aside the conscious mind that is basically a social construction, and exploring the archetypal mind.
Locate your mind within your body and within the living field of relational connections, and try to enter into that person's space and experiencing their way of knowing. You can do it from an interior and exterior space, both giving access to a whole other level of identity consciousness. It is an expansive field that has no limit. By embodying consciousness and situating it in a larger relational field, we can become more guided. You can take hold of alienating, negative influences and make your mark in a more conscious way.
Scroll for translations Fr/ Sp/ It/ Port/ D/ Ned epiloog.
External links background views:
Orígenes Oorsprong 1900 - 1920 - 1950
Origin Barrio Secta Cuchillo Coraje
Origen Evolución Letras
Or. Historia Protagonistas Al Margen
Or. Arrabal poesía popular Evaristo Carriego
Or. personaje mito tangomit literatura
Or. literatura década infame Jorge Luis Borges
Or. Dossier Protocolo Etiqueta Bordel Cours Royales
Or. Prostitution Manucures Françaises
Organito Draaiorgelmuseum draaiorgel folklórica folklore
More background views:
In Argentina, not only those of the high classes rejected tango, any family which claims to be respectable closed its doors to it, those of the middle and working class as well. To dance tango was, and for some still is to contaminate yourself with its origin as a brothel dance, a scandal for the families. The African rhythms who gave birth to the tango were suppressed and confined as the dance form was ‘refined’ by Western Europeans. The flirtacious closeness of the first black tango dancers was replaced with the more rigid form of the dance in the early twentieth century, as the tension between succeeding waves of European immigrants, as well as rural and urban environments, increased. None of the tensions were resolved and the European immigrants, a new army of laborers, had already arrived. No time for healing. More exiles, more distress, and again, few women.
The stiff torsos of the black dances became stiffer, the swaying hips (‘quebradas’) and the sharp interruptions of the dancing marches (‘cortes’) lost their joyful fluidity and became grave, and so did the faces, concentrated in displaying filigrees of footwork (‘figuras’) for an escaped attentive audience. Forced to compete with the immigrant for jobs, women, social status in a system that seemed to favour only the foreigner, the urban creole took out his frustration and bitterness against the immigrant and the elite in a new ‘duello criollo’, the tango. In this ‘duello’, the object was to show up the immigrant or the upper class ‘s.
Nuestro Tango became deep and serious in the early twentieth century and transformed itself into an intensely physical dance that evoked the unspeakable wounds in the subconscious mind. Ernesto Santos Discépolo summed up the tango as “un pensamiento triste que se puede bailar”, while Ramón Gómez de la Serna described the tango almost as an irritant that keeps old wounds open, that tears them open until they bleed.
As a physical language, the unspeakable vital passion is inherent in the dance movements, like the the collective soul of the "identidad prohibida", the African roots.
Thus, tango grew from a fusion of the emotional, slow rhythm of habanera with the strength of candombe and the choreography of milonga. Milonga was in the 1880's a popular dance, and also the Can-Can, a dance of African Caribbean origin was common then. The habanera comes from the Flamenco guajira, which was transferred to Cuba, where it became a dance in which the dancers intertwine with each other. Changed in this way, it returned to Spain. Passing through the Canary Island, it was named habanera. Musicians of those days, mostly Creole guitarists and payadores (popular troubadours), began to adapt their music to changes in population and the pulse of the city. From there would evolve tango, which, from its beginnings, contributed its own rhythm, melody and a different structure.
The coloring chemistry of all this is the suburb, orillero, the expanding border of the city of Buenos Aires. Between 1853 and 1930 Argentina gets 6.000.000 immigrants. As 70% of the immigrants are masculine, a demographic imbalance is produced. European prostitutes were imported, Franchuchas and there was also a women-traffic from Warsaw, from the ghetto de Varsovie et les villages juifs de la Pologne, but this mixture is the port-story of La Boca.
The black inhabitants, about 25 percent of Buenos Aires’ population at the time, had their own dances. These Africans recently freed from slavery, had achieved a more supportive community, forming mutual-aid societies largely financed by street processions and gatherings, called tangos. Between the happy quarters "Monserrat" must be remembered, in the old days the negroes' quarter, barrio de negros candomberos, with his Calle del Pecado, street of the Sin with a brothel next to other.
These Africanos would move to the candombe rhythm, the intense beat of tambourine percussion in which couples didn’t touch each other. The music, drumming and dancing at these functions attracted onlookers, the compadritos and foreign newcomers looking for amusement, mischief, escape. They borrowed the uninhibited movements and insistent rhythms to add to their own contemporary dances, the milonga, mazurka, and waltz, adding a close upper-body embrace and simulating drums with staccato footbeats on the dirt floors.
The pulse of tango stood up in African-Argentine dance venues attended by compadritos. This compadrito was a degeneration of the gaucho, the compadre ideal. These Argentine gauchos were single men, drifted toward the city, away from their beloved pampas and the way of life that defined them. Some went to work in the slaughterhouses (frigoríficos) and others remained outsiders, displaced persons, chronologically misplaced. The city version of the proud gaucho was called a compadre, hard-working and hard-fighting, personifying masculine courage, ready to defend his family, friends and ideals with the knife. Country-bred concepts of personal honor and valor soon proved anachronistic within the urban environment.
The shortage of meaningful work and feelings of isolation in the new society caused deep disillusionment followed by a breakdown of traditional values, creating the compadrito: a street-wise swaggerer, mostly native born and poor young men, who liked to dress in slouch hats, loosely tied neckerchiefs and high-heeled boots with knives tucked casually into their belts, a punk looking for an easy buck, a good time, and any excuse to fight. They took the tango back to the Corrales Viejos, the slaughterhouse district of Buenos Aires, and introduced it in various low-life establishments where dancing took place. It was here that the African rhythms met the Argentine milonga music (a fast-walking polka) and soon new steps were invented.
Although high society looked down upon the activities in the barrios, wealthy sons of the porteño oligarchy were not averse to slumming. Eventually, everyone found out about the tango and, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the tango as both a dance and as an embryonic form of popular music had established a firm foothold in the fast-expanding city of its birth. It soon spread to provincial towns of Argentina and across the River Plate to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, where it became as much a part of the urban culture as in Buenos Aires. The worldwide spread of the tango came in the early 1900s, when rich niño bien's of Argentine society families made their way to Paris and introduced the tango into a society eager for innovation and not entirely averse to the nature risqué of the dance or dancing with young, loaded Latin men.
A very old way of dancing own to that compadrito of the orillero and which shows the African mark in tango more clearly is Canyengue (1890-1920). Cañiegue dance is almost without figures, freely from choreographic signal element sequences, but with fast play of the feet, with playing, elastic legs. A dance in which rhythm is everything.
The rapid tango movements, cortes (the introduction of figures to interrupt the forward walk of the dance) and quebradas (bending or breaking the line of the spine backbone). Men held women close and they danced head to head, perhaps because they needed to see what their feet were doing, and the couple danced lifting their feet off the ground, because of the dirt floor.
The street barrel-organs (organitos callejeros) spread and it was very common to see dancing in the streets, often between men, the few women would dance inside the house. There were musicians in the theatres, in which musicals were performed, and there was also music in the bars near the harbor and at the bordellos (piringundines), where the huge male population looked for sex, entertainment and companionship.
For being places of permanent conflicts, a certain repression was exercised on the casitas lupanares (burdeles, bordels, lupanars) and gambling houses where also was danced.
Some years later, with a more permissive government, there is a boom of dance academies, academias de baile with reasonable prices and with the best serviceability, comfort and decency. These "Casas de Baile" were rented by people with sufficient money to hold dances, the women, and the alcohol. So, dances are organized: They begin at five o'clock in the afternoon and are not finishing before three o'clock in the morning. Each man pays five pesos to an Italian "Maestro de Ceremonias", the woman gets a payment of fifteen pesos for one night (paid beforehand for the company) and a pair of shoes for dancing the whole night.
Beside the real dance academies where professional dancers gave their instructions, there were the other "academies", more or less high class enramadas (brothels), down to the humble quilombos (whorehouses) of the suburbs. Some places were offering the double service. And, also polkas, milongas, waltzes, any rhythm that was encouraging the ambience was OK, there were not only tangos for touching each other. One of Edgar Degas' most famous works is a suspicious sculpture of a young ballet dancer, "La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans", connecting ballet, bourgeoisie and prostitution at 14. Be fair, the Viennese Waltz was the world's first popular dance to use the actual "closed hold", what is now accepted as the standard Ballroom hold. The Bohemian Polka was the second dance in Europe to use this scandalous new close hold embrace, an "immoral" way of dancing during the early 19th century. This form of dance was brought by emigrants as they moved to Argentina. Around 1900 was also danced at the coffee houses were there was a substantial consumption of cocaine, at the time a Freudian Nouvelle Vogue.
From 1880 on, a Paris Fever developed and the Argentine society of Buenos Aires reflected a strong desire to imitate whatever French Paris had to offer. Like in Paris, cabarets, night clubs were opened and flourished, and gradually tango advanced from the obscurity of the bordellos to the multicolor lights of city night life. As always, most of the customers were men, alone or in group, who used to go to dance with the girls who worked there, called "taxi-dancers" (alternadoras, milongas or coperas). When the venue was about to close, the orchestra played "La cumparsita", the last tango of the evening. Then the pimps turned up to pick up their taxi dancers and to collect their percentage.
The life of these taxi "milonguitas" (girls from 14 till their early 20's) and "milongueras" (women between 25 and 40) was hard. It was a life of shame, violence, alcoholism, drugs and diseases like tbc. As the rates of syphillis and other sexually transmitted diseases were alarming, a femme fatale became more dangerous than an alluring and seductive "playboy bunny" whose charms traped her lovers in bonds of irresistible desires. The threat of these diseases give another connotation to femmes fatales and tango as the forbidden dance.
A critical time of the tango history happened in the Night clubs, Armenonville (1875) was the earliest. It was customary for the evening's dance to start with a polka, and to conclude when the number of reserved hours came to an end. The musicians averaged 5 pesos per evening, the same price as a visit to a prostitute in La Boca or for buying a phonograph record (Albert Londres). This was for the music-playing immigrants a source of income and a way of adapting to society, and later... the big dream of the cabaret-stage: conquer America, a Broadway show. In the early days, only a piano played, but later groups included a violin or two, and a flute. Eventually, bandoneons were added. In the year 1902 and in the successive ones, the Theater Operates organizes dances with tangos and when the record and movie industry appeared, there is a mass development of all music and especially of the polished tango icon Carlos Gardel.
In recent years, especially since Argentina's disastrous economic crisis of january 2002, tango tourism has become an important source of revenue for the city's economy and Argentinian males can get an income as a taxi-dancer. Taxi dancers rent themselves to foreign tangotourists for the social dance only, un giro extraño:
Como estaba "deprimido empecé a ir a las milongas para distraerme, iba a mirar, como un hobby". A ese hobby le debe su emprendimiento, Tango TaxiDancers, un servicio de acompañantes para que los extranjeros aprendan a sacarle viruta al piso. Yo estaba casado y no iba de levante. Sacaba a bailar a las que siempre quedan de lado. Los grandes maestros buscan bailarinas profesionales para lucirse. Yo bailaba con las gordas, las de anteojos, las petisas, las viejas". Las extranjeras también planchaban porque los buenos bailarines son elitistas. Un día cabeceó a una americana y bailaron. "Una amiga profesora me pidió que llevara a bailar a un grupo de alumnos brasileros". Otra vez, la vergüenza. "Dame lo que vos quieras", le dijo. Al final cobró y así nació, por fin, Tango Taxi Dancers. La tarifa arranca en los US$ 15 por hora y puede llegar hasta los US$ 100. El precio depende del nivel del bailarín y de la cantidad de horas que contrate. Hoy tiene una base de datos con setenta bailarines y bailarinas a los que llama cuando los turistas le piden acompañantes para moverse al ritmo del dos por cuatro. Pero ojo, a no confundir los taxi dancers con otro tipo de taxis humanos. "Desde el principio dejamos claro que esto es sólo para bailar". El servicio se adapta a las necesidades de los clientes pero "lo más común es darles una clase de tango y después llevarlos a la milonga a practicar. Vamos a lugares que no están contaminados por el turismo". Unas clientas europeas "se quedaron a vivir acá y pusieron un hotel de tango y ellas me recomiendan". También trabaja con hostels.
Click here for Buenosairean milongas & Argentinean links
TANGOÏSTE
Sensualidad y Dramatismo
Scroll for translations Fr/ Sp/ It/ Port/ D.
En français:
Comme le corps et l'esprit sont indissociable, la danse peut transformer une personne. Dans cette transformation, l'acte de répétition est essentiel. La répétition incorpore tant plaisir que douleur, les éléments de passion, encore Lacan.
Paroles de tangos
La réclusion ou la ségrégation des prostituées, donc des femmes, sont des pratiques qui ont, en Argentine et particulièrement à Buenos Aires, de lointaines racines historiques. En 1624, le conseil municipal de Buenos Aires a ordonné que toutes les femmes de mauvaise fréquentation soient obligées de vivre dans des habitations éloignées des maisons honnêtes et principales. Même si cet ordre ne s’est jamais concrétisé, cette idée de ségréguer les prostituées dans des quartiers spéciaux revient à différentes époques. L’ordonnance de 1875, qui inaugure l’étape réglementaire, établissait que les bordels devaient s’établir loin des Églises et des rues très fréquentées. On y indiquait aussi qu’il était interdit de vendre des boissons alcooliques et que les jeux de hasard n’étaient pas autorisés. On retrouve dans les registres de la Municipalité de Buenos Aires la demande de voisins d’un bordel exigeant, indignés, la fermeture de celui-ci en ce qu’il nuisait à la moralité du voisinage. Ils ne cherchaient pas à éliminer la prostitution, se contentant de la rendre invisible.
Le Chemin de Buenos Aires (1927), d’Albert Londres (1884-1932), un journaliste français qui rédigea des chroniques de voyage et El sexo peligroso, La prostitución legal en Buenos Aires, 1875-1955 de Donna J. Guy (publié en 1991), historienne américaine. Ces deux ouvrages nous permettent de comparer les axes des débats au début et à la fin du XXe siècle afin d’établir certaines similarités, différences, répétitions et nouveautés avec les débats sur la prostitution d’aujourd’hui.
Alors qu’un flux continu d’hommes et de femmes européennes émigrait en Amérique, il est un fait historique que des milliers de femmes, principalement en provenance de Pologne, de Russie, de France, d’Italie, mais aussi — dans une moindre mesure — d’autres pays européens, furent recrutées pour les bordels de Buenos Aires et d’autres villes d’Argentine. Pour répondre à la demande de tous types de pratiques et pour tous types de clients, y compris de la haute bourgeoise. (N’oublions pas qu’à cette époque à Paris on qualifiait une personne riche de « Riche comme un Argentin ». Paris était l’un des lieux où les grands propriétaires terriens argentins, qui passaient la moitié de l’année en dépensant leur argent.)
De nombreux textes – décrets, lois nationales, règlements municipaux, témoignages directs, procédures judiciaires, actes parlementaires nationaux et municipaux, chroniques de voyageurs, études universitaires, paroles de tangos et fictions littéraires populaires, œuvres d’art– relatent les différents aspects de la vie des bordels à cette époque (1875 -1935), où la prostitution était légalisée et réglementée en Argentine. Des textes récents font également référence à cette période coïncidant avec la consolidation d’une économie basée sur l’exportation de produits agricoles et de pêche et l’importation de produits industrialisés d’Europe. Cette situation économique favorise l’arrivée d’une immigration européenne de paysans et d’artisans modestes, qui affronterait des conditions de vie et de travail difficiles alors même qu’ils espéraient surmonter la misère qu’ils fuyaient. Les deux auteurs, Donna Guy et Albert Londres, estiment que la raison fondamentale qui pousse les femmes à « accepter » ou à « choisir » de se prostituer est la pauvreté ; un argument qu’on retrouve de nos jours dans d’autres études. Il s’agit d’une explication de l’existence de la prostitution, souvent quasi exclusive, et qui continue à être invoquée de nos jours. Albert Londres considère à tout le moins que la pauvreté, si elle est la cause réelle de la prostitution, est en concurrence avec la demande. Quand Londres déclare que le proxénète « fabrique son produit », il explique le processus en citant les proxénètes qu’il avait contactés en personne : "On la prend, on la lave, on la récure. On l´habille décemment. On lui donne le goût du linge propre. On l´arrache de ses basses fréquentations. Moi j’ai payé un professeur à la mienne. Elle ne savait ni lire, ni écrire. Son père et sa mère ne l’avaient pas fait. On lui apprend l’économie et le devoir envers la famille Sans nous vanter, nous pouvons affirmer que quatre-vingt-dix pour cent de ces femmes n´avaient jamais soutenu leurs parents. Depuis qu’elles ont un homme, elles envoient régulièrement à leur vieille grande mère, au père malade, aux petites sœurs. Plutôt c´est nous qui envoyons pour elles. Voulez-vous voir les talons des mandats?"
La pauvreté ne semble pas être la seule cause de délaissement. Dans la citation de Donna Guy, on parle de marginalisation par la famille ou pour cause de persécutions religieuses et politiques, auxquelles on pourrait ajouter les guerres. Et si c’était le délaissement social des femmes qui constituait la circonstance facilitant la tâche des recruteurs… Pourrait-on alors parler d’une véritable liberté ? Les raisonnements de Londres et de Donna Guy donnent lieu à des conclusions prétendant que la pauvreté extrême, le désespoir ou l’aliénation ne seraient pas des situations qui inhibent la capacité de choisir librement, même si les femmes se trouvent acculées. Il suffit que l’on ne force personne à la menace d’un couteau ou de violences physiques, c’est-à-dire sans coercition physique ostentatoire pour pouvoir soutenir cet argument.
C’est ainsi que selon Donna Guy, le fait d’entrer dans un bordel – ou toute autre forme de prostitution – ne constitue pas un geste désespéré, ni même le résultat d’une tromperie, d’une séduction, encore moins d’un rapt ou d’un viol, mais au contraire une action courageuse pour assurer sa survie. Elle soutient que les femmes qui se prostituent ne sont ni aussi passives, ni aussi victimes qu’on ne le prétend. Elle revendique que les femmes ne soient pas victimes en tant que femmes, mais au contraire dotées d’une grande capacité de résistance, qui éagirait fermement et positivement aux conditions sociales et économiques défavorables en acceptant volontairement la prostitution en guise de meilleure échappatoire. Mais reposons la question autrement. La personne qui a choisi de se soumettre, ou de continuer à se soumettre, dans un contexte social intimidant — alors que sa liberté consiste en n’est pas pouvoir choisir face a la manque d’options – est-elle libre?
Aujourd’hui comme hier, personne n’hésitera à mettre la faute sur le dos de la pauvreté et personne ne se demandera pourquoi il s’agit de Dominicaines, de Paraguayennes ou de Brésiliennes. Avant, personne ne se demandait d’ailleurs non plus pourquoi il s’agissait en majorité de Françaises, d’Italiennes et de Juives de Pologne. Peut-être ces pays étaient-ils les seuls à souffrir de la pauvreté en Europe ? Peut-être étaient-ils les plus pauvres ? Seules les femmes de ces pays-là avaient décidé de s’échapper de la misère en acceptant de se prostituer ? Ne faudrait-il pas convenir que la pauvreté ne constitue qu’un facteur parmi d’autres, qui facilite le recrutement et la traite sans constituer le facteur décisif ? Dans ce cas, ne pas remettre en question la réalité des pratiques, la culture qui les rend possibles, qui en fait une conséquence logique et inévitable ; ne pas remettre en question le rôle de la demande, c’est-àdire une sexualité liée au pouvoir, avec ou sans argent, ce ne serait pas fermer les yeux sur le vrai problème ? Finalement, il existe aujourd’hui comme hier un double discours.
Au plus simple, le paradoxe naît de la superposition ou de l’entrelacement d'idées et de propositions réputées incompatibles ou contradictoires, dans l’unité de temps et de lieu, comme la poule qui est à la fois fin et commencement dans la circularité de l’œuf conduisant à la poule qui est aussi exact que la poule à l’œuf, comme l’identité des différents et l’unité des distincts. Dans le dilemme, il y a nécessité de choisir alors que le paradoxe est une obligation de choisir.
source (PDF) - Silvia Chejter
Spanish / Castellano:
Este proyecto se basa en las distintas oleadas inmigratorias que llegaron a la Argentina desde 1880 hasta 1914. Y de las consecuencias de las mismas dejaron en nuestro país. Trata de explicar y dar a conocer las tendencias e ideales políticos que tenían los inmigrantes, sus costumbres, desde donde provenían, cuáles eran sus objetivos, por qué eligieron nuestro país y cómo repercutió en la sociedad de ese entonces. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo que todos puedan saber y entender quienes fueron los que sentaron las bases de la organización de la sociedad actual; y que mediante Internet se pueda acceder a este tipo de información, que nos permite comprender el pasado y poder mejorar el presente.
Nada hay tan íntimo y público a la vez… como bailar. El tango, como toda manifestación popular, nace espontáneamente en Argentina, resultado de la necesidad de expresión del pueblo, a fines de la década de 1870. Es el lenguaje del cuerpo que permite al alma expresar sus sentimientos, pasión y fuerza que crea y se recrea en la belleza y la dinámica del movimiento. Fuertes emociones, en particular, que llevan a los órganos a un punto de exaltación que espontáneamente se manifiesta a si mismo a través de movimientos más o menos rítmicos que constituyen lo que se podría considerar como danzas naturales. Las expresiones espontaneas, como tambien el arte de bailar, pueden ser descritos como una expresión de los sentimientos por medio de los movimientos del cuerpo mas o menos controlados por el propio sentido rítmico. El baile, como arte era utilizado para varios propósitos. El arte existe en todos lados de la ciudad y en formas infinitas.
La sensualidad del tango, la conexión corporal, puede ser muy pesada, apasionada, y seria. En el tango no existía la regularidad de las viejas danzas como el vals o la polca y por eso fue necesario creer una técnica en la cual la pareja podía realizar una figura en el momento sin anticipación. El lugar donde se desarrolló más el tango al principio del sigo XX fue dentro de las burdeles donde los hombres bailaban en una forma mucho más sensual que permitirían las estrictas reglas sociales de la sociedad respetuosa. La mujer tenía que seguir siempre el hombre paso por paso moviéndose con sus caprichos y así se fue formando la estructura de la danza que se sigue bailando hoy en día. En un baile tan íntimo, no se puede bailar con cualquier hombre. Así que la mirada tiene un papel muy importante en la cultura del tango. La mirada en el baile es intima pero liviana. La mirada también existe en relación al publico, que está siempre presente en los milongas. El tango es como un espejo, en su capacidad de reflejar todo el desarrollo de una identidad social y relaciones sociales.
Las transformaciones en el espíritu del tango
La pregunta que se impone, es: ¿ por qué el tango, música del instinto sexual y de la algarabía prostibularia se convierte en tan pocos años en un discurso que afirma valores morales tan opuestos a los que le dieron origen? ¿Por qué el placer se transmuta en condena y el regocijo en melancolía ?
Entre 1900 y 1910 ese incipiente tango que se expresaba en prostíbulos y arrabales de las afueras de la ciudad, empezó lentamente a ganar terreno en los cabarets y pequeños teatros de Buenos Aires. De sus origines el tango fue una expresión cultural degenerado muy particular a la situación social Argentina, pero cuando el tango fue aprobado al exterior se convirtió de repente en una imagen de la identidad nacional. Igualmente, se concretan ciertos símbolos sociales que pasarán a formar parte del folklore ciudadano. Para los élites Argentinos el tango todavía pertenecía a otro sector de la sociedad, y implicaba una identidad ajena de los inmigrantes, los guapos, las prostitutas y todo un mundo nocturnal y peligroso de la calle. La música es otra forma de arte que es muy importante en la cultura argentina. Muchos argentinos hablan de ella con tanta pasión y orgullo. La historia del tango entra así en un contexto más amplio de historia de gente exiliada y ilegítima en búsqueda de una identidad propia, reconocimiento y dignidad.
El tango, apadrinado por los grupos sociales que el centro no admitía: inmigrantes, veteranos del ejército, ex-esclavos, todos proletarios en busca de una nueva vida que superara el perfil miserable y promíscuo de su marginación. El Lunfardo, una lengua que muchos asimilan a gente de mala vida, empleada para que resultara incomprensible a las autoridades. En ese "idioma" popular ya por entonces característico de los bajos fondos, predominan los términos de diversos dialectos italianos, con algo de café gitano español y el argot francés. El tango lo elegirá posteriormente como su lengua predilecta, ya ampliamente divulgada por el teatro y el intercambio personal que se hacía en los numerosos sitios bailables, y otros lugares no muy santos, entre "niños bien" del centro y "compadritos" orilleros. Así, el tango pasa a los cafés y bares del centro, donde el contacto entre las diferentes clases sociales resulta ya cosa normal y corriente. Es en los salones donde comienza una nueva etapa para la música ciudadana, sea como música como para danza. Cuando el tango "se hace decente", sin cortes ni quebradas, para alegrar fiestas de familia, viviendo un notable auge que arranca a principios de la década del '30 y eclosiona con una popularidad sin igual entre 1940 y 1960. Cuando se extiende a toda la ciudad y se convierte en la música de Buenos Aires, cuando proliferan compositores y poetas, es el mismo tango el que dice de sí mismo ser un veneno que fascina, capaz de llevar a las almas más nobles por el camino del mal. Micromercadotécnia: Hoy, merced a la llegada de oleadas de turistas extranjeros que hacen florecer la economía e incentivan la inversión en locales de entretenimientos y academias de baile, el tango está viviendo un renacer que algunos años atrás nadie hubiera imaginado.
In italiano:
Come il corpo e mente è indissociabile, il ballo può trasformare una persona. In questa trasformazione, l'atto di ripetere è essenziale. La ripetizione comprende sia il piacere che il dolore, gli elementi di passione.
L'acquisizione del controllo più esatto del movimento può cambiare la auto-percezione, conducente ad un'più alti sicurezza di sè, self-esteem e senso di benessere. Attraverso il corpo uno può persino avere l'esperienza in scoprire che l'identità allineare di one's, come se una non stesse vivendo all'interno del corpo, è non legato da esso. Poichè il tango è un ballo delle coppie che può dare le sensazioni del contatto allineare, questo abbraccia le marche esso più facile che lo stesso atto di cambiare si presenta nei rapporti.
Questi cambiamenti sono come un trance. Un trance è la condizione naturale e tutti i trances non sono uguale generato, ognuno lo avverte diversamente, apparentemente ignaro di one's possiedono il vuoto. Ci è inoltre influenza con l'effetto dei movimenti. Un gesture ha un'intenzione impressionabile, esprimente un'idea e come le parole, i movimenti hanno effetto. Un ballo ha radici. Queste radici vengono a contatto del corpo con l'arte di ballare. Il contatto con la forza di questa coltura, evoca una sensibilità corporea che si riferisce al mondo oltre i limiti della sua pelle, una sensazione allineare come la scoperta della qualcosa persa. Come se ci sia una memoria collettiva nel corpo.
Questo senso di individuazione dei punti nuovi della vista e di ricerca come e dove le trasformazioni già stanno accadendo, sta mettendo la mente da parte cosciente e sta esplorando la mente archetypal. Individui la vostra mente all'interno del vostro corpo ed all'interno dei collegamenti relazionali viventi e della prova per entrare in quello nello spazio di person's e nell'avvertire il loro senso di sapere. Potete farli da uno spazio interno ed esterno, entrambi che danno ad accesso ad un tutto l'altro livello della coscienza di identità. Potete prendere la stretta di alienazione, di influenze della negazione e fare il vostro ballo in un senso più cosciente.
Il doppio legame indica una situazione in cui, tra due individui uniti da una relazione emotivamente rilevante, la comunicazione dell'uno verso l'altro presenta una incongruenza tra il livello del discorso esplicito (quel che vien detto) e un ulteriore livello metacomunicativo (come possono essere i gesti, gli atteggiamenti, il tono di voce), e la situazione sia tale per cui il ricevente il messaggio non abbia la possibilità di decidere quale dei due livelli, che si contraddicono, accettare come valido, e nemmeno di far notare a livello esplicito l'incogruenza.
Em português:
Como o corpo e a mente são indissociable, a dança pode transformar uma pessoa. Nesta transformação, a ação da repetição é essencial. A repetição incorpora tanto prazer como a dor, os elementos da paixão.
A aquisição controle de movimento mais exato pode modificar a auto-percepção, conduzindo a uma autoconfiança mais alta, auto-estima e sentido do bem-estar. Pelo corpo cada um pode até ter a experiência de encontrar a identidade verdadeira de alguém, como se cada um não vivesse dentro do corpo, sendo desatado dele. Como o tango é uma dança de par que pode dar sensações do contato verdadeiro, este abraço fá-lo mais fácil que a mesma ação da modificação ocorre em relações. Essas modificações parecem-se com uma inconsciência. Uma inconsciência é o estado natural e toda a inconsciência não é criada equivalente, todo o mundo experimenta-o diferentemente, ao que parece inconsciente do próprio vácuo de alguém. Há também a influência pelo impacto dos movimentos. Um gesto tem uma intenção emocional, exprimindo uma idéia e como palavras, os movimentos têm o impacto. Uma dança tem raízes. Essas raízes encontram o corpo pela arte da dança. O contato com a força desta cultura, evoque corpóreo sensação que se relaciona ao mundo além dos limites da pele de alguém, uma sensação verdadeira como descobrimento de algo perdido. Como se haja uma memória coletiva no corpo.
Este modo de encontrar os novos pontos da visão e procurar como e onde as transformações já estão ocorrendo, está deixando de lado a mente consciente e explorando a mente arquetípica. Localize a sua mente dentro do seu corpo e dentro de conexões relacionais vivas, e tente estabelecer o espaço daquela pessoa e o experimento do seu modo de saber. Você pode fazê-lo de um espaço interior e exterior, ambo o acesso que dá a um todo outro nível da consciência de identidade. Você pode pegar influências alienam, negativas e fazer a sua dança de um modo mais consciente.
Auf deutsch:
Wie Körper und Meinung indissociable sind, kann Tanz eine Person umgestalten. In dieser Transformation ist die Tat des Wiederholens wesentlich. Wiederholung vereinigt sowohl Vergnügen als auch Schmerz, die Elemente der Leidenschaft.
Das Erwerben genauere Bewegungskontrolle kann die Selbstwahrnehmung ändern, zu einem höheren Selbstbewusstsein, Selbstachtung und Sinn des Wohlbehagens führend. Durch den Körper kann man sogar die Erfahrung haben, jemandes wahre Identität zu finden, als ob man innerhalb des Körpers nicht lebte, davon losgebunden. Wie Tango ein Paar-Tanz ist, der Sensationen des wahren Kontakts geben kann, macht diese Umarmung es leichter, dass dieselbe Tat des Änderns in Beziehungen vorkommen. Diese Änderungen sind einer Trance ähnlich. Eine Trance ist der natürliche Zustand, und alle Trancen werden gleich nicht geschaffen, jeder erfährt es verschieden, anscheinend unbewusst jemandes eigenen Vakuums. Es gibt auch Einfluss durch den Einfluss der Bewegungen. Eine Geste hat eine emotionale Absicht, eine Idee und wie Wörter ausdrückend, Bewegungen haben Einfluss. Ein Tanz hat Wurzeln. Diese Wurzeln treffen den Körper durch die Kunst des Tanzens. Der Kontakt mit der Kraft dieser Kultur, rufen Sie ein körperliches Gefühl herbei, das sich auf die Welt außer den Grenzen von jemandes Haut, eine wahre Sensation wie das Entdecken von etwas Verlorenem bezieht. Als ob es ein gesammeltes Gedächtnis im Körper gibt.
Diese Weise, neue Gesichtspunkte zu finden und zu suchen, wie und wo die Transformationen bereits vorkommen, legt die bewusste Meinung beisete und erforscht die archetypische Meinung. Legen Sie Ihre Meinung innerhalb Ihres Körpers und innerhalb von lebenden Verwandtschaftsverbindungen, und versuchen Sie, in Raum dieser Person und das Erfahren ihrer Weise einzutreten, zu wissen. Sie können es von einem Innen- und Außenraum, beider Geben-Zugang zu einem Ganzen anderes Niveau des Identitätsbewusstseins tun. Sie können das Veräußern, negative Einflüsse ergreifen und Ihren Tanz auf eine bewusstere Weise machen.
Epiloog
Iedereen heeft wel een beeld van tango,
vaak een cliché of oerbeeld.
Dit archetype zit in het collectieve onbewuste, de dans tussen anima en animus.
Dit beeld kan veranderen door persoonlijke ervaringen,
de oorspronkelijke voorstelling echter komt voortdurend terug.
Het bevat elementen die het onderbewuste aanspreken,
details die tot de verbeelding spreken.
Details die verdwijnen in de grote lijnen van de geschiedenis,
zoals rituelen die doorheen de tijd geen belichaming meer krijgen.
De omarming is in de geschiedenis zo'n schijnbaar weinig belangrijk detail,
toch is het dansen van tango zo begonnen,
toen twee omarmende lichamen al dansend figuren probeerden te maken, wachtend bij 't bordeel zeggen ze.
Prostitutie wordt een bloeiende industrie in de nieuwe wereld.
Het bordeel is meer dan een huis van plezier.
Het Engelse woord "brothel" komt van het oud Engels "brothen", geruïneerd, en "bréothan", zich ruïneren, en "bropel", een waardeloos verlaten iemand.
Het woord legt nadruk op ondergang, onderwereld,
de donkere drift thanatos.
Eros is de dans,
misschien was er in de smeltkroes van culturen,
de hoop van de Amerikaanse droom nodig om de dans te doen bloeien.
Rond 1900 is Argentinië het te verzilveren land,
het verwerkelijkt de droom van "hacer America".
Lady Liberty: Geef mij uw arme samengepakte, naar vrijheid hunkerende massa’s. Het erbarmelijke afval van uw volle kusten, door de storm naar mij geslingerd. Ik hef mijn lamp omhoog naast de gouden deur.
Maar de oorsprong waarin de aantrekkingskracht van tango verscholen zit,
heeft voor elkeen een ander verhaal,
gelijk het leven is.
Is tango macho of het Ewig-Weibliche ?
Het contrast tussen de rechtlijnige stappen van de man en de draaibewegingen van de vrouw,
geven visueel een binaire oppositie zoals yin/yang.
De vrouw is vaak in het rood en volgt, de man is in het zwart en leidt.
Zoals in schaken is leiden niet gelijk aan winnen, de spanning van het spel is samenspel.
Zodra de betrokkenheid daalt is er een spontane deconstructie van de hierarchie.
De man-vrouw verhouding is voortdurend instabiel.
Gender oppositie is "La revancha del tango".
Tango is erotische suspence.
Wat de verbeelding aanspreekt is het contrapunt in de dans,
de vrouw treedt op de voorgrond in het samenspel.
Het cliché is de sandwich-mordida, de vrouw stapt over de voet van de man,
waarna ze soms een gancho maakt,
de haak van de happy hooker.
Een ander verhaal.
De mannen bij de quilombos omarmen elkaar niet,
hun dans is als een messengevecht. Dit om hun viriliteit te demonstreren,
de prostituée is een begeerde bron van inkomsten, opwinding en seksueel verlangen.
De aha: La Française ...
femme expérimentée et mystérieuse devant laquelle même les hommes les plus riches et les plus experts devenaient des provinciaux.
En achter de scène: vrouwenhandel, trafic de femmes:
Françaises, Espagnoles, Italiennes, Portugaises, Polonaises et Russes ...
Globalisering van de erotische verbeelding.
Le chemin de Buenos Aires: Marseille, Bilbao, Montevideo, Buenos Aires... 1927,
Esclavas Blancas, Juifs indésirables.
Albert Londres, la mafia Française de traite des blanches...
De muziekanten trekken ondertussen van het ene bordeel naar het andere,
stimuleren het vertier met tangos over "Francesitas",
ces petites fleurs de Paris.
Deze economische onderbouw wordt met het cabaret meer cultureel acceptabel.
Le Chat Noir, Paris Monmartre 1881: het begin van de cabaret cultuur.
Folies Bergère, het atelier van de dromen, music-hall.
Competitie om de mooiste benen.
Moderne vrouwen verdringen de klassieke dans.
Les Isadorables.
Ook voor de filmindustrie is de vrouw de nieuwe toekomst.
Les années folles, er is nood aan een exotische lover.
Met de déstabilisatie van de seksuele relaties is de schaamte voorbij.
Rudolph Valentino: Je sers aux femmes de canevas pour broder leurs rêves.
De ridder op zijn paard... een gaucho,
si ma gueule vous plait.
Shifting Identities...
The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of.
Verscheurdheid... tango
Sans toi, je suis seul contre mon coeur déchiré.
Maar op zich heeft tango niets te maken
met wat de mensen er van maken,
de toekomst duurt lang.
¡Yira!... ¡Yira!...
