Author: Marcelo Solis

I was born in Argentina. Through my family and the community that saw my upbringing, I have been intimately involved with the culture of Tango all my life, and have been an Argentine Tango dance performer, choreographer and instructor for over 30 years. I profoundly love Tango dancing, music, and culture, particularly that of the Golden Era. I am a milonguero.

Jorge Vidal. Argentine Tango music at Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires. Marcelo Solis collection

“Puente Alsina” by Osvaldo Pugliese y su Orquesta Típica with Jorge Vidal, 1949

Listen to “Puente Alsina” by Osvaldo Pugliese y su Orquesta Típica with Jorge Vidal, 1949:

Jorge Vidal

Singer and composer
(12 August 1924 – 14 September 2010)

n the daily language that men use it is possible to find hints that mark some of their facets. That day of 1992 when I met with El Negro Jorge Vidal in his office, the first thing that he told me was: «Wait a minute that I have to go to the viorsi (toilet). And with this single word that is already out of fashion, even in old lunfardo, the guy was sketching his own portrait. When he returned he touched my shoulder: “Yes, brother, tell me…” And he sat down to please all my questions.

«From an early age I had a clear position towards life, concerning social and political matters. And I was very lucky, God was always on my side. There were many bitter times, characteristic of the humans, but I was putting them in a corner». And he finished his introduction with this hard sentence, without concessions, easy to express, but not so easy to take into practice: «Man should always have the interest to continue ahead and to keep on fighting. When he loses his capacity of astonishment, when there is nothing that may draw his attention, when he no longer has an interest that allows him to keep on living with enthusiasm and he doesn’t have strength to improve, well, he’d better kill himself.

«I was born in the neighborhood of Caballito… Continue reading at www.todotango.com….

“Muchacho” by Ángel D’Agostino y su Orquesta Típica with Ángel Vargas

Celedonio Flores

Poet and lyricist
(August 3, 1896 – July 28, 1947)

Born in Buenos Aires, in the Villa Crespo neighborhood, the place where natives and immigrants of various origins co-existed. His childhood and adolescence were spent in such a popular environment until he became, in his 20s, a very famous poet and lyric composer. His tangos, many times full of condemn, moral reflections and master descriptions of his characters, very much resorted to the lunfardo, the local argot/slang. Like other famous lyricists and composers, Flores was both an educated and popular poet. A bohemian, also a boxer. His most creative time extended until the early 30s, but his work survived.

In 1920, he sent to the then-published newspaper Última Hora a poem entitled Por la pinta, for which he received 5 pesos. But he would be much more rewarded when those verses called the attention of Carlos Gardel and his duet partner, José Razzano, who both composed the music. This is how the tango “Margot” was born: a bitter criticism of the humble, beautiful girl who adopts a French style and perverts to get rid of her poverty fate, arousing people’s feelings. Continue reading at www.todotango.com...

Marcelo-Solis-Argentine Tango dance classes for beginners, intermediate and advanced level. Argentine Tango dance Private lessons. one to one Argentine dance lessons. Argentine Tango dance lessons for couples. Argentine Tango Milongas and workshops.

Why Tango?

This article continues a previous article.

I do not want to idealize the “natural man”, but our civilization took away the graceful walk of an elegant hunter-gatherer, leaving us instead the limping of a wounded beast.

Is it too late for this realization?

At the individual level, aging poses a burden on us, making it more difficult, as time passes, to reconnect to our body, and with it, to the sensible aspects of our reality: shapes, colors, textures, smells, sensations, emotions, our sweat and that of others.

Our civilization, our education, train us, preferably, to be able to infer and deduce rather than perceive.

Still, perceiving is indispensable to our survival. But to the organization of our “modernized” societies it matters less that we develop good taste than that we are capable of accurate accounting.

Argentine Tango dance classes for beginners, intermediate and advanced level. Argentine Tango dance Private lessons. one to one Argentine dance lessons. Argentine Tango dance lessons for couples. Argentine Tango Milongas and workshops.

San Francisco Bay Area. Argentine Tango dance classes for beginners, intermediate and advanced level. Argentine Tango dance Private lessons. one to one Argentine dance lessons. Argentine Tango dance lessons for couples. Argentine Tango Milongas and workshops.

PUPI CASTELLO Y GRACIELA GOZALEZ. Maestros milongueros. Escuela de Tango de buenos Aires.

Puppy Castello dancing with Graciela Gonzalez (1999)

Confessions by Puppy Castello

By Irene Amuchástegui

He is one of those men who, when they step on the track dancing sharply, go on being so witty and funny just like five minutes before, when they were sprinkling the dancers with hilarious epithets from a nearby table. He possesses a devil’s laughter and a strong voice that he likes to thunder above the music for the joy of his friends and which means a shock for foreigners and unwary people. This, not precisely at all, discreet personality exacerbates a kind of gift for ubiquity which he has. Continue reading.

Milongueando in Buenos Aires

…there is world in which being friendly does not mean being agreeable nor disrespectful of differences, but rather encouraging the individual pursuit of excellence, a road and a goal that is accessible only to you, since we are all different by nature. In this world we learn by imitating, knowing that it will be impossible to be like those we imitate, since they already prevented us that it is not only impossible, but unethical. In this world we need to develop our own interpretation of beauty and demonstrate that it fits the community by concretely putting it into practice, in concrete actions. In this world your private life does not matter at all, as long as it does not interfere with the evolving public realm. In this world we are made aware, from the beginning, of the responsibility to be a role model for others. This world is absolutely transparent: we all know what we really need to know about each other, maintaining absolute respect for privacy (since it is not incumbent upon us), being that this transparency and the individual acceptance and respect of the codes of conduct established by the consent of the community, the checks and balances that maintain the cohesion of this world. This world does not measure success by quantifying your material wealth, but by the quality of your existence from the point of view of a creed that affirms the correspondence between ethics and aesthetics, not in words, but in concrete material actions that are visible, sensible, that occupy space and time.