Free Tango by Mike Gonzalez Page B

years old. His story was repeated among the young men and women who pursued the dream of Paris. Nearly all the musicians and performers emerged from urban poverty in Argentina; most died in very similar circumstances. In 1913, it was reported that over 100 Argentine, musicians, singers and dancers flocked to Paris; few made a living.
    The tango craze which they hoped to benefit from had two very different expressions. On stage and in revue, tango retained its powerful exotic charge and its sexuality. But in the dance salons, the tango followed new rules established by dance masters like the Castles in the U . S . or M. André de Fouquières in Paris. 20
    The original choreography had been stylized into glamorous, almost balletic, postures (extended arms, stretched torsos and necks, light feet) and rough apache-like figures (deep dips, backward bends, dizzying sways) with matching walks in between . . . The basic continental tango was glamorised on the stages and tamed in the ballrooms . . . the music was especially composed so as to be exotically languid and retained only some of its rhythm. 21
    For those Argentines who found themselves in Europe or the United States, there was little alternative but to act out Western fantasies of Argentine life. As Buenos Aires was rapidly becoming one of the world’s largest cities, its urban culture was being represented in gaucho costume and rural backdrops. In the U . S .,tango had also changed in deference to the sensibilities of the middle classes. The Castles emphasized elegance and pattern in the dance, and held the partners in a safely distant embrace. When the wealthy Mrs Stuyvesant wanted a tango for her salon, but baulked at the sensuality of it, the Castles conceived the ‘Innovation’ whose distinguishing feature was that the partners did not touch! The Castles went to some lengths to tame and colonize, describing the tango in their influential Modern Dance of 1914 thus:
    The much-misunderstood Tango becomes an evolution of the eighteenth century Minuet . . . when the Tango degenerates into an acrobatic display or into salacious sensation it is the fault of the dancers and not of the dance. The Castle tango is courtly and artistic. 22
    The tango musicians and dancers who were seeking their fortune in Europe and the United States would have had considerable difficulty in accepting that. Indeed, despite the fact that the Victor label in the U . S . and Odeon in Europe were successfully recording some of these artists, in the United States the music was attenuated and adapted to the local morality, and the more popular lyrics were those written by local writers who often translated exoticism into the absurdity of the novelty song.
    When the great big Dip Dip Dip Dipper
    Did the Tango in the sky
    He told them all the merry news
    As he went rolling by .
    Then he called on Jupiter Pluvius
    For his orchestra to play
    And the Price of admission to this wonderful dance ,
    Was a tiny silv’ry ray . . . 23

    Rudolph Valentino.
    Storm Roberts notes, for example, that a very large proportion of the Latin music recorded in the 1910s and early 1920s seems to have been laid down by a group called the International Novelty Orchestra. 24
The Parisian Tango Malouze.
    Others did place the stress on the athleticism of the dance movements. Ted Shawn and Ruth St Denis were early exponents of tango as well as a range of other exotic dances that were heavily Americanized versions of dances from India and Africa; their own vision of tango included backdrops to match. Clearly the burgeoning film industry was a powerful influence on the interpretation of dance. And Valentino’s famous performance in the 1921 film Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was a reflection of the already hugely popular thés dansants of New York. Valentino himself was a dancer for hire (or a gigolo) at Bustanoby’s Domino Room on 39th and 6th.
    But the rhythms of tango permeated the other emerging music