Late January, 2004
Dear family and friends,
Who knows who Carlos Gardel is? Okay, Daph, Bev and
Jim, and you John, you can all put your hands down. I thought you might
know. For the rest of you, Carlos Gardel is only slightly
less revered in Argentina
than San Martin, Evita, or Maradonna. Gardel is the one who
popularized and then introduced tango music and dance to Broadway and Hollywood in the
1930's. His pictures and CD's are available everywhere even yet today.
Tango may well be the best known export of Argentina, an art form encompassing
music, poetry, and dance.
Apparently the dance was originated by men at the
end of the 19th Century and was danced in the brothels of La Boca and San
Telmo. With all the European immigration, the tango
inevitably made its way to the dance
hall of Paris
where it was gentrified and internationalized. With the imprimatur of
that stamp of approval, the dance was adopted by Argentinean society and has
been the rage ever since.
Today the dance is everywhere in Buenos Aires, on TV, in the streets, and in
countless tango clubs. I did go to a tango show at the El Viejo
Almacén, the most famous tango club in San Telmo, but one of the best places to
watch it is in San Telmo at Plaza Doreggo at the Sunday Antique Market where
for a few pesos thrown in a hat one can see some of the best. Now
often backed by a full orchestra, typically the dance requires only a
violinist and a bandoneon, a square accordion-like instrument originating
in Germany.
Performers, both dancers and musicians, are usually dressed in black, the men
wear fedoras, the ladies wear stiletto heels and gowns with slits to
their thighs and beyond.
The lyrics are usually derived from love poems and
the dance is all about the togetherness and separateness of man and
woman. The dance itself is characterized by long strides, high kicks,
leaps, swoops, glides, and foot stomps. The foot work is intricate and
dazzling with the ladies foot moving, but just barely, before her
partner's foot brushes it away. The tempo of the music changes from slow
and seductive to lively and passionate. A finger might be drawn slowly
across a bare shoulder and down a bare arm, barely touching, not
touching. His hand settles on her thigh and is quickly slapped off.
Bodies are fused and faces are millimeters apart. Intensely grave
looks change to flirtatious come-hither, then passion, torture, agony and
bliss. It is more theatre than dance. It's pretty hard to beat.
My pal John McClurg sent me an e-mail telling me
"There are 3 Tango styles: the International, American and
Argentinean styles. They say the American style is like foreplay, the
Argentinean the sexual act and International is the divorce." He
also added "The tango feeling is like a cat stalking, "staccato and
ligato" contrary to the flowing swing dances like waltz, fox trot
etc."
For me the classic image of tango is of the bandoneon
player, head tilted forward with his face in the shadow of his black fedora,
squeezing out the last painful note while the dancers strike the medialuna
(half moon) finish. So, thanks Carlos.
I also flew to Iguazu in the very north of Argentina to visit the famous Iguazu Falls.
Iguazu is about 1,500 kilometers from Buenos Aires
right on the border with Brazil,
and very near Paraguay.
It's quite a spectacular display, the Iguazu River
cascading over some 274 falls, with a drop of about 70 meters. The
largest falls in the group is the San Martin but the most awesome is Garganta
del Diabolo, the Devil's Throat, a thundering mass of water pouring into a
narrow chasm, mist and spume boiling up and out over the jungle. Most of
the falls are reached by catwalks that take one right to the brink, either the
top or under them. Both locations tend to give the same result; you
get soaked.
George Bernard Shaw said, "All comparisons are
odious", however one can't help but compare Iguazu to Niagara,
and for many, Niagara is more spectacular. Much more water pours over Niagara than Iguazu. But it must be said,
Iguaçu’s setting in the jungle is more than a slight bit nicer than the
'Ripley's Believe It Or Not/Madame Taussaud´s Wax Museum/Casino' backdrop
for Niagara Falls.
What else has happened? Well, one of the first things I
learned when I arrived in Buenos Aires
is that not many people speak English. In fact, almost no one. They
speak Spanish. To help deal with this I recently bought myself a little
pocket electronic English/Spanish translator. With my natural facility
for languages and my innate aptitude for all things electronic,
I figure Spanish will be a snap from here on. I've
already mastered several swear words.
And that's all for now, I hope you are all well.
Merv
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