Tango, The Dance of the Night

by photographer Adriana Groisman
2000 FiftyCrows PhotoFund Winner

Tango, The Dance of the Night, records the world of the milongas—traditional Argentinean tango balls—and their patrons, the milongueros. The milongueros constitute a unique sub-culture which has its own highly encoded rules of behavior. These codes are a reflection of a certain street-smart, bitter, melancholic yet passionate view of the world, with its particular ethical and aesthetic values. They are the result of tango’s history as the dance of displaced people—first the African slaves, then the criollos moving out from rural areas, later the Spanish and Italian immigrants living in suburban slums. It was co-opted by the upper classes and glamorized by Europeans, but never lost its presence in the poor neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. Today, tango is undergoing a massive rediscovery by younger middle-class Argentineans, and the international entertainment industry. As a result, the traditional characteristics of the world of the milongueros are being altered. This project attempts to record the subtle elements that define the psychological and social environment of the traditional milonga before it is changed forever by the aging of the old-time milongueros and the advent of new values.

Each night at the milonga is a dramatic cycle in itself, an erotically charged arena where issues of power and gender are played out. Fleeting relationships, alliances, rivalries, jealousies and games of seduction occur, leading to the encounters on the dance floor. These negotiations are carried out through furtive glances and minute gestures, parts of a ritual that can go completely unnoticed by outsiders. Milongueros tend to speak very little; even if they have been dancing with each other for years, they never ask each other’s last names, addresses or professions. This is one of the unspoken rules of the “real” milongueros. At the milonga, class, age, political views and appearances recede. The dancing is what counts, the connection between body and body, the feeling for the music. Even the invitation to dance is never verbal. Rather, this is done through a complex series of interlocking gazes and body attitudes. Part of what I aim to capture in this project is this unique cultural mode of communication and its loaded yet delicate body language.

I started this particular project about two and a half years ago, which I believe has a unique personal vision of the world of milongueros. I have turned to black and white, since color tends to convey a version of tango  that comes across as too glamorous and “for export”. I have developed a mehod of working that relies on the implicit trust and concensus between photographer and photographed. It happens in the same cunning, silent way as all other negotiaitons among milongueros.

Although the photographs I have taken in this past year succeed in approaching the emotional tone I am striving for, I am also acutely aware that I have come to understand more about the milongueros and to see more of the subtle workings of the milonga than I have yet managed to capture in photographic images.  In the future, I plan to take this project into a stage of completion by continuing to fine-tune the process of photographing the milongueros while also collecting, transcribing, and organizing their oral testimonies.