Info For You Lot The African Root Of Tango

 The modern tango, a slick, sultry trip the calorie-free fantastic toe which today is a cornerstone of Argentine cultural identity, has a long as well as complex history. There is much debate over the exact origins of what nosotros straight off know equally the tango, nonetheless i undeniable truth remains the immense influence of Afro-Argentines inwards the formation of the tango. The hollo itself, "tango", is widely believed to endure of West African root pregnant "closed space" or "reserved ground". 

                 Afro-Argentine Tango dancing maestro Facundo Posadas & Ching-Ping Peng

This root seems to endure inwards accordance with the 19^th century job of the word, when it referred to whatever house where Africans assembled to dance. Only after did the discussion tango come upward to refer specifically to Afro-Argentine dance, before existence ascribed to the specific cast of duet dancing nosotros know today equally the tango. Both the trip the calorie-free fantastic toe as well as the musical style known equally tango has 3 chief antecedents, the lunfardo, the milonga as well as the candombe, each of which represents a unlike constituent of the Argentine cultural mosaic.

                                                         congo dance

The topic of “Race” is soundless a topic which awakens deep passions….Robert Farris Thompson’s, “The Art History of Love” inwards which he makes a rigid declaration for the African roots of tango, fifty-fifty precipitated a heated battle of critics over the subject…in startling acrimony, reviewer Anthony Howel says of Thompson’s book “this irrelevant as well as dishonest book…the author makes irresponsible claims as well as insists inwards implying that white folk stole tango from the blacks”...in a counter-accusation, reviewer Christopher Everett defends Thompson as well as inwards a signal yesteryear signal rebuttal…”Tango, The Art History of Tango” is inwards fact a thoughtful, good documented as well as good written book…the number of people of African descent inwards Argentine Republic went from 34% inwards 1810 to 2% inwards 1887 as well as their disappearance is a dependent champaign of contention as well as a source of racist sense of humor with the residents of Buenos Aires…reportedly, when the cracking Josephine Baker visited Argentine Republic inwards the 1950s, she asked the bi-racial government minister of populace wellness Ramon Carillo, “Where are the Negroes ?”, Carillo responded laughing, “there are solely two, y'all as well as I”…nevertheless, Thompson, renown Yale Africanist as well as fine art historian, demonstrates how their presence tin endure clearly traced through the tango culture

                                               An early on caricature of the dark 'tango'

He asserts that the discussion “tango” comes from the Ki-Kongo discussion which way “moving inwards fourth dimension to a beat”…he explores tango’s human relationship to cakewalk, ragtime, cubanhabanera and fifty-fifty rossini’s opera as well as he observes that the custom of dancing tango spell moving inwards a counter-clockwise direction may receive got been influenced yesteryear the African myth that moving inwards a counter-clockwise direction way long life…he mentions that renown dancer Juan Carlos Copes was taught yesteryear Afro-Argentine Carlos “El Negro” Anzuate…he cites renown Afro-Argentine tango greats like   Celedonio the dark poet of tango, Rosendo Mendizabal composer of the immortal “El Enterriano” and Oscar Aleman one of the greatest entertainers which Argentine Republic has always produced…one reviewer said of the book, “Thompson mines working cast origins as well as its emotions of defiance, freedom, self-control, humor, dearest as well as redemption” 

CLICK HERE-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuUMssU2Sg4 to view a computer programme on the Afro Argentine legacy of tango presented yesteryear Robert Farris Thompson

ENTERS JUAN CARLOS CACERES (Staunch defender of the dark origins of Tango)

Juan Carlos Cáceres is an energetic as well as multifaceted personality and can endure labelled equally a renaissance man. He is exactly equally colorful equally his paintings, equally tin endure seen on the artwork of the CD Toca Tango and the Nov 2003 screen of El Farolito. He paints, composes music, plays pianoforte as well as trombone, sings, produces shows, does research into the history of tango rioplatense as well as many other things. Micheal Stone describes Cáceres equally "a longtime educatee and conservator of tango, candombe, murga, as well as milonga - as well as a painter and scholar of the history of music inwards the River Plate - Cáceres is among few artists born inwards the 1940s to champion the neglected African influences inwards Argentine music".

                                                  Juan Carlos Cáceres

1993 is the twelvemonth that Cáceres decided to go solo as well as started his career equally a singer. Because of his stone oil as well as unpolished style of singing as well as the fact that he was good over 50 years old before he started his singing career, he has been nicknamed the Paolo Conte of Latin America. With his CD's Tango Negro (1998) as well as Toca Tango (2001) Cáceres broke through  in the basis of tango dancing. His style tin endure characterized equally a mix of tango as well as jazz, clearly hinting of  carnival inwards Rio as well as a  voice similar Paolo Conte, but higher upward all his music accents the African roots of tango.

Cáceres is an advocate of the African roots inwards tango, a phenomenon that has been overlooked, ignored or fifty-fifty denied yesteryear generations of tango researchers as well as other Latin cultural historians.

In the La  historia negada (History denied) attachment of the CD Murga Argentine Republic (2005), he defends the African roots of tango by fire as well as sword.: "To give dorsum African heritage its rightful house in Argentinean civilization is solely fair. The tango is the most significant exponent, as well as the most exported one, of that Afro-Argentinean expression. Usually the duality of tango's root is ignored inwards favor of  the European contribution Let us non forget that Buenos Aires used to endure a slave harbor as well as that a 3rd of its population was black until the middle of the 19th century."

For many decades Argentine Republic has been gradually 'whitening',  a practice Cáceres despises: "this willful forgetting is a production of racism prevalent inwards a lodge that looks towards Europe as well as self censorship on the role of the African community".

About tango he adds to this, inwards an YouTube interview: "tango is not only  a dance. Tango is a  style. It  is a style taking inwards a serial of rhythms. It is this phenomenon that used to endure called, as well as soundless is today, ira y vuelta, which way coming as well as going with music".

The blackness of tango 

Dance's nighttime roots inwards a province "without blacks"

by Sylvia Pfeiffenberger
"It is exactly equally of import to endure good danced equally it is to endure good versed or good read." — Robert Farris Thompson, Tango: An Art History of Love (Pantheon, 2005)

Every Argentinian is proud of the tango. Yet, it's a commonly held belief that Argentina's dark minority is therefore little equally to receive got played no major role inwards tango's development. Most tangueros concord that African influences were rigid inwards Argentine Republic inwards the 19th as well as early on 20th centuries, when tango's roots were watered yesteryear the candombe societies, resulting inwards the quickstep milonga that tangueros soundless trip the calorie-free fantastic toe today, as well as canyengue, tango's "melting" predecessor. But when it comes to a shaping Afro-Argentine presence, most people say, no: for that, you'll receive got to go side yesteryear side door, to Uruguay.Robert Farris Thompson, a professor of African fine art at Yale, champions dark contributions to Argentina's national trip the calorie-free fantastic toe inwards his passionate, polemical novel book, Tango: An Art History of Love. Not solely are blacks nowadays on the Pampas as well as inwards the port metropolis of Buenos Aires, he argues, but their influence has been disproportionate to their numbers. Even to a greater extent than than has previously been acknowledged, the origins of tango are black, via Kongo civilization imported from Central Africa as well as Cuba. Tango, "the fabulous trip the calorie-free fantastic toe of the yesteryear hundred years," started life equally a creole: "the Kongo grind, caught inwards a waltz-like embrace."
One of the paradoxes here: tango is dark music that has no drums. Don't endure fooled yesteryear the instrumentation, Thompson says. Black musicians implemented percussive tactics inwards the way the strings as well as bandoneons are played, as well as exceptional effects similar "arrastres," whooshing runs (parodied inwards Hollywood's tango cliché) that heart upward the dancers. Thompson documents early on performers who were black, from the get-go bandoneista on record, to golden historic menses composer Horacio Salgán as well as contemporary milonga dancer Facundo Posadas..

                         Afro-Argentine Fecundo Posadas the Tango dancing emperor inwards action

As background for an Afro-Argentine presence, Thompson documents a continuous history of Kongo spiritual belief as well as practise inwards Argentina, from the dances of the dark candombe society—virtual embassies with their ain kings as well as queens—to the way Buenos Aires cab drivers stream cherry ribbons from their rearview mirrors today.

Thompson is a brilliantly creative reader of visual as well as literary clues, from architecture as well as street murals inwards Buenos Aires to caricatures of dark figures published a century agone as well as industrial plant of fine art. The subtitle, An Art History of Love, would seem at get-go glance to receive got nix to do with dance, but it accurately reflects Thompson's methods. He graphs, charts, quotes, pivots into mini-biographies similar praisesongs, as well as puts every eyewitness, painting, film, anecdotal study as well as adept view into swirling, reiterative, dynamic motion. The chapters construct inwards a chronological beat to their climax, illuminated yesteryear piquant visual plates as well as bookended yesteryear Thompson's evocative reads on ii iconic artworks nigh tango.

The "Cultural Preparation" chapter, an archeology of Kongo language, customs as well as body language, volition endure familiar to those who've read Thompson's before books such as Flash of the Spirit and Black Gods as well as Kings. The sections on the habanera, canyengue as well as Astor Piazzola are with the most fascinating. Thompson describes milonga, modern tango's "co-presence," equally the "Buenos Aires conversation" betwixt ii creolized Kongo rhythms—one imported from Havana. The contradanza habanera arrived with Cuban sailors or therefore 1860 as well as fused its bassline with Argentinian candombe. I knew of habanera, but a calorie-free went on for me when I read Thompson's explanation. Nothing I had read before mentioned the "habanera bassline," which of course of education is a substitution register inwards whatever African-derived music. (Now it all makes sense: Bizet's Carmen, the European trend inwards the '20s as well as '30s, as well as fifty-fifty a Nazi-era musical, "La Habanera," directed yesteryear Douglas Sirk.)

Thompson is an obsessive glosserwith a rare gift for cross-referencing Cuban Castilian with Ki-Kongo, Argentine vernacular as well as African-American English linguistic communication of the dark church. (I i time took a seminar with Thompson on Haitian Vodun, as well as he had a dominion of pollex for interpreting lapses inwards the Oxford English linguistic communication Dictionary: If the etymology of a discussion goes dorsum to the 18th century as well as and then says, "origin unknown"—it's African.) Even where the linguistic communication trail seems dizzying as well as difficult to follow (how many with us are experts inwards Ki-Kongo usage?), Thompson's speculative synthesis has value. He is reading trip the calorie-free fantastic toe backward inwards fourth dimension as well as across oceans.

"It is impossible to brand upward the existent thing," Thompson writes, finding Afro-Atlantic correspondences inwards cognate trip the calorie-free fantastic toe moves as well as words without asserting exclusive causal relationship. Whether African-American "sass" comes from Ki-Kongo "sosa" or English linguistic communication "saucy," or whether—as Thompson most oft suggests—the ii reinforce each other inwards the creolization process, I desire to hear what he hears as well as go out it for to a greater extent than plodding researchers to canonize or refute. I desire to view tango through Kongo eyes. There is value inwards casting the cyberspace of African influence broad inwards monastic tell to hear echoes non previously heard, as well as to recognize contributions that receive got been systematically discounted or denied.

                                        http://vimeo.com/47243149

Thompson relies on his ain deep noesis of Kongo culture, as well as cultural informants on both sides of the Atlantic, to topographic point specific moves inwards tango with African antecedents. The fact that these gestures (and their philosophical meanings) erupt inwards other diasporic trip the calorie-free fantastic toe forms, from Brazilian capoeira to hip hop inwards the Bronx, is offered equally supporting testify for Thompson's thesis. One example: the Charleston, derived from a knock-kneed curtsy of obeisance inwards Kongo trip the calorie-free fantastic toe civilization that also finds its way into Argentinian canyengue.

This posture of canyengue—a discussion straight of Kongo origin, similar milonga as well as malambo—is i of its most African features. Dancers are stone-faced, the knees flexed, bring upward extended, equally couples come across inwards a leaning encompass derived from European duet dancing. Tango moves similar quebradas (a hip twist), cortes ("breaks") as well as sentadas (the adult woman seated on the man's thigh), which Thompson relates to the bumping of bellies, hips or rears called "bumbakana," receive got Kongo ancestry. Jumpcut to Cuba, as well as the same Kongo gesture is creolized equally the famous vacuna of rumba.

While many of these features stay inwards tango, including the cool facial expression, the straightening upward of tango posture is i of the most obvious ways tango's African roots were obscured. "I'm somebody who's coming into the tango from the African perspective," says Hillary Honig, a Durham tango dancer at a recent practica at Dance Plus Studio.

"Because I've been African dancing for therefore long, I desire to arch my dorsum as well as curvature my knees," says Honig. "To me it feels really natural. If you're dancing the tango they endeavour as well as halt that a lot. They desire y'all to receive got an upright torso."

Thompson has never cloaked his arguments inwards coy restraint, nor does he bury them inwards academic jargon. But spell his declaration is vividly confident, it isn't an either/or campaign. He doesn't deny the Andalusian influence on gaucho heel-stamping, or taconeos, a trip the calorie-free fantastic toe known inwards Argentine Republic yesteryear the Kongo hollo "malambo." He hears Italian street slang inwards Buenos Aires as well as notes the city's Moorish preference (via Spain) for diamond tiled floors. Jewish presence emerges inwards such things equally chirping aeroplane sounds made on violins as well as a pivoting trip the calorie-free fantastic toe step, "la viborita," known inwards Eastern Europe equally the grapevine.

A chief thrust of all Thompson's go is that the philosophical as well as physical arts that Africans carried with them into exile helped them send themselves with poise as well as style, exert resistance as well as nurture their spirits spell living nether stress. These traits are all inwards testify inwards hip hop, Latin trip the calorie-free fantastic toe forms, blues, jazz, as well as every major musical manifestation to come upward out of the New World—all touched as well as created yesteryear blacks. Black achievement, dark cool, dark self-control, dark mastery as well as dark improvisation are the hallmarks all these fine art forms receive got inwards common. Tango of a abrupt makes much to a greater extent than sense equally role of this pantheon.

On a profound level, the majority changes the way nosotros perceive trip the calorie-free fantastic toe equally a purveyor of ideas. Dance is embodied speech. The persistent mind/body separate has denigrated the body equally a style of knowing inwards the West. There's truth inwards the body, fifty-fifty when it has larn a latent memory, some sacred text gone secular inwards the mouths of the generations. Tangueros know this.

"Tangueros don't demand books on tango," says Dmitri Ponarin of Raleigh. Thompson would probable divine cracking insight inwards that, because it points to tango—to movement—as a metaphor, a spiritual toolbox, as well as a philosophical worldview inwards as well as of itself: moving with an arm or therefore life.

"People who receive got been doing tango for 20, 30, forty years, each of them tin write their ain majority on tango," Ponarin adds. Tango is a life history for every individual, as well as Thompson honors this, never generalizing tango into an anonymous trip the calorie-free fantastic toe lesson, a ready of shoeprints on a tape cover. Personality is equally irreducible to tango history equally private style, clothes as well as posture.

This is the African way of agreement dance. It's a telephone yell upward on the ancestors, as well as the gods. Life happens at the intersection of these ii worlds. Choreographer as well as MacArthur "genius" grant winner Liz Lerman, writing for The Washington Post, sees in Tango "a paean to all the feet, hips, hands, that went before us"—a fittingly African cast of ancestor worship.

Facundo Posadas & Christy Cote photo: Barak Yadidia

Capturing the history—let lonely the essence—of something equally transient as well as ephemeral equally trip the calorie-free fantastic toe across a menses of centuries is non easy. It requires a exceptional way of seeing, of telescoping the yesteryear into the present, as well as overlapping geographical spaces. "Seeing connections where others view distance" is how Thompson describes kindred spirits Piazzola as well as Borges, but it applies to him equally well. Thompson has a way of capturing musculus retention as well as footnoting it for posterity. He sees the New World through Kongo eyes, as well as restores the suppressed as well as lapsed memories of African civilization. He causes us to roll our mouths or therefore the names of Kongolese capitals Lwangu as well as Cabinda inwards the same breath equally London, Rome, Genoa as well as Paris. This is a cracking service. The basis or therefore y'all should expect different—or only endure to a greater extent than visible—after reading this book.

source:http://www.torito.nl/agenda/paginas/JuanCarlosCaceres/JuanCarlosCaceres_by_Arnoud_de_Graaff.pdf

             http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/the-blackness-of-tango/Content?oid=1197334

             http://todayintango.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/2005-september-20-published-tango-the-art-history-of-love/

The Black People of the Tango

Musicians as well as composers of the final century Pure or of mixed race blacks abounded inwards the nineteenth century tango; also, but to a lesser extent, inwards the side yesteryear side century. And they were at that topographic point from early on days. Exactly inwards 1900, Eugenio Py opened a large tango filmography with his small Tango Argentino (see the article on the celluloid inwards this edition). The participant as well as dancer Black Agapito from the Podestá Company as well as a today unknown duet showed the cuts, although the tango was non heard. In a number of opportunities the episode of the number banning the performing of El Esquinazo at the Tarana (ex Hansen) due to the tapping of the crockery inwards 1903 has been commented on. What it is non mentioned is that the grouping inwards accuse of playing Villoldo´s tango was the sextet of a dark pianist, Luis Suarez Campos( 1875 -c.1970). Another of those 1900s coloured pianists was Dafne Zenón Rolón (1880-c.1970) whose tangos El Clavo as well as El Firulete (different from More´s work) are known. It powerfulness endure illustrative to say that at that topographic point were 3 old musicians, the ones called the Santa Cruz (José as well as his sons Domingo as well as Juan) who were non dark equally unremarkably wrongly maintained -as wrongly as well as affirmatively stated, obeying to Francisco García Jimenez´s serious mistake. Photos of Domingo as well as Juan give testify of this. But let´s proceed with the nighttime skinned. In those days which opened the plough of the century, the figure of Carlos Posadas (1874-1918) came to light. He was a violinist, pianist as well as guitar player, operetta as well as zarzuela musician. He composed a serial of goodness tangos such as El Tamango, Cordón de Oro, El Jagüel or La Tacuarita. His brother, Manuel Posadas (1860-1916) was also author of tangos, though less popular. Harold Phillips (?-1915) is the most enigmatic grapheme of the genre. Born inwards U.S.A., came to Buenos Aires equally rag-time as well as cake-walk pianist as well as did non accept long to go yesteryear into tango. He went on playing, for example, with Eduardo Arolas as well as Genaro Espósito, as well as i 24-hour interval he left for Europe. There, inwards Belgium, he was shot to expiry yesteryear High German troops defendant of espionage. Ruperto Leopoldo Thompson (?-1925) is the get-go double-bass participant of tango who introduced an afro-technique with this musical instrument which gave nascency to a novel style. He is remembered equally fellow member of the mythical sextet of Julio De Caro, but he was also a guitar participant as well as composer of El Consultorio, La Gordita, Tren de Farra and another tangos. Eduardo Gregorio Pereyra, “El Chon” (?-1925) was a pianist as well as author of several popularized tangos such as El Africano, Madame Ivonne, (with lyrics yesteryear Enrique Cadícamo), Pan, Gorriones, Viejo Coche (the 3 of them with lyrics yesteryear Celedonio Flores ) and La Uruguayita Lucía (with lyrics yesteryear Daniel López Barreto). It vicious on José Ricardo (1888-1937) to larn the get-go guitar participant of Carlos Gardel. Before, he had used to accompany the Uruguayan “payador” Eugenio José Sallot when strumming his guitar. Finally, he conducted a guitar trio together with his blood brother as well as a so-called Duarte with whom he performed inwards Europe as well as Africa. He died spell travelling yesteryear ship from Paris to Buenos Aires. He composed, with other tangos, Margot, Resignate Hermano, Campanas del Recuerdo and Vecinita. His blood brother Rafael Ricardo “Bronce” did non create anything of relevance. Guillermo Desiderio Barbieri (1884-1935), the minute of the guitar players of “El Zorzal” was also black. He joined Gardel´s accompaniment after having formed a duet -because he was also a singer- with Luciano Cardelli. Composer as well as sometimes lyrics writer, produced an extensive go going from Santos Vega (with Ignacio Corsini) to the popularized Rosas de Otoño, Barrio Viejo, La Novia Ausente, El que Atrasó el Reloj, Viejo Smoking as well as Anclao en París. Nobody tin deny that Celedonio Flores (1896-1947) was i of the greatest tango poets. Proof of this are Margot, Mano a Mano, ¡Atenti, pebeta!, Malevito, El Bulín de la calle Ayacucho, Perro, Muchacho, Canchero, La puñalada, Durazno a Cuarenta el Ciento, and a K more. Enrique Maciel (1897-1962) spent most of his career equally guitar participant of Ignacio Corsini though he was also a pianist. Que pare el baile!, La Pulpera de Santa Lucía, La que Murió en París, Abuelita Dominga, Mala Entraña, speak high nigh his qualities equally composer. In 1922, Sobre el Pucho, the tango of José Gonzalez Castillo as well as Sebastián Piana was awarded the get-go prize inwards the Contest organized yesteryear the cigarettes “Tango”. The responsible for singing it for the get-go fourth dimension was a vocalizer who appeared equally “El Caruso Negro”, whose existent hollo was Oscar Rorra. Only i tango, El Ciruja (with lyrics yesteryear Alfredo Marino), was plenty to brand bandoneonist Ernesto Natividad de la Cruz (1898-1985) displace into immortality. But he composed many more, with them: Farfala Volatrice (Carlos de la Púa), Hermano Tango, (Francisco Gorrindo), Cuando escucho un Tango Viejo, (Julián Centeya), De Frente, (Juan Carlos La Madrid) and La calle de los Dos, with the subscriber to this article. Another black, Angel Sanchez Carreño, known equally “Príncipe Cubano” made history when he was a presenter of Chantecler Cabaret. Besides, he was also composer as well as lyrics-writer of the tangos Venga,Viejo, Siluetas de la Tarde, Horas Tristes, Seamos Amigos, Desdén (not Gardel’s) as well as the most widespread of them Metido, which was renamed Enamorado due to the censorship. Piano as well as bandoneon participant Joaquín Mauricio Mora (1905 or 1907-1979) was the author of i of the most beautiful tangos of all times. Just endeavour listening to En las Sombras, Más Allá, Al Verla Pasar, Como aquella Princesa, or that musical treasure titledDivina. There were several dark-skinned “milongueros” who printed their cuts on the polished floors of the twentieth century. For example, The Negro Cotongo, María Celeste (María Celia Romero, duet of El Cachafaz), The Parda Esther, The Negro Pavura (Luis María Canteros), The Negra Laura, The Negro Correa, The Pardo Noya (Sergio Noya), his duet The Parda Vicenta, as well as the nowadays Facundo Posadas, existence Carlos Posadas i of his ancestors. Oscar Alemán (1909-1980), known equally a jazz guitar player, was also a tango author. He accompanied Agustín Magaldi, joined the Victor Trio as well as composed Guitarra que Llora as well as Al Gran Horacio Salgán. Salgán (1916), on his side, is i of the most pop tango musicians as well as possessor of an utmost original style. He was the author of A Fuego Lento, Cortada de San Ignacio, Tango del Eco, La Llamo Silbando, Aquellos Tangos Camperos, as well as other wonderful melodies. We believe that Lágrima Ríos (1924-2006) as well as Nora Benavidez are the solely dark woman individual singers of the genre; they appeared inwards Montevideo. Lágrima’s truthful hollo was Lidia Melba Benavídez as well as made her debut equally vocalist of the grouping of Alberto Mastra. Later, she went on a vast career equally a soloist. Her younger sis Nora has settled inwards our metropolis for years. Negroes, equally it`s seen, maintain on living inwards the tango. In this twenty-first century still. Courtesy:http://www.lptango.com.ar/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=83:the-black-people-of-the-tango&catid=2:articles&Itemid=3

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