Scribbles 3
Mariella Fraganillo, Jorge Torres, Carlos Gavito, and María Plazaola. You may look for dancers better than these, but you won't find them.
Argentine tango is its own being. A dance form of long tradition in Buenos Aires, Argentina, it has a complicated history that is filled with legendary figures (dancers, musicians, writers, and artists), men and women both. Tango has a political history as well, being occasionally banned by governments fearful of the fact that tango has such deep working-class roots. Your average military junta fears it as “the reptile from the brothel,” as writer Leopoldo Lugones once described it. It is as if the fabled “close embrace” of tango allows for anti-government plots to be passed back and forth without fear of being discovered.
Here are two contemporary examples, both very informal, and both memorable.
Mariela Franganillo and Jorge Torres in New York City a few years ago, in a relaxed, slow tango in which they are utterly regardful of each other.
Carlos Gavito’s dance style was completely unique, much imitated, and never equalled. No one carried himself like this man. Here, in a shaky video, not in such good focus (an amateur’s record of a sequence Gavito has just been teaching) he re-tells the lesson’s figure, with the wonderful María Plazaola, in a tango of heart-seizing excitement.
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Reading this and watching the masters in action was a badly needed tonic during a hectic business trip.