ISSUE 6 - POR UNA CABEZA

JOURNAL OF SALON TANGO IN LONDONSUMMER 2010

T h e 4 0 0 C l u bWe think it is about time we declared an interest. Yes, an interest in Tango. Salon Tango.

We are not interested in Tango Nuevo, nor particularly in performance Tango Fantasia.

No, we’re interested in the classic social tango danced in milongas. The Tango of elegance. The Tango of passion. This is not to claim authenticity, or originality, for the Salon Tango danced today. We know that the search for authenticity is a fruitless exercise. The Salon Tango danced today is, and will always be, different from that danced thirty, forty,

Tom Keenes, Ella Sharp and Alan Mitchell for the400club met up with Jorge Dispari and Maria del Carmen Romero towards the end of their fantastic 8 day visit of teaching, and performing, at Claire Loewe’s Tango South London in Dulwich.

Jorge and Maria dance classic Villa Urquiza style salon tango, a style of tango developed during the 1940s and 50s in the less densely packed dance fl oors of the Villa Urquiza suburb of Buenos Aires. They learnt from the original creators of the style - Carlos Esteves “Petroleo”, Gerado Portalea, “El Turco” Jose and others. Maria started dancing tango as a child, and at the early age of 8 with her own father, Hector Rea, who was a famous milonguero and uncle of Gerardo Portalea (king of the pauses). She later partnered the legendary Carlos Esteves (“Petroleo”). Jorge grew up in Villa Urquiza, not 50 metres from his favourite milonga – Sin Rumbo Club, and is known to have one of the most beautiful walks in tango. Much has been written about the characteristics of and differences between Villa Urquiza and other Salon Tango styles. In simple terms, the style developed in the less densely packed dance fl oors of the suburbs and prizes precision, elegance, cadencia in the walk and is often performed with an abundabce of giros, enrosques and lapices.

Jorge and Maria are considered masters of the Villa Urquiza style, teaching regularly in Buenos Aires and throughout the world, and raising a new generation of world-renowned dancers including daughters Geraldin Rojas and Samantha Dispari, Javier Rodriguez and Adrian and Amanda Costa, amongst many others.

Over a very tasty lunch served in Claire’s beautiful house, the talk (Claire very kindly assisted with translation) turned to all things tango, beginning perhaps appropriately, with Tango South London’s Gran Milonga, at which Jorge y Maria had performed a few nights before:

T400C: I was very affected by Saturday’s milonga, by the dancing, by the performance, by the people – there seemed to be a connection of everyone in the room, everyone ‘of one mind’. I don’t think that I’ve ever been to a milonga quite like it before.JD&MRdC: Yes, we felt it too. We have not been to one like that for some time. Maybe the last time was at Sin Rumbo. It is important that you keep the group together - the group all interested in dancing this way… to keep the spirit.JD: I was nervous about performing on Saturday night, nervous because of all the people and our friends… but Marita calmed me down. Marita is a goddess of tango. People say that when they dance with Geraldin or Samantha it is like driving a Ferrari. But when you dance with Marita it is like dancing with the maker of these Ferraris. Beautiful. So then things went well. Marita doesn’t like ‘Pasional’ (one of the songs they performed to), but by the end she was in tears (of joy).

T400C: Could you talk a little about the growing interest in traditional salon tango (as opposed to show tango or modern tango)?JD: People knew something had to change – you can’t really sustain a lie. The real lie detector is the milonga. You just can’t continue doing a step in a milonga that’s going to hit other people. Sooner or later that’s going to be a problem. No. If something is really true, then there is no time limit.T400C: Quality of movement and connection seem to be key to what your interested in, the essentials in the Villa Urquiza style…JD: Of course. If you don’t have a good embrace then you’re never going to have a dance of quality. They say that tango is a feeling. If I feel that when I embrace a woman, she is repulsed, then I’m never going to be able to dance well with her. But if I feel her pleasure, then in very little time we will be

Los Dispari: JORGE DISPARI & MARIA “LA TURCA” DEL CARMEN ROMERO

TANGO AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

able to dance well together. Of course, tango has technique, but it is much more to do with feeling.

T400C: Do you think that the pursuit of quality in tango is obsessive? Is there something in tango that appeals to the obsessive personalities? Particularly given that obsession is often a theme in tango lyrics?JD: No, you can be obsessive and that can be dangerous. You know, being clean with your steps seems to be… well, there are those people who are seeking precision. I have seen the way people really developed and grew their tango – these are the ones who wanted to be precise. They were also the ones who loved to dance and they were also elegant, well dressed. Petroleo (the great milonguero), he had hardly any money, but he was always well dressed. Even if his clothes were old, they were never dirty. He used to say that the leader should always make the woman look as though she is the star.You know, I don’t know whether it’s obsession – I prefer the word precision.

T400C: Perhaps it’s more akin to a pursuit of happiness?JD: Yes… But if you pursue happiness obsessively… T400C: Yes, this is not good either. And maybe sometimes we end up trying too hard…JD: Don’t worry, there has never been a good, obsessive, tango dancer. Tango is absolutely about feeling. If tango is danced well, it makes you feel better. If tango makes you feel good, to feel happy, then that’s great. That is the thing to pursue.T400C: How was the tango of you’re youth? How was it different to dance from today?JD: Very different: a big, big difference in quality. And also in the codes. When I fi rst became interested in tango and started dancing, I went the milonga where my father went – Sin Rumbo. Sin Rumbo is the oldest milonga in Buenos Aires (there then followed some intense discussion between Maria and Jorge as to whether Sin Rumbo or Salon Canning is the oldest milonga in Buenos Aires).

Claire Loewe: Isn’t Sin Rumbo is named after a horse? The horse that won the race.JD: Yes. The dancers of the barrio who wanted to buy a club collected money together and did not quite have enough. Then a group of them decided they would take some of the money and place a bet on a horse – without the leader of the group, who had collected most of the money, knowing. Luckily, the horse won and that money was used to fi nally buy the club. And the club was named after the horse.Claire Loewe: And the differences between then and now?JD: I just thought that they were so elegant. All beautifully dressed. It was lovely.T400C: And when was this?JD: The 1980s.T400C: The 80s? Here we always think of the 80s as being anything but elegant!JD: Ah but in Argentina at the milongas they wore

the same clothes as in the 1940s, 50s, & 60s. A classic style, not eighties style. The people wore a classic cut. Things were different… In Tango Salon you always dance with the music. Back then, if someone loved to dance to di Sarli, they didn’t dance to d’Arienzo. If they had to choose between Biaggi and d’Arienzo, they danced to d’Arienzo. And the original records weighed a lot, so it was diffi cult to take everything with them – they would need a train!

You know, everything was different. Before, there weren’t tandas and cortinas. There was just silence between records. There weren’t tables and chairs. Chairs were around the outside, just for the women, and their chaperones. The men were in the middle – they called it ‘the island’. At this time the system was, well, two men would go to the bar and ask for a whiskey, a wine, or a coffee. After the ‘cabeceo’ (signalling to someone that you would like to dance with them with the nod of the head / prolonged, direct eye contact etc.) one of them would give the drink to the friend, while they danced. And then when the island was nearly empty, the worst dancers were left in the middle - the ‘verdulera’ (the name equates to a person in the stocks having tomatoes thrown at them or a cabbage). So the worst dancers danced in the middle and the best dancers danced around the outside.

Now there are lots of people who don’t want to dance in the middle. There has always been the fact that the best dancers dance around the edge. And who doesn’t want to dance at the edge? And now we have those who don’t’ walk, but should do, dancing at the edge.T400C: Is that partly because they can then be seen? Or because there is more space to walk?JD: It was always the best dancers who were the ones who could walk. And the ones who could walk then would always go along the outside. And then everyone thought that the best dancers would be on the outside - and wanted to dance there. And then they forgot about the walking.

T400C: You have taught many great dancers (Geraldin and Samantha, Javier, Adrian and Amanda etc.), who seem to be like disciples, travelling the world teaching and spreading the word about your style of tango. What is it about the way you understand tango that makes people become so enthused?JD: Of course, not all of them are mine. Some of them go the way of Tango Nuevo and I do not teach Tango Nuevo. But many people like to dance the original tango, without changing it – and I really value that.

Claire Loewe: To go back to our discussion about the original milongas, with the men in the centre, would you like to see a return to this, a return to the codes of before?JD: Of course… some of them. The codes are important. It’s most important that we hear Marita’s opinion on this. She is going to have had fi fty years of dancing tango, not a mere thirty two like me.MRdC: Yes. With the cabeceo, if you didn’t want to dance with someone, then you just pretended to be a bit stupid and not understand the signal - play with your hair or something. You wouldn’t dance with just anybody. You made a choice.JD: This is very important. The woman can make a choice.MRdC: I arrived at Salon Canning one night, when I was young, and accepted the cabeceo from this guy straight away, and we danced, and during the fi rst tango I could see a group of women who were getting agitated. And then in the third tango, one of them then came up to me, took me to one side and said that after I had fi nished that tango she would be waiting for me in the bathroom. I could see all her friends going into the bathroom and as usual, my partner took me back to my seat, but the woman then took me by the arm. I was quite young and I asked, “What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” And just before going into the bathroom, I said, “Tell you’re friends to come out fi rst. If you’re friends

A Declaration of Interest

don’t come out, then I’m not going in – there is many of them and only one of me”. Then her friends came out and I asked the woman why they had wanted to beat me up. She said that I had made a big mistake going to the milonga, looking at one man and accepting a dance straight away – without knowing him. They wanted me to understand that this was not right.CL: You would dance with the same man for one tanda?JD: Ah No. No. For the whole night.CL: The whole night?JD: Yes, the whole night. There were no tanda’s back then. If you asked a lady to dance, that was for the whole night. It was very much disrespected to dance with more than one person in the course of the night. If you then didn’t like dancing with her, you would have to stay there, not dancing, until they left. They would call the guys who danced with more than one woman “el vareador”, this is the person who shows off the horses in the parade ring. The cabeceo as we know it now started in Buenos Aires. T400C: So back then, the cabeceo was used at the beginning of the evening? JD: Yes, but the woman could always ignore you. It was diffi cult to change. They would say of the woman, who danced with more than one man, that she ‘changed horses’. It was a different time! Back then there were lots of incentives to choose well, to dance well. If a man liked a woman, he would do everything to make her like him. He would do everything he could in the dance to express it to her. Try to make things so beautiful, so romantic. Try to make a real connection.MRdC: The milongas were important. My daughters grew up in the milonga. Often I would take Cecelia, my eldest daughter to the milonga. It was diffi cult. I had two jobs – I would work in the hospital, then go the milonga, then go to work in a different hospital. I would leave Cecelia at the buffet while I danced. And then they would call me back over the PA…

JD: You need to understand that Tango is not just a dance, a poem, or music, it’s a way of life, a whole culture. This is what I try and bring to you. It would be good for you all to learn some Spanish, just a little maybe – to understand the lyrics. The more you understand, the more your dancing will be expressive.T400C: I want very much to understand these things, but at the same time I realise that I am not Argentinean – and can never therefore truly dance like one. I feel it’s important to fi nd a way to interpret the culture – and then dance as an Englishman. JD: Yes of course. You need to fi nd a way to take up the things that you learn and make the tango your own.

T400C: The board theme of this issue of the400club is ‘loss’, loss on all scales. Could you say something about this?JD: What can I say… after and during the wars (fi rst and second world wars), Argentina was known as ‘the granary of the world’, and then by the end of the Peron presidency in the seventies, the country had nothing but huge debts. So what happened to the money? This is the loss of the Argentinean people.T400C: There is also sometimes a small sense of regret, at the end of a milonga, if you have not had ‘that dance’, if only you had invited that lady to dance earlier or some such – then you would have danced beautifully. Sometimes we suffer from this loss – the loss of a dance that could have been.JD: Yes sometimes, a little. But then there is always the next night, the next milonga…

Many, thanks to Claire Loewe for organising the visit of Jorge and Maria; for hosting the interview at her house; and for translating throughout the interview. Claire teaches classic salon tango at Tangosouthlondon in Dulwich. For more information go to:

www.tangosouthlondon.co.uk

seventy years ago. Because ultimately, Salon Tango is danced in “the spirit of the age”. And yet, true, classic Salon Tango danced today still seems, to us, to the400club, to retain, no, to recapture, the sensuality, of Tango’s dark and much disputed roots - “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (“The more things change, the more they stay the same”).

We know that there is huge support, huge enthusiasm for classic Salon Tango here in London - demonstrated, not least, at the glorious night with Jorge and Maria Dispari down at Tango South London (see our full interview with them below), in the huge take

up of classes with Adrian and Amanda Costa both in London and France, and with the continuing popularity of regular classes with those teaching classic salon tango in London (you know who they are!).

It is an interest, a ‘scene’, a group, which we feel is important to hold together, to represent. And so we have changed our masthead from simply “Tango London” to “Journal of Salon Tango in London”. Declaring our allegiance, our interest, up front and clear in black and white.

Small beer perhaps, but important to us.

In rest of this issue, loosely focused on the theme of ‘loss’, we bring you recollections of the now lost ‘Tete’ Rusconi, cultural meanderings on what loss means to the Argentines, fashion thoughts on the life that could have been, and the words of Alfredo Le Pera - in the form of the Lyrics to Por Una Cabeza, the tango that has become a metaphor for the fatalism, the regret, the longing for a life that could have been - a future that was lost “by a head”. A sadness without bitterness. If you have any comments, or would like to contribute to the400club, please contact us at:

the400club@esharpstyle.co.uk

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Por una cabeza de un noble potrillo que justo en la raya afl oja al llegar y que al regresar parece decir: no olvides, hermano, vos sabes, no hay que jugar... Por una cabeza, metejon de un dia, de aquella coqueta y risueña mujer que al jurar sonriendo, el amor que esta mintiendo quema en una hoguera todo mi querer.

Por una cabeza todas las locuras su boca que besa borra la tristeza, calma la amargura.

Por una cabeza si ella me olvida que importa perderme, mil veces la vida para que vivir...

Cuantos desengaños, por una cabeza, yo jure mil veces no vuelvo a insistir pero si un mirar me hiere al pasar, su boca de fuego, otra vez, quiero besar.

Basta de carreras, se acabo la timba, un fi nal reñido yo no vuelvo a ver, pero si algun pingo llega a ser fi ja el domingo, yo me juego entero, que le voy a hacer.

Por Una Cabeza appears in the Carlos Gardel fi lm Tango Bar. The music was written by Carlos Gardel and the lyrics are by Alfredo Le Pera - who wrote virtually all of Gardel’s fi lm songs, and fi lm scripts.

The song appears at the beginning of the fi lm, were the destiny of Gardel’s character, is forever set on a different path. It compares his love of gambling to his love of women - and of the consequential loss of a life that could have been.

The song’s sadness and apparently fatalistic acceptance of the loss that must always happen, sometimes seems symbolic of the wider sense of loss expressed by many Argentians (see

Losing by a head of a noble horse who slackens just down the stretch and when it comes back it seems to say: don’t forget brother, You know, you shouldn’t bet. Losing by a head, instant violent love of that fl irtatious and cheerful woman who, swearing with a smile a love she’s lying about, burns in a blaze all my love.

Losing by a head there was all that madness; her mouth in a kiss wipes out the sadness, it soothes the bitterness. Losing by a head if she forgets me, no matter to lose my life a thousand times; what to live for?

Many deceptions, loosing by a head... I swore a thousand times not to insist again but if a look sways me on passing by her lips of fi re, I want to kiss once more.

Enough of race tracks, no more gambling, a photo-fi nish I’m not watching again, but if a pony looks like a sure thing on Sunday, I’ll bet everything again, what can I do?

THE 400 CLUB Issue 6 - POR UNA CABEZA SUMMER 2010

A Volar Señores: TETE flies awayMichael Lavocah

The Doctor on:

LOSSClaudio Mollinari Dassatti

POR UNA CABEZA

And Finally...The 400 Club is an irregularly produced, ama-teur newsletter for the London Tango scene. We do not intend to cause offence to any par-ties and take no responsibility for the accuracy of information, views or otherwise expressed in this newsletter.

The next issue will arrive when and if we have suffi cient time and inclination to get round to doing one. If in the meantime, if you have any comments or would like to contribute an item please contact us by email:

the400club@esharpstyle.co.uk

Milongas Regulares... (a non-comprehensive list)

Mondays: Pablo Tango at The Square Pig, Procter Street WC1Tuesdays: Dance Tango at Vino Latinos, Langham Court. Hotel W1 Tango @ the Light, Shoreditch E1Wednesdays: Zero Hour at The Dome, Tufnel Park N19Thursdays: Abrazos at 4 Great Queen Street, Holborn WC2 Milonga Sur at The Old Whitgiftians, Croydon El Portenito at The Bedford, Balham SW12 Rojo y Negro’s Poema at Latvian House, Queensway W2 Tangology @ W6, Malinowa Hall, Hammersmith W6Fridays: Negracha at The Wild Court, Holborn WC2 Carablanca at Conway Hall WC1 Midnight Milonga at The Tango Club, Covent Garden WC1Saturdays: Corrientes Social Club at Haverstock School, Chalk Farm NW1 (2 Sats a month) Dance Tango or El Once at The Crypt, St. James Church, Clerkenwell EC1 Tango at the Light Temple, Austin Street and Godfreys Place E2 Stardust Milonga at Chester House, Kennington SW9 (last Sat of the month)Sundays: El Portenito at The Bedford, Balham SW12 (every other week) Tangology at The Langley, Covent Garden WC2 TangoSouthLondon at The Constitutional Club, Dulwich (last Sun of the month) Milonga Sur and Corrientes Social Club at The Royston Club, Penge, SE20 Dance Tango at Padavita, Hammersmith Club, Rutlanfd Grove, W6 La Mariposa at 1a St John’s Hill, Clapham Junction, SW11Remember to always check times and dates with the organisers BEFORE you plan your trip.

In the 70’s Ernesto Sábato, a well-known Argie writer, came to Europe. A journalist, very probably a Spaniard, asked him: “Why are you Argentineans such existentialists?” Sábato looked at him through his thick glasses and joked back: “Perhaps because we are not immortal like you, sir, seem to be?”

Argentina, like the US or Brazil, is a nation of immigrants, of refugees. And what refugees know best is how to look back – either towards their hometown, or to see if hunger is still on the chase. Melting-pot countries like ours assimilate their foreigners in such a way that any foreign trait ends up dissolving into the national identity, but the looking-back syndrome has never gone away.

Thus we possess this built-in, passed-down ability for longing, for suffering and, to a certain extent, being able to take pleasure in loss. We respect those who have a morbid taste for the ephemeral, for reminiscing. We believe there is great dignity in being able to appreciate the profound beauty contained in sadness.

Many of us feel this way, but not everybody.

“Dance as if your life depends upon it. It does.” - Pedro “Teté” Rusconi

Teté, master of vals and of musicality, one of the most colourful characters in the world of tango, passed from this life on the 6th January this year at the age of 74. I’ll never forget Teté’s visit to London, back in I think 1997. Always one to call a spade a spade, he had the translator blushing whilst the Spanish speakers in the room roared with laughter, and the rest wondered what had actually been said. During one of the work-shops, he declaired: “If you want to learn steps, you’re wasting your time”. It was too much for London, and he didn’t come back the following year.

But Tete’s story and his real importance starts earlier, with his partnership with Maria Villa-lobos. She matched his fi re with her own and they electrifi ed the tango world. In an era when tango lessons and tango fl oors outside Buenos Aires were dominated by couples trying out big fi gures, they switched us on to another

possibility: “tango apilado” - the man and the woman dancing with chests powerfully col-liding with one another, at once intimate and fi ery. Their explosive dancing, a true partner-ship of equals, made them one of the most magical couples of modern times. Sadly, their partnership broke up at a time when relatively few of us had had the opportunity to see them dance. For those that did, twenty years later it remains an unforgettable experience

One dancer recounted to me a private lesson with Teté and Maria from those glory days. At one point, Teté executed a dazzling turn and they asked, “what do you do just there?” With the insight of a Zen master, Teté replied: “I turned to the left”. He was a true genius who had clearly gone way beyond steps, which made it impossible to copy what he did. His feeling for the music and the cadencia made him the undisputed master of vals. I hope his legacy will continue to inspire us.

You can fi nd more tango tales and advice on your tango CD choice / purchase from Michael at:

www. milonga.co.uk

There are some Argies who, as soon as they reach adulthood, set off on a pilgrimage to Brazil. I imagine they fl ee from the oppressive atmosphere that oozes from everything Argentinean, a soul-rusting sorrow that condemns us to ‘tangueroness’. These traitors to the cause run off to Brazil, where even sadness is happy.

But all is not all misery and melancholy. There are many tango themes: mothers and friends, being down and out, loose women and their pimps, stabbing your lover to death, jockeys and horse races, leaving the neighbourhood behind to make it in the big city, in showbiz, in soccer...

Like any other artistic expression, however, tango is not without its limits. It seems to deal with a myriad of subject-matter but it usually ends up talking about the same thing. There are even some tangos that tell a happy story. But do not be mislead: we’re not Brazilian, our happiness will break your heart.

Read more of Claudio’s work at:

www.claudiomolinari.com

Loss, eh? Regret, eh? Sure, I know a thing or two about loss, about regret...

Not the loss of a favourite shoe to the demon pavements of London town, nor the loss of that single cuff link trimmed in beautiful tiny pearls that you couldn’t fi nd even after half an hour taking apart every cushion in the sofa. Not the leather jacket trimmed with chinchilla stolen at THAT party, or the pair of Raybans the daughter borrowed in case there were paparazzi waiting to snap her on the way to school, not even the loss of your absolutely favourite pair of ‘lucky’ pants that the washing machine mysteriously chewed up half an hour before you were due down the red carpet in Leicester Square.

No. No. Not these. These were all lost in defence of a good cause - lost whilst fi ghting the forces of boredom and blandness on the battlefi eld of fashion and stye. And besides, you’ll always have that story to tell - of just how that garter ended up looped round the chandelier in the offi cer’s mess at the old Duke of York’s barracks in Chelsea... ah yes! Those were the days!

No, I’m talking about the brilliant, bright, sparkling future that could have been... The one that didn’t even get a chance. The glorious, successful, groovy life you would have had if only you had bought that once in a lifetime bargain / reasonably priced period classic / hugely expensive designer one off - so expensive that you would have had to eat the receipt immediately after exiting the store in order to destroy all evidence of ‘anti-frugality crime’ (delete as appropriate and depending on your current state of desperation).

Yes, these are the purchases you should have, would have, so nearly did make, but for one reason or other you just didn’t (often for more red-inked-bank-statement reasons than other) - leaving them lost and lonesome on the sparkling rail / rack / shelf.

Just think of the future, no let’s call it an alternative reality, that would have been - so bright, so right! If only you hadn’t lost your nerve, you’re credit card, your great aunt’s inheritance (on a crazy horse, but that’s a different story!).

Imagine strutting down the street in that Jean Paul Gaultier drape dinner jacket, those Marc Jacobs, sea green, strappy stilletoes, the felted orange abstract design skirt from Bik Van Whatsisname in Antwerp and that gorgeous lemon yellow, sharp but soft, super smart handbag from that tiny shop only you, and a handful of locals, know about in a dingy backstreet of San Telmo (maybe best not worn all at the same time, eh? - ED).

Yes, this was a future to have lost. A future that should have been. If only you’d had the cojones!

So next time you’re thinking of not to going with the temptation of tailoring, the lust for leather, or the rustle of silk, just remember that while the brief but passionate liaison with your conscience might last a week, or even a month, fashion will be your best friend for at least one season, if not a whole year!

As I say, it’s better to regret things you have done in spandex, than the things you couldn’t have done in fl annel!

www.todotrajeado.blogspot.com

In Praise of the Tango Dandy

Todo Trajeado:

Regrets, I’ve had a few...

After his visit to Tango South London’s Ball, Jorge Dispari commented that “...the women were looking like Queens, and the men, Dandys...” Now, if there’s one thing the British can bring to Tango, it’s their sense of dress and their sense of style. And so, the400club is proud to bring you the following - a code of aspiration (and with a title to be said in the mock Keith Richards / John Lydon cockney of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: “the cowde, the cowde...”):

Code of A Tango Dandy A Tango Dandy is ready, any time, any place.A Tango Dandy always dresses for the occasion.A Tango Dandy believes that to dress well shows respect to your partner and other dancers at the milonga. A Tango Dandy is never overdressed, merely ready for what ever comes along... dancing, meeting the queen, etc. etc.A Tango Dandy always gives his heart, if just for three minutes only.A Tango Dandy should always complement his dance partner about something other than the way they dance.A Tango Dandy should try and comply with the rules of the Cabeceo at all times (even in the ultra low lighting of some milongas – Corrientes take note!): if they ignore your eyes – don’t ask.A Tango Dandy should never ask / discuss / mention work between tangos. Work is for another place, another time. The milonga is a place for tango.A Tango Dandy never teaches on the dance fl oor - a Tango Dandy would never dream of teaching full stop.A Tango Dandy never gets angry with three lane occupying, forwards and backwards moving tango nuevo dancers – merely treats them with disdain. A Tango Dandy does not own a pair of Combat trousers. Never has and never will do. Trousers without creases are for gardening, nothing else.A Tango Dandy believes price and or branding are not an indicator of quality. £100 for designer jeans is unacceptable. £100 for a beautiful vintage tie, maybe…A Tango Dandy feels it is his obligation to make his partner look good. A Tango Dandy knows he can do better.A Tango Dandy is pleased that you like their style – and overjoyed if you tell them (even if they then don’t know what to say…)

Milonga Mod or Tango Ted, you know when you’re a tango Dandy! Check out more at our facebook group:

Tango Dandy

‘The Doctor’, above).

Gardel famously loved horse racing in real life, and owned his own horse, Lunatico, pictured below (a name was later taken as the title a Gotan Project album, in honour of the great singer’s passion).

Alfredo Le Pera died in the same plane crash that killed Carlos Gardel on 24 June 1935 in Medellin Columbia.

The translation below is by Alberto Paz at Planet Tango. For more of Alberto’s work, please visit his excellent website:

www.planet-tango.com

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