Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get
that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s
happiness, glad of other men’s good, content with my
harm, and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes
graze and my lambs suck.

William Shakespeare > As You Like It > Act 3, Scene 2

Ka Ora! Ka Ora!

It is death! It is death!

It is life! It is life!¹

For those taken up with tango, it is more than just “a sad feeling that is danced”.

It is life! It is life!

It is death! It is death!

Ka Ora! Ka Ora!

Ka Mate! Ka Mate!

[Who'd have thought you could link rugby with tango, but in this city even tango stops for the 30th anniversary rematch of the only provincial team to beat the New Zealand All Blacks. (1978 Munster 12-0 New Zealand, for those that didn't know.)]

¹New Zealand All Blacks Hacka

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“Listening while conducting… follow as well as lead”

“having something to say”

“Rhythm, colour, style, shape and phrasing”

“give the room, the space, the invitation”

“learning the gestures like an actor learns the lines, I want to hear what you have to say”

My money is on Sue Perkins, especially after her rendition of Danny Elfmans theme to the Simpsons.

Before a camera is even touched much of the hard work of photography is done. The elements that make a photograph – those of location finding, pre-visualising, composing and planning – all come before a lens is fitted. The only equipment needed for these crucial steps are a pair of photographer’s eyes. Training those eyes to see potential in a location, envisaging how  a scene could look, appreciating the nuances of light, motion, colour, perspective and composition, is what photography is all about. Developing that vision is a journey that never ends.

David Noton, Waiting for the Light

I understand this statement as a photographer. I can translate that sense of vision into how I dance. Just how to engender that sense of vision in others, I don’t know.

It’s the old chestnut about tango beginning in the brothels of Buenos Aires, a typical version coming from the BBC News

Tango was born at the end of the 19th Century in the brothels and bars of Buenos Aires when men, in simulated knife fights, danced with other men.

The same kind of line is trotted out every time a celebrity dancing show features tango, be it ballroom or argentine. In these instances they are partially excusable because such lines are “like a lamppost to a drunk, more for support than illumination”. Where they are not excusable is when they are trotted out by those deeply involved in argentine tango. People who should be able to describe the origins of the dance with something other than the caricature. People who know that the benefits of dancing the tango are far much more than the opportunity to play pimp and prostitute.

The whole idea that the tango was danced as some sort of prelude with the prostitute never really sat well with me. She makes her money (and that of her pimp or brothel keeper) on her back and not by tripping the light fandango. I normally counter this argument by pointing out that the church was against the tango. It’s not that difficult to take a statement from the pulpit along the lines of “I don’t want you visiting places where the tango is danced as they are frequented by women of low morals” and twist it into “if you are dancing tango with a woman then she must be a prostitute”. Similar connections were made about the travelling houses in Ireland by the priesthood. Very against excessive socialising, they were. The problem being it was the priests who kept notes and not the tango dancers.

But then I read an article about waiting in line on a busy Saturday night at an albergue transitorio or Telo. It makes some sense for the prostitutes to dance with the clients if there aren’t enough serviceable rooms for the available number of prostitutes. Select a girl and while away the time it takes for a room to become available dancing. It may have been a way to get some money out of those who didn’t have enough change for the other services.

Whether or not this was the case is irrelevant. Constantly harping on about the goings on in the brothels of Buenos Aires just covers up for the fact that the sensuous nature of the tango is just as valid for everyone. I am not denying that tango was danced in the multitudinous brothels and whorehouses of Buenos Aires. But it did not start there. It passed through, in much the same way that many statesmen pass through brothels in their youth. The only thing that starts in a brothel is an outbreak of syphilis.

The title of this post is that of the chapter of Saturn’s Childern by Charles Stross which I was coincidentally reading at the time of this post.

J.J. was the President of the Admiral William Brown Society, (founder of the Argentine Navy and born in Foxford). He worked endlessly and tirelessly to forge, maintain and highlight links between Ireland and Argentina, which is residence to the largest Irish diaspora in a non-english speaking counrty. Without J.J. we would have no statues to Armiral Brown in Ireland, a man who is honoured with streets, statues and schools in nearly every Argentine town and city.

He passed away while on holiday in Dubai visiting his daughter in the company of his wife having suffered cardiac arrest.