Carlos Gavito

“I see bad dancing and for me it’s an obscenity.”

On 6 January this year “La Milonga Argentina” is four years old..
Our dream as journalists was and is to reflect the modern tango-milonga scene, with its most outstanding creators.. It is the urban culture that speaks of our identity and, with all its riches and its limitations, we will always defend it. Thanks to all of you for supporting us in our aim and thanks to all those who, like us, love and work for tango.
As a symbol of that, we wanted to go back and republish the interview we did with Gavito in December 2004, for the magazine Ahora, of the newspaper Crónica. His wisdom and vision still have a lot to teach us and make us think…

Gavito is tango. His Quixotic figure – slim, fine and well-played - he looks as if he had been created in his image and likeness. “I’m from the south… I’m very much a southerner,” he repeats emotionally on evoking his neighborhood -Avellaneda, Sarandí [in the south of Greater Buenos Aires] - although he clarifies that “by chance” he was born in La Plata on 27 April 1942. As “no-one is a prophet in their own land,” a book on his life is to be published in Italy this month, telling his story as a thoroughbred milonguero, his travels worldwide, y and his unique style, really slowed-down and profound, which etches sentimental images on the memory of whoever sees him.

“In Forever Tango I was the least-applauded, but after seeing me dance people would go to the bathroom to weep,” and he said later... “The dances I do are the southern type. It’s a tango that has the smell of grass, earth, the smell of what’s ours.”
Carlos Eduardo Gávito, as it figures in his identity document, admits that he has spent time in Italy seeking out the origins of his surname, but “it’s confusing. The surname doesn’t appear anywhere. Possibly, due to the Immigration officials when my grandfather emigrated to Argentina…”
In his home and his studio, on Lima street in the 1100s, there are lots of photos of his long career: abroad, with different dancing partners, with dear friends like Pepito Avellaneda... and it is hard to separate his life from his artistry because they are one and the same.

“For me tango is a poem. I always say that I start to dance with a capital letter, then I make a comma, then a dot-dot-dot, then a question mark, next an exclamation mark, an accent and a full stop. That’s how I dance tango, step by step, and every movement is a step. Every movement! Because I’m a firm believer that tango isn’t a dance step but rather what’s between one step and the next, where there isn’t anything, where the silences are, where the memory is a the things you remembers. That’s why I dance differently.”

- Were you able to study as a child or did you have to work from early on?
- I’ve worked since I was a kid. At the age of 7 I was selling newspapers on the streets, I worked at fairs, in markets, with Pepito Avellaneda…

- How did you live your childhood, in your neighborhood…?
- My neighborhood? It was very poor. To get into my house there were pieces of cobblestones like stepping stones to jump from one to the next so as not to fall in the water that collected everywhere like a lagoon. That land was all backfilled with garbage, which we used to call “la quema” [the burnout]. But the greatest pride of my life are my parents, Tomás Gávito, 98, a  folksinger of the good old traditional Argentine rural style, amongst other trades and occupations, and Pilar Gómez, 91, both wonderful parents who managed to bring up six children in such a setting, well-educated, all of us have followed a career.

When were you aware of having contact with tango?
It’s a nice question… In fact, I really don’t know… I didn’t realize I had got myself into tango. I know I had a great tendency towards listening to the radio. At the age of 9 I told my mother: “I want to learn to play the badoneon” and I had lessons for some four years or so. The neighborhood kids used to poke fun of me and say: “leave off, we’re going to dance rock.” But I loved the sound of the bandoneon, I love that sound like weeping, that makes your heart thump, twisting your heart, it has a lament, it has the same aching pain that tango has.

When did you start going to dance?
Very young… I used to jump over the fence and the high wall there was between my house and the neighborhood club, escaping from my mother and putting on my brother’s long trousers. I used to see the real milongueros, who are anonymous and not famous. I have a very nice anecdote: I would have been 8 or 9, when I went to the Friulano club in Sarandí, I barely reached the stage with my elbows. The orchestra started and Morán and Pugliese were exchanging looks and at one point, Morán crouched down and started ruffling my head, and that’s when I realized he was weeping… Maybe that’s where tango began for me.

Gavito then became a professional dancer. He was a stage-hand at the Teatro Nacional for four years, he worked with Nélida Roca, Susana Brunetti, “but when I had nothing I worked washing dishes, when I was abroad, to feed my new-born little daughter, and I’d do it again because the sacrifice is worth the effort.”

- You have your own knowledge. How do you think the new dancers should be influenced?
They should think a bit more inside themselves instead of outwards. Not externalize the feeling, which externalizes itself naturally.

Are they teaching badly?
Yes, I say so with all my words. First, because most of them have changed their professions from something else to teaching tango because nowadays tango is marketing. Right now I say to them, please, think that it’s our heritage. I’m very Argentine and this infuriates me. I’m not afraid to speak out about things. Our heritage can’t be messed around with for personal gain or gratification, nor can it be sold. And if we sell it to foreigners, let’s do it well.

What’s the true tango…?
Either it’s tango, or it isn’t tango. Forgive me, the groupies and girlie followers, the young lads, but I don’t believe in the likes of Narcotango, and I mention them because they have as much musical value as if they had dedicated themselves to tango. It would be wonderful because there would be a succession, but as it is we’re losing because they want to invent new names when tango doesn’t need it. Leave things how they are, invent something else, I don’t know… mambo-rambo [“mambo” is the traditional gaucho folk-dance displaying great skill at footwork, also a slang word for a narcotic-induced stupor or “trip”]… whatever…

And evolution…?
Yes, but within tango. I don’t dance like El Cachafaz and Troilo didn’t play like Canaro, there was a tremendous evolution. And even Piazzolla said: “I play the music of Buenos Aires”. Why do they do music that doesn’t bear the name of tango and giving it a rhythm that isn’t the two-four of tango? The two-four isn’t heard now. And it happens to the dancing too.

Do they dance or learn badly?
They dance well, they have lots of technique, they do “hooks” here, hooks there, a tremendous fury and all of a sudden, because a violin solo comes, he takes the girl in his arms and kisses her. That’s a tremendous sham! You can’t go hammer and tongs at each other and then give her little kisses.

But there are some good examples…
Javier and Geraldine are an example in this new era because in spite of their youth, they have maturity.

¿Chicho Frúmboli?
He’s doing a tango that isn’t mature for him. He matured earlier and when he was dancing to Pugliese’s music I thought his improvisation was sensational, his creativity is fabulous, but now… It’s a new formula, which Gustavo Naveira created, a great dancer and excellent choreographer, but they went for a tango that isn’t from the feeling but the movement. That’s why I don’t do steps, I dance feeling, I move around freely, like a bird. I’m not tied to any memory because that would make me a computer.

And is that what happens with most of the dancers?
Without realizing it they make themselves into computers. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do movements, shapes, steps, but you have to avoid it to the utmost so that it doesn’t become preponderant in the dance but rather what’s inside.
The walk isn’t the choreographic phase because this is memory, it’s where the mind is frozen so as to be nothing more than the memory of the movement and not what encloses it, which has to be a feeling. This is where they all escape, where they go off at a tangent, where they lose their own value. I have no doubt at all that Naveira and Chicho have their values and creativity. Ah, I’d like to say to them “go to sleep and dance!... As you feel it, but without getting away from tango”. I’d like to say to them: “I’m sorry, lads, but if it’s true that tango’s a sad feeling that we dance, then that means it’s an emotion and not a movement. Analyze it, think about it, insult me, say what you like to me, but think about it. You’ll see I’m not so mistaken”. Their best tango when they dance is when it’s noticeable that it’s not studied, not imposed.

- Naveira told me the Argentines don’t know what’s happening with tango.
- It’s true. It’s not a dance, possibly, of the masses. It’s not a dance that’s becoming popular like it was before, it’s becoming more and more elitist. Why? Because it’s difficult to dance it.
In “Forever Tango” I was always the least applauded, but when I finished dancing the people would go out to the bathroom to have a good cry. Now, What do you prefer: to feel or to exploit? Sentimentality is noted as a weakness, but well, we’re all human. We can put on the face of a smart guy, but on the inside we’re very weak. Feelings tear us apart, we can die of sadness. Not of happiness.

- What was the most painful moment of your life within the milonga?
- There’s been many… I see bad dancing and for me it’s like an obscenity. A lack of respect for those who love tango. And I make a distinction between stage tango and social tango.

- Have you had many loves in the milonga?
- Yes, a great deal! Sometimes mutual, sometimes unrequited. At times it’s a passionate love affair. I’ve fallen for a look that could be like a caress. I’ve been married twice, both times to dancers.

- The milonga has its own codes and romances...
- I’d say that if you want to fall in love and get married don’t go to the milonga. And if you’re married, you have to be very careful not to break up the relationship because the milonga brings new emotions, many sensations, you realize you’re not so old, or it generates the enthusiasm to find the person and say: how come lost so many years of my life and never found you? And that’s when it’s dangerous. It’s a game, and it shouldn’t be a game. It should be a feeling. What’s nice is to go with your wife, take her in your arms and realize that you’re starting the relationship today. That’s the embrace. The embrace is what society’s lacking.

- Are you married now?
- No, separated. I have a daughter, Eva Carolina, of 17, who was born in Britain and lives there now in Scotland with her mother, Helen Cambell, she’s very Scottish. I nearly got married in the kilt, I didn’t want to put it on (He smiles).

And your first wife?
- Mirta, we were married for seventeen years, we danced our way round the world, three or four times.

- You were talking to me earlier about the chemistry in couples… That’s a mystery.
- Changing a partner is to change your way of living and being. Every time you change relationship, your personality changes. Regardless of their liking each other, that it’s a dancing relationship. Evidence of that was the ballet couple Margot Fonteyn and Nureyev: you saw them onstage and it was love dressed as dance. With Mirta I had speed, strength and youth, enthusiasm, sacrifice that didn’t cost me. Then came my second marriage partner, Helen, a dancer in the Royal Ballet. It was seriousness, professionalism. It cost me tears to teach her because she refused to accept my improvised style... Then, Marcelita (Durán) was a “boom”, immediate chemistry. I met her when I had a  milonga in London and she came with Forever Tango. We toured the world for seven years. That relationship represented the ambition of something that one seeks in life and finds without needing it to actually come about because it was never meant to be anything more than the dance. The dance was much stronger than the personal relationship.

- And María (Plazaola)?
- I started dancing with María three years ago. She’s very young for me, so I had to give my dancing a different look and another character, and that’s where it changed from the sensuality and passionate that it was with Marcela to the ingenuousness and purity that it is with María. The embrace is different, the look. She is a lovely woman, but I see that she could be my daughter. There’s a different affection, it’s the caress with the outer part of the hand. (He makes the gesture with his hand).

- Why is there so much divergence among dancers?
- Because we all want to be top, none of us is content to be third or fourth. And things have to come when they are deserved, otherwise, you’re falsely occupying a place that isn’t yours. When they put Gavito, number one, it makes me feel embarrassed because I don’t compete. Neither am I the competitor of anyone. I’m Gavito, that’s all.

- What’s your greatest concern as a teacher?
- I’m not teaching steps now, I’m teaching how not to bump into others in the milonga. Do what you like, but don’t bump into people, please! Because it makes going out to dance unpleasant. And it’s getting worse by the day, unless as teachers we become critical and don’t teach steps that can’t be done in the milonga. Leave the hooks and the kicks for onstage. People go to the milonga to enjoy not to suffer. There are girls that make you suffer because they dance on their own. They don’t even listen to the mark, and the embrace is tango, the feet are its vocabulary.

I image your health problems have influenced your life a lot. Do you want to talk about this?
- You can include it because it doesn’t upset me. They’re the consequences of life, some have bad teeth, others rheumatism, and OK, I have cancer. One they  successfully removed from the brain, that’s passed, and the other I have in the lungs. I find it a bit hard now, and I can’t dance milonga because it agitates me. But look at Rufino, with one lung, he was the best tango singer. Anything’s possible!.. My feelings are much stronger than knowing I have a terminal illness. Look, I’m 62 and I’m going to say a couple of words: Thank goodness death has let me live so much!

Silvia Rojas