Milongas: The Seduction of Tango

I'm pleased to feature an audio slideshow titled "Milongas! The Seduction of Tango" of my still black & white photographs made in various tango halls and milongas of Buenos Aires during the week I spent there  teaching with the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop.

Note: You have two viewing options: either to view it as a Vimeo movie (above) or as a SoundSlides, which has better resolution images.

I am equally pleased in having broken many of my self-imposed rules which I religiously followed when producing such multimedia pieces. For this piece, I applied panning (Ken Burns effect) on a few occasions to give the semblance of motion, and to bring the eyes of the viewers to a specific part of the still. Rules are made to be broken, and I hope the photographers who attended my class do not take me too much to task for that.

"the silent and imperceptible gesture by men inviting women to dance..."

I chose to photograph the milongas and the tango at these venues for many reasons. Perhaps it was mainly because of my appreciation for international music, but as I observed the people who were at the milongas...I call them 'actors' because they were, wittingly or unwittingly, acting a part in a pre-ordained old fashioned ritual of almost courtship...the silent and imperceptible gesture by men inviting women to dance...I was reminded that their actions mirrored what occurs between men and women in their quotidian life.

I've also used only two audio tracks...one is by the legendary Carlos Gardel singing the beautiful A Media Luz, and a short poetic narration by Paula Acunzo, a Buenos Aires based photographer who attended my class, and is also a terrific tango dancer. She deserves much credit, not only for writing this evocative poem, but also for suffering some of us at the tango halls and milongas.

But back to A Media Luz....which means 'half-light'. I decided I'd use it as main soundtrack for the slideshow because I was humming it in Buenos Aires almost all the time...and because I photographed these images in the penumbra of the tango halls, and accentuated their darkness even further by vignetting some....so it seemed eminently appropriate.

So turn your speakers on...full volume...and enjoy the seduction of tango.

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Gardelito, The Tango Performer Of San Telmo

Photo  Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved (Click To Enlarge)

After the phenomenally successful Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Buenos Aires ended, and the raucous party(ies) waned in the wee hours of the night (or more accurately with the first rays of the sun), some sleep-deprived souls joined the Sunday throngs in San Telmo.

San Telmo is the oldest neighborhood of Buenos Aires. It is a well-preserved area and is characterized by its cafes, tango parlors, antique shops on cobblestone streets, which are often filled with artists and dancers.

Mervyn Leong, Syed Azahedi, Mariana Castro and myself met in the San Telmo main square where we ambled for a few hours, photographing the stalls, the vendors, the customers and the flaneurs. To the side of the square, we stumbled on a solo tango performer who called himself Gardelito, presumably after Carlos Gardel who was a singer, songwriter and actor, and is the most prominent figure in the history of tango. For one of his songs, click here.

Gardelito is an old hand working the crowds, sings and plays the guitar quite well and knows how to market himself. He displayed his washed out photographs on a wall behind him, and claimed he was interviewed by all the world's major newspapers.

As a footnote, there's little doubt in my mind that the Buenos Aires Foundry Photojournalism Workshop was the best one organized so far since it was started by Eric Beecroft in 2008. I will post more on this in a few days.

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