Tango Nuevo

6. Locating the Tango

6 Locating the Tango Tango is a contradiction in terms: even though tango is a transnational crossing of cultures, for many, tango remains a stable signifier of Argentine national identity. As a result of this paradox, many aficionados of tango resist all transnational implications where tango is concerned, insisting instead that tango is the unique reference of the symbolic identity and territory of Argentine culture. Erin Manning, Politics of Touch (2007) It seems to me that the tango is attractive, and it has a place in the world. And this place that it occupies in the world, it’s not as a representative of Argentina. It holds this place on its own, as a form of dance that is very useful and very necessary and very good for our modern way of life, in all parts of the world. To put it another way, it’s entirely likely that there are people in another country who dance tango, who not only don’t know that the tango is from Argentina, but aren’t even interested in where tango is from. (τ) Gustavo Naveira, Argentine, tango professional [Where does the tango exist?] In my heart, my mind, in a bar, Avenida Corrientes, the obelisk, Buenos Aires, in a meeting with friends, the couple. You have to be born here to feel the tango, or marry a porteño and live it through your children . (τ) Mariano Olman, Argentine, tango professional February 2008, Tango Café, Boston He drags my left foot to the side so that it rests, weightless yet present, on his right. ἀ e last notes of the music hang in the air, and I catch them, leaning my right shoulder in as I shift legs, slowly tracing my right foot up his calf until my knee bends beyond a full passé. As I exhale, it drops; he subtly shifts my weight and opens his left shoulder, inviting me to lunge ever so slightly into my right leg, to lean directly into his chest, my right arm curving in an upward arc in his left, as we each gaze diagonally downward to my left, poking fun and reveling in this clichéd tango pose. Merritt book.indb 143 8/23/12 11:23 AM 144 · Tango Nuevo ἀ e music is over, but he holds me for a second before releasing all but the tiniest grasp on my right hand. I smile, unwilling to jinx the moment with talk. He looks at me thoughtfully, then says something I’ve heard more than once recently: “Nobody here dances like you.” Funny, I don’t quite know what to make of it. Has Buenos Aires changed my dance that much? When I think back over my time there, it’s often easier to dwell on the negative: the sitting, the waiting, the wanting. ἀ e lows were as deep as the highs were, well, high. Especially during that first year, when I yo-yoed like an overeater on a fad diet. Of course, there was plenty of watching and a fair share of lessons, and eventually, some great dancing. After two years, it seems something has finally sunk in. ἀ en again, reducing my dance to the dance itself neglects all that I absorbed in Argentina. I’d come to the tango as a d ancer; even the anthropologist in me remained primarily focused on the tango as dance. But two years in Buenos Aires changed that. Over time, the memories of a life became enmeshed within the stories of the songs, so that the places they recount bring back the sites as I l ived them. Now, as Manzi’s horses move toward Centenera y Tabaré,1 I am inches from Tata Cedrón in Bar Turon, and then I, too, am descending into Pompeya, by way of Boedo and Parque Patricios, where the roads slope gently south; where the trees flower blue and Saturdays are tranquilo (quiet); where teenage boys hunch over cars—the likes of which I haven’t seen in twenty years—and soup up engines for date night; where little girls float on handlebars and abuelos (grandfathers) man bicycles in suspenders. Balloons ascend to the sky from tires, and I walk hand-inhand with a s trange painter who can’t hold still but constantly shifts, squeezes, and looks to make sure my hand is still there; who plays musical chairs each time we cross the street so that I am not on the side of traffic; who tells me of a childhood...