Unabashed Tango talk by Alberto Paz Copyright (c) 1998-2011, Planet Tango. All Rights Reserved Friday, July 10, 1998, 4:30 PM, the Tango Week classes have ended but many tired feet lead to the conference room where in a few minutes, Nito Garcia, Pupi Castello and Roberto Reis will hold the last afternoon Tango talk with [...]

The notion of the existence of a rioplatense tango has been peculiar to the River Plate region. Whatever the motivations, Uruguayans have used the universal success of La cumparsita (originally written as a second line parade march for carnival and later redressed and arranged as a tango by Roberto Firpo), as a good enough reason [...]

It took more than a century but the controversial claim that tango was first danced between men has finally been proven and verified. It turned out to be that a few special men danced with men the dances that men and women danced openly around the city. While a hundred years ago, the men dancing [...]

What monkeys see, monkeys shouldn’t do By Alberto Paz The tango tourist travels either physically or imaginatively into the universe of a tango that promises to fulfill a desire to escape and perform, to swap one’s identity with that of the “exotic other.” They see or hear buzz words about certain traditions or cultural traits [...]

The divine poet of the jailhouse By Alberto Paz Copyright (c) 2000-2012, Planet Tango. All Rights Reserved At around 6 in the morning on March 30, 1910, three British sailors witnessed a knife fight among a group of five men who had spent the whole night drinking and dancing at Cafe La Loba Chica, steps [...]

No minor allowed By Alberto Paz Almost every time an elder habitue of the milongas in Buenos Aires goes “on tour” (insider euphemism for passing away) a perennial myth is recycled . The one about this or that dancer [who] “began dancing at age 14.” Assumptions about a teenager making the rounds of the milongas [...]

She wants to live to be 100 By Gaspar Zimerman Copyright (c) 2009, Clarin. All Rights Reserved At 97 she still in full swing. A nature’s prodigy, the legendary singer recalls her intense life, talks about her love with Homero Manzi and her friendship with Evita, defends the Kirchners and refers to her relation with [...]

The junta couldn’t kill it By Alberto Paz Today March 24, 2009 marks the 33rd anniversary of the military coup that overthrew the government of Vice President Estela Martinez de Peron and thus began one of the darkest periods of political, economic, and social unrest in Argentina’s  history.  It was a horrifying time span of [...]

A mythical cafe By Alberto Paz With the discovery of the brick floor of a building half a meter below the surface on the corner of Figueroa Alcorta and Sarmiento across the Planetarium in Palermo, a group of archeologists have fueled a lot of excitement among the fans of tango tales and those who repeat [...]

by Andy Doubt Raiser London, November 2008 The claims that the population of African origin in Argentina was exterminated in an act of genocide are absurd and they deserve a place next to extraterrestrial kidnappings and the staging of the moon landing in an Arizona undisclosed location, under the heading of looney tunes hoaxes. Currently [...]