,
Initially, the evening at the porches was
notable, both for its innovative music
qhich alternated between alternative
and traditional tangos, and the free
way that me and my friends would
dress We faced the dance experience
in a more modern way than the tradi-
tional milongas.
These evenings, at Piazza Augusto Im-
peratore were attended by some of the
greatest dancers in the world, including
Osvaldo and Miguel Angel Zotto,
Pablo Veron and dear old friend Car-
los Gavito. It was a great success, we
have been interviewed and appeared
many times national and international
television networks. the evening was in-
cluded among the 100 Things to do on
a Roman night.
Question 1: How, when and where did you realize your
idea of tango event that was different from the conven-
tional milongas? Fatima Scialdone: I came to tango for
work and not as a hobby, I was engaged
as an actress in projects abroad for Ital-
ian culture in the world. In 2007, I was
commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to produce
a trilogy on emigration and music . In the wake of this
experience, I and my friends Elio Paoloni and Franco
Giuliani founded the Tangoeventi Cultural Association;
My idea of tango was realized at Piazza Vittorio, where
we started a free tango event with the patronage of Em-
bassies of Argentina and Uruguay, and the Istituto Italo-
Latino Americano.
Cesare Magrini: It was in the beginning of the Summer
of 1998 when I realized that a few milongas were clos-
ing, because they were conceived as closed spaces offering
gloomy nights during most of the year, but not in the Sum-
mer. I was helped, above all morally, by a few friends like
Peter (last name?), Rafael (last name?), and Eduardo
Moyano, when I tried to organize a free and self-organizing
experimental evening at night at the arcades of Augusto
Imperatore Square with a car stereo and home hi-fi sys-
tem, using fuel ro charge car batteries. The plan worked, the
music felt fine, the marble floor was excellent, the yellow
lights of those beautiful porches and the setting in front
of the august mausoleum made those evenings unique. In
this place, I held free milonges free on Monday nights dur-
ing the Summer months, and sometimes in the Autumn, for
seventeen years. We launched the Notte di Tango sotto le Stelle di Roma,
which has now reached its tenth year. It has involved many
historic sites, such as il Palazzo dei Congressi dell’Eure,
il Campidoglio and la Stazione di Porta San Paolo. Later,
I created Tango Solidale dalle Scarpe Rosse. The universal
embrace of tango became a manifesto to oppose violence
against women, but also defend human rights, with events
at the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna, the Pala-
zzo Braschi and the Museo della Memoria on World
Shoah Day. I continue to mix tango and human rights in
the performances such as Napoli Buenos Aires Andata e
Ritorno, Un Tango per Evita and Cinemilonga. Audience
gances in the ballroom and in the foyer, continuing to live
the enchantment of the universal embrace even after the
curtain closes.
I asked each of them the same three questions about
the origins, the effects and the philosophy of their non-
conformist tango events.
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