| The worldwide Tangomania at the beginning of the Twentieth Century was so massive as to be almost unimaginable.
There are records of Tango being
danced in Paris as early as 1907, but the passion for Tango shook the
elite of Paris in 1912, and until the outbreak of the First World War
the Tango was a powerful cultural force, catalysing changes in fashion
and in the mechanisms of social interaction, and influencing powerfully
the birth of Modern Ballroom dancing.
What was this Tango, that
played such a pivotal role in world culture, like? By the time the
Tango Revival began in Buenos Aires in the 1980s, there were no dancers
left who had been adults in 1912, when Tangomania began.
Certainly, the music was
significantly different from the music of the Golden Age, and while
many of the great tango melodies were written at this time, the rhythm
- the cornerstone of the dance - had a different swing.
Outside Argentina, as
Tangomania swept people up, the dance was talked about and discussed in
print by a wide range of people, from self-proclaimed experts, to
people proud of never having even seen the shocking dance, and a
variety of sources exist, giving tantalising glimpses of the dance.
Many of these sources are
obviously fanciful, and others are clearly influenced by a variety of
other dances and techniques. But as there is practically no record in
Argentina of how the Tango was danced at this time, the few reliable
European sources are the best guide to the authentic Tango in this
early, Canyengue period.
Wading through the original
material to find the occasional specks of gold that illuminate the real
nature of Tango in Argentina at that time is a massive job - made much
harder not just by the difficulty of locating these documents, rarely
stored in any but the most complete and exclusive academic libraries,
but also by the problem of trying to work out what someone really means
by the description they give of a step.
Christine Denniston
has spent many years studying Tango in great detail, always going back
to the most authentic sources. For her research in the styles of the
Golden Age she worked with a wide variety of dancers who danced in the
milongas of Buenos Aries at that time. For her research into the first
great age of Tango, she hunted down and examined a wide variety of
original sources.
Many of these sources are
obviously fanciful, and others are clearly influenced by a variety of
other dances and techniques. But as there is practically no record in
Argentina of how the Tango was danced at this time, the few reliable
European sources are the best guide to the authentic Tango in this
early, Canyengue period.
Christine says, "The Tango
that was danced in Paris, London and New York in 1913 and 1914 had its
origins in Buenos Aires and the authentic early Tango style. The
massive popularity of the dance meant that there were many teachers,
and some them had learned the Tango in Buenos Aires and danced it as it
was danced there. Sorting through the fanciful inventions of other
teachers and the additions from other dances, it is possible to get a
feel for the core of the real dance - a central body of steps that
probably came directly from Buenos Aires.
"Amongst the various sources I found, one stood out. That was Secrets of the Tango,
attributed to Samuel Beach Chester, but with figures supplied by a
young Argentine dancing professionally in London under the stage name
Juan Barrasa. The steps Sr. Barrasa presents seem to me to cover the
core movements of the Tango at that time, including the corte, so often mentioned in descriptions of the dance at this time."
The job of trying to work
out exactly what each author means by a description of a step is a
difficult and time consuming one. Christine has undertaken that work,
and has presented Juan Barrasa's steps in a really clear and useful
format, with simple animations that clarify exactly where the feet go.
We are delighted to be able
to make Christine's analysis of Tango at the height of Tangomania
available to anyone interested in the true history of this fascinating
dance, as Secrets of the Tango - 1914 by Christine Denniston.
And as the music is so vital
to understanding the dance, and since the music of that great period of
the Tango is not quite the same as the music most Tango dancers are
familiar with, Christine has carefully selected a fine recording from
the period to include with Secrets of the Tango - 1914 as part of the
electronic book, so that you can try the steps straight away with the
music with which they fit so perfectly and charmingly!
Secrets of the Tango - 1914 by Christine Denniston
is available on CD ROM or to download. Order the download now and in
minutes you could be learning the secrets of the dance that shook the
world.
Read more about Tango History
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