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Some years ago, when Forever Tango (the original show, not the revival) was in full swing, KET aired a program of selected dancers, including Gavito and Marcela, with the "Boston Pops." The show was narrated by Leslie Caron and she related an item that stuck in my mind:

The first phonograph record of an instrumental recording that sold over 1 million copies was of a tango. (She was referring to those old "45s" that had 1 song on each side.) The tango was Jalousie. It was recorded by the Boston Symphony. However, to market the record they didn't want to use the Boston Symphony name. So they came up with a new name: the "Boston Pops Orchestra." Mike Marra

Jalousie: Hear one version here

And another version here

Tango/Dance Quotes

Carlos Gavito: "The secret of tango is in the moment of improvisation that happens between step and step. It is to make the impossible thing possible: to dance silence."

Jorge Luis Borges: "Without the streets nor dusks of Buenos Aires, a Tango cannot be written."

"Tango is about the embrace. If you dance ballroom, you hold your partner. But in tango we embrace the partner." Hector Falcon

Homer Ladas: "Here is the full tango cycle as I see it in simple terms: 1) Student, 2) Ego, 3)Apathy. Many of us cycle repeatedly thru these 3 phases, slowly or more rapidly, and in the end our fate is determined by where we settle."

From an interview with Robert Duvall, actor, age 79, published in Parade Magazine, July 25, 2010:
Q: Assassination Tango [2002] captured your fascination with the tango. Do you still dance?
A: Yes, sir. I practice the walk every day. You can learn a figure in 5 minutes, but it takes you 10 years to walk like an Argentine."

"In Tango you can lie, but you can't in Milonga- because of the tempo." Hector Falcon

"A good dancer is one who listens to the music…We dance the music not the steps. … What he cares about is that he follows the music. You see, we are painters. We paint the music with your feet." Carlos Gavito

"That which you have danced, nobody can take away from you." (unknown.)

"What's interesting is that for milongueros...Tango is power. For women - your butt is power." Ana Shapiro

"Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world." Voltaire

Susanna Miller: "What you lose in visibility, you gain in feeling."

Ana Shapiro: "To have a good dance, do not lead him...wait for him always - don't hurry and, only in the dance, be a geisha and relax into his body."

"Women do not 'follow,' they interpret signals they're given, with a keen responsiveness that is not passive. The follow role is mentally and physically active, like the flow state in sports." Richard Powers

"The tango can be debated, and we have debates over it, but it still encloses-as does all that which is truthful-a secret." Jorge Luis Borges

"Tango is great for people who don't get enough opportunities to get rejected in everyday life." Squeaky Frobisher

"When someone begins he can be dazzled by things that are external; the things of Tango are internal… A dancer arrives at the roots of the Tango when he falls in love." Eduardo Arquimba

"When you dance with a partner you are close and the dance is very suggestive, but it is not personal…Close is what the music inspires you to become." Carlos Gavito

"Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made." Ted Shawn

"The embrace looks personal, but what we are actually embracing is the music." Carlos Gavito

"People talk about styles of tango, but there is only one tango. It accommodates itself to every place and every era." Eduardo Arquimbau

"You need to have the luck of meeting a teacher who tells you: No. Look. You must walk. First walk." Miguel Zotto

"Tango can be danced in a thousand different ways, but let's step on the ground first, because that is where the energy comes from. Therefore this is where we ought to dance to the music." Tete (Pedro Rusconi)

"Without the music there is no dance, no tango, no teacher, no student." Tete (Pedro Rusconi)

"When I was young, I was always running after Tango. Now, Tango carries me." Pocho

"You know what happens to an alligator who sleeps: he becomes a wallet" (unknown) shared by Alejandro Gee

Osvaldo Natucci: "What we need are more people with sensitivity and fewer exhibitionists."

"Music and poetry exist in time; painting and architecture in space. But the dance lives at once in time and space." Curt Sachs

"If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it." Isadora Duncan

"I think those who say that you can't tango if you are not Argentine are mistaken. Tango was an immigrant music... so it does not have a nationality. It's only passport is feeling." Carlos Gavito

Kelly Posadas: "You know what we call dancers who do a big finish on the last note? Tourists."

Osvaldo Cartery: "When I walk on to the dancefloor I close my eyes. When I open them, the floor is completely red, filled with fragile red hearts. I step among them delicately, so as not to break them."

Links of interest