motel de moka

Photo: Afremov

At this critical point in the story, it is necessary to take account of what seems to be the only coherent eyewitness description of the birth of the tango. This striking piece of evidence was brought to light by Josè Gobello, one of the wisest and most knowledgeable writers on the history of the tango and lunfardo and the moving spirit of the Academia Portena de Lunfardo (the main body that studies the traditional popular culture of Buenos Aires) since its creation in 1962. It is contained in an article printed on 22 september 1913 in Critica - Buenos Aires’ firts mass-circulation popular newspaper, itself founder only a few days earlier. The author signed himself Vieio Tanguero: he has never been definitely identified, but on the evidence of the piece he was an educated man who knew what he was talking about. Althrough the article was written thirty years after the events he describes, its testimony is impossible to ignore.
Viejo tanguero’s most serious claim is taht in the year 1877 the African Argentines of Mondongo (an area on the western side of the centrally located barrio of Monserrat) improvised a new dance, which they called a tango and which embodied something of the style and movements of the candombe. Couple danced it apart rather then in an embrace. Groups of , who apparently had the habit of visiting African Argentine dance venues and then parodying the gestures and movements they saw there, took this “tango” to Corrales Viejos - the slaughterhouse district - and introducet it to the various low-life enstablishments where dancing took place, incorporating its most conspicuous features into the milonga. From Corrales Viejos, according to Viejo Tanguero, , this new way of dancing the milonga spread rapidly to other districts. At this distance in time, we have no way of corroborating his claim, but an interesting confirmation that something like this was going on may be found in a book of Ventura Lynch published in 1883. According to Lynch, “the milonga is danced only by the compadritos of the city, who have created it as a mockery of the dances the blacks hold in their own places”. Moreover, Lynch further testifies to the popularity of the milonga at the time when it was undergoing this obviously important modification.

Nouzeilles & Montaldo - The Argentina Reader: History, Culture, Politics

01. Daniel Melingo - Pequeno Paria
(Maldido Tango / 2008)

02. Luis Bacalov - In bicicletta
(Il Postino [The Postman] / 2006)

03. Daniel Melingo - Montmartre De Hoy
(Maldido Tango / 2008)

04. Ruichi Sakamoto - Tango
(Smoochy / 2007)

05. Gotan Project - Vuelvo Al Sur
(La revancha del tango / 2003)

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