The history of the tango. Tango, that “reptile from the brothels”, is making a comeback

The history of the tango

A sense of where you were

Tango, that “reptile from the brothels”, is making a comeback

TAXI-DRIVERS in Beijing have Mao Zedong as their talisman. In Buenos Aires, Jorge Malcinas has hanging from his rear-view mirror a picture of the late Osvaldo Pugliese, the great bandleader of tango. Indeed, the driver has dozens of pictures of Pugliese to bring him good luck: about the cab, his person and his house. He needs them more than most mortals do, he explains, for he lives a stone's throw from the house of Carlos Menem, Argentina's ex-president, who is widely reckoned to bring “the curse” to anyone with whom he comes into contact. Mr Menem used to be banned from attending matches of both his favourite football team, River Plate, and the national side, because of the perceived ill effects he brings.

Mr Menem himself might usefully seek to have some of Pugliese's powers rub off on him. That is what Juan Domingo Peron, Argentina's flawed if charismatic leader, did. When he returned to power in 1973, Peron begged Pugliese to forgive him for his past mistreatment of him. Pugliese used to wear his pyjamas under his tuxedo in anticipation of arrest, for—perhaps because he was a staunch communist—he liked his creature comforts in jail. Whenever he was in prison, his band would place a red carnation in a bottle on top of his unmanned piano.

On any day of the week, lovers of tango can dance to Pugliese's classic, “La yumba”, in Buenos Aires, Montevideo, New York, London, Madrid, Paris, Amsterdam, Helsinki or Tokyo. Dozens of other cities, including Beijing, hold milongas, get-togethers at which both tangos and milongas are danced, at least once or twice a week. At these, there is always an itinerant or two—a banker in town to work on some deal, an exchange student, an actor, a mother visiting her daughter—whose passion for tango has led them, perhaps through the Internet, to this spot. No one needs, or wants, to press people on their background. At a milonga, it is enough to share this madness for tango.

But what is tango? The commonest description—the vertical expression of a horizontal desire—is the least adequate: that applies to nearly all dances. “A sad thought you can dance”, a comment on the wall of the National Academy of Tango in Buenos Aires, is closer to the mark, though tango was not always a sad or even a nostalgic music, and can certainly be a joyful one. Besides, though Luis Alposta, a poet of tango, is surely right when he says that the tango is “the most beautiful dance in the world for couples”, he is quick to point out that tango has three elements: music and song as well as dance.

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