NATACHA MURIEL

A TANGO HISTORY IN ARGENTINIAN CINEMA  (SEMINAR)

by Natacha Muriel

The seminar “A tango dance history in argentine cinema” presents a collection of Argentinian movies that composes a poetic history of the tango dance. This work is a result of a PhD thesis by Natacha Muriel López Gallucci in the Cinema Studies Department (DECINE) at Arts Institute of University of Campinas, Brazil.

In the origin of argentine cinema (1896) a "love story" between cinema and tango was born. Some directors (Ferreyra, Moglia Barth, Soficci, Romero, Morera, Del Carril, etc.) found inspiration in the circus shows to make the first silent movies; these artists performed folkloric dances – pericon, gato, chacarera and zamba - and urban dances – the milonga and the tango –. Those dances have been registered in film format since 1900 starting a long passionate relationship that lasts until today with directors like Leonardo Favio.

From silent movies (1986-1933) to the classical era (1933-1945) – the start of sound period of movies; from the modern cinema (1945-2006) – author cinema period – to the contemporary times (2006 to present), including recent Argentinian documentaries, we can verify how the choreographic styles in tango dance, step by step, was created. That is possible because cinema shows us gradually a codification of the body in ballroom tango and in the tango show. All those tango performances for the camera were created for great performers, actors and singers to be performed under the orientation of different esthetics. The movie directors offer the audience some important aesthetic and ideological ideas about limits and taboos of body expression in each moment of the country, showing some notions about gender and social classes formed in Argentina.

The research “Philosophy, Body and Cinema” developed by Natacha Muriel suggests that we can consider the Argentinian cinema as a testimonial and participant technology; very important to understand the Argentinian way of looking. Cinema becomes a poetic form of writing in images, present as a text of images from the past, that tells a history of the body in the Argentinian tango dance.