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    I Wanted to Dance: Carlos Gavito: Life, Passion and Tango
    I Wanted to Dance: Carlos Gavito: Life, Passion and Tango
    I Wanted to Dance: Carlos Gavito: Life, Passion and Tango
    Ebook120 pages2 hours

    I Wanted to Dance: Carlos Gavito: Life, Passion and Tango

    By Ricardo Plazaola

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    CARLOS EDUARDO GAVITO (4/27/1943 – 7/1/2005) was born in La Plata, Argentina. He spent his youth in the barrio of Avellaneda (to the south of Greater Buenos Aires) and the rest of his life circling the globe.

    He traveled for more than forty years and visited more than ninety countries. He spoke English, Italian, French and Portuguese fluently and could make himself understood in German, Russian and Japanese. He was a universal man who took the tango from the barrio to the world.

    He began dancing not too long after he started to walk, and then there was no stopping him: tango, rock, folklore, Latin rhythms, swing. On stage and off, there was no dance he didn’t try. Over the years, he searched for his own place in the dance world, and then his own tango: the absolutely unique style that brought him to fame.

    In the mid 90s, after being out of Argentina for many years, he gained international renown with the company of Forever Tango and word got back to Buenos Aires. From then on, he was an important and imposing figure in the porteño milongas. Julio Fernández Baraibar, who wrote the prologue of the first Spanish edition of this book, said that any milonga that Gavito went to became “the milonga to attend,” and that when Gavito got up to dance, “the dance floor became transformed.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEnrico Massetti
    Release dateNov 4, 2014
    ISBN9781311999733
    I Wanted to Dance: Carlos Gavito: Life, Passion and Tango

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      Book preview

      I Wanted to Dance - Ricardo Plazaola

      Carlos Gavito: Life, passion and tango

      I Wanted to Dance

      Carlos Gavito: Life, passion and tango

      Translation by Karen Simon

      Copyright Plazaola, Ricardo 2014

      Published by Enrico Massetti Publishing

      All Rights Reserved

      Título orginal: Yo quería bailar, Carlos Gavito, vida, pasión y tango

      To Su, María, Diego, Lucía and Lola, for giving me so much

      With deepest thanks for the testimonies and graphic material provided by the beloved family of Carlos Gavito, by Hellen Campell and her daughter Eva, and by Carlos Morel and Jorge Juanatey. And a special thank you to my friend Baltrunas (arvydasbaltrunas@yahoo.com) for the beautiful cover illustration.

      PROLOGUE

      The first time I saw Carlos Gavito, I was impressed. It was around 1990, and I used to go dancing at the Akarense club. One night there he was, seated at a table along the dance floor, with his dignified posture and an intense look that suggested he was preoccupied with an idea, that he knew what he wanted, that he was searching for something in particular. Someone told me he was living in Scotland at the time, that he was working with folklore and tango, and that he was a very good dancer. After briefly making his acquaintance, we kept in touch on a regular basis, and he was the one who, in 1995 I believe, sent Sally Potter to study with me in Paris. Go study with Pablito, he said, he’s the best.

      A year later, when we were rehearsing for the film The Tango Lesson in La Galeria del Tango, where he was co-owner, I saw that he was doing the books for the studio. It seemed strange to me that such a vital guy was doing accounting. I noticed he had lost a lot of weight and seemed worried and vulnerable. That was when I discovered his intelligence and sensitivity. Afterward, he confided to me that he had gotten himself into a situation he didn’t know how to get out of. But he did get out because sometime later I learned he had turned things around and was about to be part of the show Forever Tango. He had begun to reconstruct his life and resume his true role, that of a great dancer.

      We crossed paths in 2003 in New York City. I had a full schedule and was dancing every night non-stop. I noticed he was observing me and finally he said to me, You changed your style again. The comment surprised me because although it was unexpected, it was also true. Every three or four years my style changes and evolves and not everyone can see that. But he did, and it pleased me that he took the trouble to tell me. For me, this reflected a generous attitude of awareness and recognition for a colleague’s evolution. Later, I realized that his comment also corresponded in some way to what he himself had been doing: reinventing himself, changing, improving, finding new keys to interpret this mysterious dance called tango.

      I also remember Carlos with affection because he was truly warm and affectionate. On more than one occasion, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, I love you, Pablo. His tango was spectacular, but not in the usual sense of the word. It was impressive for being implosive and dense, for drawing you toward him and making you try to enter his intensely personal world. He never attempted to impress you with vulgar tricks or exaggerated moves. His dance represented his own contradictions, was the manifestation of his personal paradox of suffering and pleasure, his way of overcoming misery and questioning the unknown, of blindly entering territories that only he could explore.

      Gavito created what very few have been able to do: a unique style, full of soul and impossible to imitate because it was the synthesis and logical conclusion of his many personal experiences, of a bohemian lifestyle, of a socio-cultural reality that belongs to Argentines and that is in danger of extinction. His style represents a personal substance that is hard to imagine today in light of the standardization process that the tango is now experiencing; it is a style that may very likely disappear because it is so difficult to transmit. For me, it is a shame that there are fewer and fewer people like him, people who have a personal truth they keep alive, who are able to inspire with what they have achieved themselves through their own authentic experiences.

      Gavito developed his dance at a time when the pure expression was not polluted by the desire to make tango into a business. It’s interesting to witness the transformation that tango is experiencing today, but it is also sad to observe its decline. Yes, there have always been trends, but in the past these were directly related to the teachings of a specific maestro. And not just anyone could be a maestro. It was not a self-proclaimed title. And it was a title that had to constantly be lived up to. There were unspoken rules that made order out of confusion. Each teacher was unique and therefore magical; there was something sacred in the air. Since it was important to keep expression unexaggerated, to do less, the tango tended to be more dance and fewer gymnastics. Dancers moved about, floated, spun like tops. Their movements flowed along the floor and the dancers surprised and enchanted us; narcissism seemed to be controlled by a conscious awareness on the part of the couple. Today, many claim to be someone by imitating someone. Mannerisms and gestures are unabashedly copied and appropriated without really knowing why, and many are self-proclaimed experts who allow themselves to criticize others through the anonymous medium of the Internet.

      I would like people to understand what Carlos Gavito brought to the tango and carried within himself: an essence, a truth, a humility, a capacity to work, a code of conduct, a madness, a love for tango that made him someone that will remain in history as an unparalleled individual, as the great Gavito that he was.

      Ricardo Plazaola’s book is an interesting contribution that helps the reader follow Gavito’s transformation process from youth with boundless energy and passion to a unique, precise, concentrated, solid dancer whose style was at times transparent, at times as dense as the wondrous charm of the tango itself.

      Pablo Veron

      THE BARRIO

      In memory, there is an instant, a single immovable light, dizziness.

      J.L. Borges

      He left his house at around nine p.m. That’s the way he remembers it, with astonishing precision, a long time afterward. His mother had sent him to buy a cup of sugar at the grocer. His brother Nelson and he were always eager to go out to buy something: their life was in the streets.

      When he got to the store, on the corner of Roca and Hernán Cortés, he didn’t see the door or the light over the sign; he saw much farther away, next to the liquor store. He saw the truck and its enormous shadow, and behind it, below the shadow, the four legs that were moving together in a circle. He stuck his head out from behind the gigantic wheel of the truck and observed.

      Two men were staring at each other, two duelists, two knives and, rolled around the arm of each man, a jacket or a rag to repel the thrusts. They aimed at each other, attacked each other, dodged each other…until a scream finally broke the panting of the combatants and the scuffling noise of shoes, and Carlitos trembled with fear.

      As he screamed, the man fell backward, shouting an insult. His attacker wiped off his knife with the rag from his arm and turned around, looking straight into the eyes of Carlitos and his brother: You kids…get out of here. And you didn’t see anything. They lowered their eyes when he passed and didn’t look at him as he left, walking slowly as if trying to quiet the thumping in his chest. The boys remained there, frozen, now fascinated by the bleeding body and the moans, and by a Good Samaritan running to find a doctor.

      I looked at the man, again and again, each time lowering my eyes…there was nothing more to see.

      A cold body. Blood on the pavement. Stagnant water. A faint light. Neighbors running into the street from their houses. Was it the last duel he would witness? Carlos Gavito was seven years old. I never forgot those eyes that could scarcely see beneath the hat brims hanging low over their forehead. Gavito tells the story now and opens his eyes wide, his own eyes. He is moved by this story of a young boy who witnessed a duel one night and, in a single specific moment, learned the meaning of fear, bravery, and death.

      Gavito was born on April 27 in La Plata, but spent his entire childhood in Avellaneda, on the yet undefined border between country and city, between farms and running water. That’s where he saw his last duel with knives. The tough guys, the individual knife fighters, disappeared and were replaced by thugs with pistols, organized and led by neighborhood bosses.

      The barrio consisted of single-floor houses, half of which were inhabited by middle-class European immigrants who had arrived sometime before. The

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