PROJECTS
TANGO - passionate encounters in a globalizing world
Tango has crossed many borders, generating passionate aficionados of its music and dance (or both) throughout the world. Men and women with a passion for fleeting encounters on the dance floor have flocked to tango salons ever since it emerged at the turn of the 20th century. Tango is an ambivalent dance, mobilizing differences between the sexes, generations, social classes, ethnicities and nationalities in exciting and troubling ways. Emerging from the rhythms and movements of the African Candombe, tango travelled from the slums of Buenos Aires as the dance of migrant workers and prostitutes to the fashionable salons of Paris, London, Tokyo, and Istanbul where it became popular among the upper classes, and then back to Argentina where affluent Argentineans, once skeptical of this immoral dance, proceeded to embrace it as no less than the essence of their national identity. Falling out of fashion in the sixties and seventies as rock 'n roll became the popular dance for the younger generation, tango underwent yet another revival following the demise of the military regime in Argentina in the early 1980's, when a battered nation emerged from the reign of terror to begin a renaissance in the arts and a revival of (unsullied) Argentinean traditions. Argentinean political refugees had already begun to introduce tango (as popular music and dance) in many European cities as part of their survival strategy in conditions of exile. Recurrent economic crises compelled their compatriots to follow suit and they, too, began to look to Europe and North America as a place to teach and perform the tango. Tango has, once again, become a global dance, with a growing sub-culture of fervent fans, willing to devote a considerable part of their everyday lives to dancing, listening to tango music, traveling to salons, and, of course, ultimately making their way to the Mecca of tango: Buenos Aires.
Tango is about encounters with difference - differences between women and men, generational differences, differences in sexual orientation, differences in class and ethnicity, differences between North and South. It offers a prism for exploring the ways that socially constructed and politically salient differences are mobilized, negotiated, and transformed in ways that are predictable and surprising, fascinating and disturbing. Tango provides an opportunity to make sense of what living in a globalizing world is all about.
In this project, I will be exploring tango as an emblematic postcolonial encounter - an encounter between Europe in search of the exotic other and Argentina - albeit with undisguised ambivalence - in search of recognition for its European roots. What is it about this dance which appeals to people living in other parts of the world? Why do they want to dance to music whose lyrics they often cannot understand? What are they looking for when they enter into a close embrace, often to dance in the arms of a complete stranger? And, what happens to them as they become more and more embroiled in the world of the tango - the salons, the music, the workshops, the Spanish lessons, the shoes? What do they gain and what do they give up? How does tango change their identities, their relationships, their lives?
Photo: Kathy Davis dancing - © Marijn Scheeres
