The educated Tanguero

Essential Tango Knowledge

08/01/2014
by Richard Stoll
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Alfonsina y el mar

Tango is a trinity of music, poetry and dance. This is a truth, every Tango lover will learn sooner or later. Tango as a music is loud and expressive, Tango as a dance is variable between impressive and expressive and the poetry inside Tango is usually very impressive and almost not visible to the typical non Spanish speaking Tanguero outside of Latin America.
Today I want to talk about this very soul of Tango. In a milonga, there is sometimes a situation, when people had their lot of Pugliese, Neotango or whatever they desire and people are really tired. As a DJ, I react to this situation by playing slow cuddly music where people can cool down and gather energy for the final tandas. One of the songs sometimes played here is “Alfonsina y el mar”, which is according to our definition a NonTango song. This song is known to almost everyone in Latin America and I think, an educated Tanguero should know the background and the meaning of this very unique piece of music.
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06/01/2014
by Richard Stoll
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Tango in Finland

Imagine a festival for Tango, where thousands of fans are celebrating Tango and competing in dancing and singing to crown a new tango king! This is not a Bajofondo concert in Buenos Aires (even if they can attract thousands as well), it happens every year in a small city in Finland.

After the Tangomania in France and Berlin between 1910 and the late 20ies people in Europe were confronted with Tango music, which was both fascinating and irritating. Almost immediately, local musicians played Argentinean Tangos and European compositions with lyrics in their respective languages. The time of Tango “Schlager” was born, but suddenly stopped by the second world war. After the war, Europe was flooded with American Rock’n’Roll, so Tango was almost forgotten in the public. Looking at the far north of Europe, there was one big exception: Finland.
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04/12/2013
by Richard Stoll
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Tango in Poland

Following the Tangomania between 1910 and 1930 in Germany, England and France, other countries joined in as well, and Tango music became popular. One of these countries was Poland, where Tangos have been played in Polish language.
The whole story starts as early as 1913 [1] but the grand time of Polish Tango was in the late 20ies. In 1929 the famous Tango “Tango Milonga” (Lyrics and sheet [2]) was composed by Jerzy Petersburski and directly became an international hit with adaptations in German (“Oh Donna Clara”) and English (“Oh Donna Clara”). Lyrics were written by Andrzej Włast [3], the German lyrics came from Fritz Löhner-Beda and the English lyrics were translated by Irving Caesar and Jimmy Kennedy [4]. Originally the tango was written for Stanisława Nowicka.

Oh, Donna Clara,
I’ve seen you dancing tonight,
Oh, Donna Clara,
I’m in love with you!

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26/11/2013
by Richard Stoll
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Tango in Russia

Tango, both the dance and the Music, has been exported to Europe as a new product very early during the tangomania periods in the first two decades of the 20iest century. Soon after, Tangos have been played by European orchestras and singers. This popularity has inspired European artists not only to cover Argentinean classics, but also to create their own music with a typical flavour of their own country. Popular Artists came from Germany, Poland, Finland, Russia and Mediterranean countries. Let´s start a little series of blogs looking at these international offspring of our beloved Tango and start this journey in Russia.

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24/11/2013
by Richard Stoll
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OT El Afronte

Hi all,
Tango is usually seen as a culture located 60 years in the past, but it breathes in the present, both in terms of dance and music. So today I would like to introduce the Orquesta Tipica El Afronte. Staying in San Telmo and visiting the local Milongas, I have seen them playing at the Maldita Milonga at Peru 571 (greetings and thanks to Laura) and I actually was able to get their one and only (?) CD “Intimo Punal”.

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24/11/2013
by Richard Stoll
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Conventions on the Dancefloor

Hi all,
this is an article, I really wanted to write by myself, but unfortunately it already exists. So have a look and enjoy.

-Richard

http://www.neotango.de/index.php/de/blogs/dancing-conventions

P.S.: I disagree on the rejection of tandas but I can well do without cortinas. Anyway, a development of tension needs to be included by a DJ and organizing the playlist into paragraphs of similar music actually is a kind of tanda system.

22/10/2013
by Richard Stoll
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Soha: Mil pasos for Tango ?

What is the difference between Tango music and Nontango music ? I don´t know. It is probably very different to come even with a good musical definition of tango, which implies that defining the opposite will be difficult as well. Maybe Nontango music is music that does not sound like tango, does not involve the typical tango music instruments and has a completely different rhythm. I have seen that whole tango communities have disrupted themselves on music and playing nontango music on milongas, so I try to be very careful with this subject. Nonetheless, I would like to write about a really nice gem of Nontango music, which is played on milongas sometimes.

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21/10/2013
by Richard Stoll
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OT Fernandez Fierro

Tango Music is not always for the Milonga and it is also not always for tourists. My humble estimation is that only less than 40% of all tangos are for the dancefloor. So recently I was really puzzled, when I found out that a well known tango teacher did not know “Qrquesta Tipica Fernadez Fierro” (OTFF).

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17/10/2013
by Richard Stoll
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Style in Tangodancing – what´s behind that ?

So you tell me there is Tango and Tango and what ???

When we are starting to learn Tango (and especially when we think we have developed to  advanced tango dancers), we usually like to look at different advanced dancers on the dancefloor. We probably find out, that some people dance in different holds and some people are more flexible on using space on the dancefloor. I am not talking here about the usual difference between “Tango Argentino” and “European Ballroom Tango” because the latter is a completely different dance (both in terms of music and dancestyle).

Even looking around at a Milonga, we can see couples move in elegant hold, mainly with walking steps; other couples may dance in an open embrace focusing more on embellishments and energetic leg moves.

Asking knowledged people, they may tell us that these are different styles of Tango and now comes the very difficult moment, when we may be confronted with ideology, stubbornness and extremism. So let´s focus our looking glass on this problem.

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