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.
