Navigating through History

Singers, dancers, composers, curious people and addicts discovered in the web a place of meeting less noisy and real than the corners where San Juan and Boedo streets intersect.

Today we shall knock some of these doors to peek into the color and the virtual 2x4 beat.

In our country there is a great development of the sites devoted to tango themes, but this not only is a local phenomenon but also is seen multiplied by hundred of pages from the antipodes of the River Plate. We shall pull, at random, some of the virtual threads to together unweave the web.

A very interesting site to begin is Gotan, this page, devoted to Argentine city music, presents much information and is organized in a simple way. It has a section which under the label of History is interested in the etymology of the word Tango. In Lyrics, you can search for a great amount of tango poetry. In the Biographies section, the information about the life and work of tango singers, authors and composers. However, the Lunfardo section is the most amazing, because hundred of words, alphabetically organized,and now out of use, are "translated". The sections Porteño Neighborhoods and Other interesting places offer us the possibility of visiting the birthplace of the tango culture.

Portal del Tango offers us similar options to the above mentioned, but it is worth stopping at its catalog of titles that is large enough. The list of themes is organized alphabetically and in four columns, where Title, Lyric, Music and Year of composition is given. Clicking on some of them you can access to more data and anecdotes about the chosen person or work.

The latest news of the 2x4 can be discovered in Todo Tango. This page, declared of national interest, has an academic council and contributors of qualified experience in the subject. There is possible, while you navigate, to enjoy listening to complete versions of your favorite tangos, or investigate about the history of the genre, which encompasses from the Guardia Vieja (old stream), born with the century until the Vanguardia (avant garde) that started in the 50s. The Coleccionistas Porteños de Tango Association, besides has a section devoted to the great broadcaster of the genre, the radio, that broadcasts live on Saturdays and keeps the program for the ones who prefer to listen to it at other time and through the ciberway.

A site that reads in "permanent construction" is Buenos Aires Tango, there a Virtual Museum of tango is at work, and different cultural expressions that surround the subject matter of tango can be visited: plastic arts, literature, articles and essays. The menu offers, besides the mentioned museum, Shows, Interviews, Documents, Magazines and books, Events, Milongas and practice, Musicians, Tourism, Teaching, Tango Collectors and Lodging in Buenos Aires. What is true is that this varied menu is outstanding by the variety of links that suggests, and by the extensive bibliography organized by author and alphabetically.

Specialist in perceiving that "feeling that is danced" is Cybertango, an explorer in Spanish devoted to this subject. It is composed of 21 categories among which the following outstand: Tango shows, Magazines, Dancing rooms, Guides, Events, Radio, Television and History. The explorer offers a journey through time with text, images and sound.

In the web there are lots of sites devoted to the great personalities of tango, and certainly not all them are Argentine! Carlos Gardel, Astor Piazzolla, Juan de Dios Filiberto, Tita Merello, are just a few, among the many with recognition in the web. In most of these sites there is information about their life, audio, video and the titles by which they are mostly known. In the great spider web they added to these names dozens of other singers, and teachers of tango and milonga dancing that tell us their background and offer their services to an international audience. Beyond the Argentine borders, people and organizations attracted by our urban music are uncountable. In Canada, for example, is published a page, that we mentioned when we talked of Gardel, that organizes an enormous quantity of information: from the selection of the best tango records, photo albums of tango in Montreal, compilations of articles and the publication of a magazine of the genre.

There is also a great amount of European and American pages, such as Tango argentino in Europe that offer information in English and German. Only by clicking on some country of the old continent map, multiple roads are opened to enter the old world of the outskirts of town. That today has its base in Europe.

If this continent is not capable of representing the interest and present state of the tango world, we suggest reaching Tango around the world, a site in English that organizes links that lead to more than 30 countries of the globe; tango associations, places and people from China, Japan, Denmark, Mexico, Russia, Alaska and Turkey, to mention only a few. It has also a section devoted to the United States, where you can go from city to city of that country.

A particular vision of dancing is displayed in Puente al tango, since in its catalog there is an offer of instruction Videos, Cinema (related to this music, documentaries, etc.), Music (the old numbers and the new CDs), Books and souvenirs, besides links, where the different sites of Argentina and the United States, there made brothers, are organized.

In case you want to launch any idea or production about this subject, we hand you the address of one of the forums of discussion about tango, organized from Vancouver.

Hoping that you enjoy the trip, I say goodbye, until the next time.