A personal approach to Tango history

Text: Anton Gazenbeek
Photos: Sergio Segura

My journey in tango started quite by accident. When I was only 13 years old I was walking down a small street in Den Haag in the Netherlands where I was born. It was a small street much like Florida in Buenos Aires where there were many small shops with their doors open inviting the public to enter. There were many music stores, CD shops, etc. As I was walking past one of them I heard a strange, beautiful music that I had never heard before. I remember very well how I froze in my tracks and stood there, frozen, listening. I was overwhelmed by the beauty and emotion of the music. I felt such a strong emotion, that I remember I felt a "thud" in my heart. From that moment on my life would change. I entered the store, asked the clerk what this beautiful yet foreign music was, and he replied, "It is Gardel". I had no idea what or who Gardel was and I wrote down that one word on a piece of paper.

A few days later I was researching on the Internet about Gardel (one could say I began to research and investigate tango from the very first day!). I found out who he was and I bought another Tango CD. This time with a mix of orchestras such as Pugliese, Di Sarli, D’arienzo. I became fascinated with each orchestra and wanted to know more. I wanted to know who was Pugliese? Who was D’arienzo? Where did they come from? When did they live? Where did they play? With whom? Why?

I later bought the soundtrack to the show Tango Argentino. An obsession with that show grew. As I was born in 1984 I never had an opportunity to see the show live (it debuted in 1983 in Paris). I listened to the CD thousands of times. I began to dream about the music. I asked myself, "At this point in the music what would the show have looked like? Who would have been dancing? What would they have been doing?" I looked at the small pictures of the dancers in the booklet that came with the CD and began to ask, "Who is this couple here with the woman in the fringe dress? Who is this couple here with the large man and slender woman?" I started to investigate – an investigation that continues to this day. Never did I imagine I would become an expert on the show, meet all the cast members, the creator, the designer, and befriend and work with them all.

One could say my first passion was tango music. The dance came later. As I felt this music so strongly inside, I wanted a way to express it. I couldn’t play an instrument, I certainly couldn’t sing, so the only thing left was to use my body as an instrument and learn to dance. That I did.

I, like all young people, was very young, very impatient and wanted to learn everything the first day. I was lucky enough to have a teacher who slowed me down and said, "Pibe, you have to learn how to walk before you run." So he made me first learn to follow like the men in Buenos Aires did in the 1940s, he made me do walking exercises back and forth across the room everyday for an hour, but these were the tools that turned me into the dancer that I am today. This was an important foundation.

As I learned to dance, I went out to the milongas 5, 6, 7 nights a week. I danced until I could dance no more. It became an overpowering obsession. I had found the love of my life. As each visiting tango teacher came to town, there I was to study with them: Copes, Rivarola, Gloria and Eduardo, Zotto, Milena, Guillermina, and many others. I, of course, had to learn to speak spanish to be able to communicate with them, and for four years I studied spanish in the university.

When I was 16, I took my first trip to Buenos Aires. I was living near Los Angeles at the time and was already dancing with Guillermina Quiroga. I had to give some classes with her in Porteno y Bailarin and she told me, "Anton, I am going to take you to meet someone very special." She took me to meet a man named Raul Bravo. Guille and I began to dance, he stood up, took one look at me, watched me like a hawk, and said, "Kid, I think we’re going to get along very well." He and I immediately started to dance together and had such fun. I studied with him all day long, everyday for 6 weeks until I had to return home. 

When I turned 18, I made the big decision to move to Buenos Aires. Alone. My parents supported my decision. They understood my life was tango and my life was here. When I arrived, I began to dance with Alicia Monti, who had just separated from Carlos Copello, her partner of 18 years. We trained everyday, began to perform in the Club del Vino with Nestor Marconi, Salgan, and the son of De Lio. All this of course, was a dream for a 19 year old dutch boy! We went on tour to Japan, China and Korea. Another dream.

Throughout all this time my dance career ran parallel to my research. I began to meet the legendary dancers and choreographers I had always dreamed of. I danced with them, listened to their stories, wrote everything down, and collected material. I began to amass an enormous collection of old videos, films, papers, photographs, magazines, newspapers, books, programs. I documented everything like a scientist and began to search for lost dancers, interview them, and try to piece together the history of tango. Many of these dancers had disappeared for many years from tango, had either died, or stopped dancing. It became very difficult to find them. But with tremendous determination and effort I found many of them. Dancers long forgotten by the youngsters of today, but figures who were the most important creators of tango 30, 40, 50 years ago. I became their friend, their disciple, their investigator.

After separating from Alicia, I met the photographer Sergio Segura who was already a recognized project leader, event producer and organizer. He became interested in the investigation I had been doing and introduced me to Natalie Laruccia, a young dancer. When I first met Sergio and Natalie, they were sceptical as well. They did not believe the things I was telling them about tango. They said, "Oh, this Dutch boy is crazy!" They, like many, had only been exposed to the new tango of the last five years. But when I showed them what I had in my boxes, they quickly changed. They had never seen what I was showing them. They never knew this side of tango existed.

Sergio said, "Anton, you must show this to the world!" and with his help, we did. We made our first tour to Japan and the USA in 2005. The tour consisted of lectures on the history of tango with rare videos, historic tango dance recreations in period costumes, workshops and master classes in historic styles of tango, and the presentation of "The Anthropology of Tango Dance", an educational multi-media show based on the evolution of tango dance presented with great success in Houston, Texas. As we traveled the world, teaching, performing, lecturing, we learned that there was a great deal of ignorance and misinformation about tango all over the world and especially in Buenos Aires. Many people did not know who Copes or Virulazo, or Todaro was. They were focused only on the young, "fashionable" dancers of today. We took it upon ourselves to change that. To educate them. To show them what we had found in Buenos Aires.

In 2006, together with Sergio, we created the "Argentine Tango Cultural Tour". In May of that year we returned for a four month tour of the USA in which we presented the tour with great success in many cities across the country. On returning to Buenos Aires, our team always continued researching. With the help of Sergio's production company we produced three teaching DVDs. The Fundamentals of Social Argentine Tango Vol. 1 was filmed in the historic club Sin Rumbo in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Villa Urquiza. We began to teach regular classes in Sin Rumbo, which for us was a great honor for us as the only teachers who taught there were Lampazo, Rodolfo and Maria Cieri, and the son of Virulazo. Sergio began to promote the club internationally in an effort to support the club. The products we created helped to spread our message across the world and at the same time create an awareness for authentic, lost tango styles.

In October 2006 I was invited to perform and give lectures in the World Tango Festival together with Maria Nieves, Gloria and Eduardo, El Indio, Tete and Silvia, among others.

Sergio has proven to become an important producer in the tango world and he has turned my passion, my ideas into opportunities I never dreamed possible. He and I work as a team in all the interviews, research, and investigations that we do. As I concentrate mainly on the man's perspective of tango, Natalie concentrates on the woman's perspective on tango. Just as I can tell you every mannerism of Copes from 1959 until 2006, she can tell you every mannerism of Maria Nieves from 1959 until 2006. I see through a man's eyes, she sees through a woman's eyes. Natalie and I have our heads in the clouds. Sergio is firmly planted on the ground. Thank goodness!

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December 2006