from Carlos Gardel to Astor Piazzolla, Music and Dance mixed, André Manoukian delivers a love tribute to this culture that has become the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
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This immersion in Tango culture, music and dance mixed, is led by André Manoukian. He pilots this film, written and directed by Nathan Benisty, by introducing and commenting, not without ardor, the different sequences. From the evocation of Carlos Gardel (1890-1935) and his famous Volver, created in 1934, to that, long and rich, of Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) -of which many hits irrigate the documentary -, this bias Gives the original tone of this documented and educational escape, in this abundant world born on the banks of the Rio de la Plata, in Buenos Aires (Argentina), but also in Montevideo (Uruguay), at the end of the XIX e century.
Chronological progression first recalls the various origins of the word “tango”. He is the enclosure in which Africans were waiting before being sold in slavery, then became the feast of slaves in Buenos Aires. But it is also said that it is a derivative of the Spanish word “Tambor” which means “drum”. Curiously, underlines Manoukian, no percussion in the traditional orchestras which pack a movement whose roots would be the Cuban habanera, but also the waltz and certain peasant dances in the south of Europe.
The story is based on many archive images. In 1914, when the First World War broke out in Europe, tango, danced between men by the thugs of Buenos Aires, in a city populated by immigrants where women only composed a quarter of the population, began to fix its Codes. He becomes this intensely sophisticated and sexual step whose learning requires patience and meticulousness, as well as impeccable talent for partnership.
quirky gestures
The musical and choreographic illustrations that punctuate the film sometimes give pride of place to offbeat gestures. That of the choreographer Maurice Béjart (1927-2007), who interpreted a tango in the 1970s, or that, more contemporary, of Bruno Bouché, director of the Ballet of the National Rhine Opera, underline the way in which the tango swam in The creations and directories of all styles. From jazz to electro, from rock variety, Charles Trenet, Tino Rossi, Enrico Macias but also Bernard Lavilliers or Imany have slipped into his flexible and heckled rates.
Closer to a television program, moreover, tango in all its states is savoring as a love tribute to this culture, which has become the intangible cultural heritage of humanity at UNESCO since 2009, and whose fans have multiply worldwide. Still lacking in this program a real “atmosphere mouth”, that of the many Milongas de Buenos Aires where dancers of all ages and countries find themselves in the elbow to get into graying of its madly tangled steps.