Mario Abbati
The Tango Poetry & Literature of Rome
Mario Abbati
As a musical art form, tango is a harmonious fusion between music and text. Since the beginning, tango stimulated the sensitivity not only of composers and musicians, but also inspired many poets and writers. By definition, the Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges, made a fundamental contribution to twentieth-century planetary literature, during the years of his adolescence looking into the tango for the mythical roots of a country. The tango became a basin for gathering the creative rivulets that animated Buenos Aires at the beginning of the twentieth century. Many poets were inspired by the dance and its music. They became historjcal legends, among which are Homero Manzi, Enrique Santos Discépolo, Enrique Cadícamo, Cátulo Castillo, and the contemporary Horacio Ferrer.
In Italy, and in particular in Rome, tango took root with great tenacity. At the end of the twentieth century, the Argentine tango has landed once more. This short interval of time has been enough to confirm trends that athat had laid dormant for a long period. The evolution of the tango has always moved from the rhythmic and orchestral perspective tp be accompanied by a parallel literary ferment of poets, essayists and storytellers. The Roman expansion in tango literature has taken three separate directions: the trade magazines, books and literary competitions.
The most recent publication is el Tanguero magazine. IT was inspired both in format and contents by the homologue Tangauta of Buenos Aires. Conceived in Abruzzo, and l’ Aquila, it mainly distributed in Rome. El Tanguero published seventeen quarterly issues between 2010 and 2015. In addition to articles on facts and personalities of the tango, The magazine includes a regular column of stories, Tangueri Impossibili, and a space dedicated to tango book reviews.
The recent explosion of the tango phenomenon reached a peak in Rome around 2010. That led to the emergence of specialized tango magazines that have a dual purpose, historical and informative. On the one hand, the intention is to train professionals and non-experts in the theoretical and historical foundations of Argentine tango, through articles and testimonials from famous Argentine orchestra leaders, musicians, composers and dancers. On the other hand, to fill the need to keep the public updated on the rich program of current events, from the lessons scheduled in the numerous cities, including national and international festivals.
The first of these publications was the bimonthly magazine, Noi che di tango in tango, released for the first time in 1999. It was the organ of information for the initiatives of the Centro del Tango Argentino in Rome and offered important testimony during the early stages of the recent tango development in Rome.
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