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ABSTRACT
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) rarely appear in any analysis of the global diffusion of Argentine tango. Yet, writers, musicians, singers, and dancers from the MENA region have long contributed to and drawn from tango as a cultural phenomenon in complex and multi-layered ways, as this essay demonstrates through a select taxonomy of historical, literary, musical, and dance encounters that culminates with a cross-cultural dialogue between Borges’ analysis of the One Thousand and One Nights and the theology of Sufism in order to theorise the ineffable experience of the dance and the profundity of its music and lyric dimensions. Through a contrapuntal methodology that draws on my dual experience as a tango dancer and DJ, and as a literary and cultural historian of the MENA region, I explore these encounters and entanglements as opening new embodied pathways for South-South solidarity engendered through transnational “translations” of music and dance.
Acknowledgements
Thanks go to the following people for their co-operation and scholarly generosity: Emir Fares; José Díaz Díez; Sarah Irving; Chris Silver; Feras Alkabani; Madonna Kalousian; Maira Mazali; Elaine Newton-Bruzza; my reviewers; and last but not least, Ananya Jahanara Kabir and the ERC-funded Modern Moves project.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Kirsty Bennett is a final-year PhD student in the Department of Languages and Cultures, and an Associate Lecturer in the Department of History, at Lancaster University, and the editorial assistant for the journal, Contemporary Levant.
Notes
1 Puntazo is Spanish for the knife wound from an assault. The soldier's choice of music is an apt reference to a conflict situation between men. The name of the song, in context of tango, refers to the knife-fights amongst the immigrant men in downtown Buenos Aires, where tango was born. This image of men fighting with knives is often represented in films about tango. See Carlos Saura's Tango as an example.
2 Interview with Fares by Escales in El Periódico, “Soy bailarín de tango, argentino y musulmán.”
3 For a discussion of stereotypes of Latinity and Orientalism see, Bennett, “Spectres of Desire.”
4 Quote from personal interview with Emir Fares; dabke is a folk-dance native to Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, amongst others.
5 See, for example, Fahrenthold, Between the Ottomans; Gualtieri, Arab Routes; Gutman, The Politics of Armenian Migration; Pastor, The Mexican Mahjar.
6 See Civantos, Between Argentines and Arabs.
7 Valiente, Encyclopedia of Tango, 1.
8 Mernissi, Dreams of Trespass, 86.
9 For a history of Fairouz, the Rahbani Brothers and the Baalbeck Festival, see Stone, Popular Culture and Nationalism. Whilst acknowledging the cultural nuances and complexities of the field, the focus of my essay is not Lebanese nationalism.
10 The music for “La Cumparsita” was composed c. 1915–1916 by Gerardo Hernán Matos Rodríguez, of Montevideo, Uruguay. It was first recorded by Roberto Firpo in 1916 for Odeón, No. 483. Cumparsita is the diminutive of cumparsa, the Lunfardo dialect variation of the Spanish word comparsa. It refers to a set of people attending carnivals wearing similar fashion or outfits, and is frequently used within Latin American song lyrics across musical genres to represent festivity. The song is an example of the complicated shared history of tango between the two cities of the Rio de la Plata estuary, Buenos Aires and Montevideo, and the consequent claims on that history by both Uruguay and Argentina; see Andrews, Blackness in a White Nation.
11 Davies, Dancing Tango and Fitch, Global Tangos.
12 See also, Washabaugh, ed., The Passion of Music and Dance.
13 See Kozma, Schayech, and Wishnitzer, eds., A Global Middle East, for an in-depth analysis of the first wave of globalisation.
14 The concept of trans(post)colonial collaborations is informed by Kabir and Johnson. See Johnson's book, The Fear of French Negroes, and Kabir's article, “Plantation, Archive, Stage.”
15 See Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and Daley, eds., Routledge Handbook of South-South Relations for the different usages, definitions, and debates on the term “global South.”
16 See Rossi, Cosas de Negros, and Savigliano's discussion of these Argentine sources in chapter two of The Political Economy of Passion; Chasteen, “Black Kings, Blackface Carnival”; and Karush, “Blackness in Argentina.”
17 Thompson, Tango, 54.
18 Ibid.
19 Civantos, Between Argentines and Arabs, 6.
20 See Jozami, “The Manifestation of Islam in Argentina,” 70–75, and Domingues da Silva et al., “The Transatlantic Muslim Diaspora” for statistics on Muslims in Argentina; also Salameh, Language, Memory, and Identity, for a detailed analysis of Muslim, Christian, and Arab identities in the Middle East, with a focus on Lebanon.
21 Civantos, Between Argentines and Arabs, 6.
22 Ibid., 7; see the Argentine Embassy's webpage, “Programa Siria”: https://www.argentina.gob.ar/programa-siria; accessed 31 October 2019.
23 Galindo et al, “Diversity Behind Unity,” 139; Ballofet, “Argentine and Egyptian History Entangled,” 3.
24 Borges, Seven Nights, 42.
25 For early oriental-ist appropriations by European tango lovers applied to tango steps (pas oriental a la gauche) and tango fashion and make-up, see Savigliano, The Political Economy of Passion, 123, 125.
26 Galindo et al., “Diversity Behind Unity,” 139.
27 Baeza, “Palestinians in Latin America,” 60.
28 Interview with the Disparis by Neumaier, “Jorge Dispari y Marita ‘La Turca’,” Soy Milonguera.
29 Sabá, The Quest for the Embrace, 147. The Sin Rumbo milonga closed at the end of 2018.
30 Blogdeblog; interview with Podestá by Amabile, “El tango es muy argentine.”
31 Lavocah, Tango Masters, 89.
32 See Civantos, “Ali Bla Bla's Double-Edged Sword,” 110. See also Velcamp, “The Historiography of Arab Immigration to Argentina.”
33 Civantos, “Ali Bla Bla's Double-Edged Sword,” 116. Civantos examines the role of orientalism and Menem's negotiation of identity.
34 Gallotta, “En un área multicultural de Buenos Aires.”
35 Civantos explores the literary representation of the turcos in her article, “El barrio turco.” She examines the representation of the Syrian-Lebanese immigrant in Hispanic modernismo literature.
36 Said, Orientalism, 291.
37 Dolar in the introduction to Grosrichard, The Sultan's Court, x.
38 See Zalko, París-Buenos Aires, and Humbert, “El tango en París.”
39 Denniston, The Meaning of Tango, 81.
40 See Denning, Noise Uprising, for an in-depth analysis of the musical revolution that exploded from port cities such as Buenos Aires and their trade routes in the 1920s.
41 Translated into English as Facundo or, Civilization and Barbarism. See Sarmiento, Facundo, 20.
42 Ibid., 15.
43 Civantos, Between Argentines and Arabs, 36.
44 Savigliano, The Political Economy of Passion, 24.
45 Matsuda, Memory of the Modern, 197.
46 Civantos, Between Argentines and Arabs, 37.
47 Sarmiento, Facundo, 14–15.
48 Civantos, Between Argentines and Arabs, 39.
49 Ibid.
50 See Teo, Desert Passions, chapter two, 68–87.
51 Gargano, “English Sheikhs,” 171.
52 Ibid. See also Deal, “‘Throbb[ing]’.”
53 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was directed by Rex Ingram; screenplay by June Mathis.
54 Borges, On Argentina, 25.
55 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was released in March 1921 and The Sheik was released in October 1921.
56 Thompson, Art History of Love, 15.
57 The tango scene with Valentino from the silent film is available online with various soundtracks added – this one is with the 1930s music of Canaro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4ELzf0u7Q8
58 Sabá states that a fusion between dances was common: polka-mazurka, vals-mazurka, and tango-vals, The Quest for the Embrace, 35.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
61 See, for example, Savigliano, The Political Economy of Passion, 130–134.
62 Thompson, Art History of Love, 15.
63 To paraphrase Dolar in the introduction to Grosrichard, The Sultan's Court, xix.
64 Mernissi describes a vision of this “ew Arab world” in her chapter “Asmahan, the Singing Princess,” Dreams of Trespass, 111.
65 See Zuhur, “Asmahan: Arab Musical Performance,” 81.
66 Zuhur describes, in the introduction to her scholarly study of Asmahan, the impact of first hearing Asmahan sing. It was the song “Ya Habibi Ta ‘al al-Haqni” which she describes aptly as a “cartoon tango but sophisticated.” Zuhur, Asmahan's Secrets, 1.
67 Mernissi, Dreams of Trespass, 105.
68 Ibid.
69 Butler, Star Texts, 13. Referring to Hansen's chapter on Valentino and female spectatorship, “Pleasure, Ambivalence, Identification,” in Star Texts, 266–299.
70 Mernissi, Dreams of Trespass, 86.
71 Butler, Star Texts, 13. Referring to Hansen's chapter on Valentino and female spectatorship, “Pleasure, Ambivalence, Identification,” in Star Texts, 266–299.
72 To paraphrase Dolar in the introduction to Grosrichard, The Sultan's Court, xix.
73 Mernissi, Dreams of Trespass, 110–111.
74 On the prosimetrical genre, see Heinrich, “Prosimetrical Genres.” For an elaboration of the role of poetry specifically within the Nights, see Heinrich, “Modes of Existence.”
75 See Bencheikh, Mille et un contes de la nuit, 268–269.
76 Mernissi, Dreams of Trespass, 111.
77 Ibid., 110.
78 See Zayzafoon's critique of Mernissi's texts in the section “Mernissi's Islamic Feminism,” 18–26.
79 See also Spivak's chapter on strategic essentialism, “Subaltern Studies.”
80 See Khalaf's chapter on “Lebanon's Golden/Gilded Age”. In Madonna Kalousian's conference paper, “Anti-Memory in Solidere's Beirut: Fairouz Sings the Nation,” she presented “the problematic nationalistic representation of Fairouz as a unifying figure of a shattered nation.” Lancaster University, June 2018.
81 Stone, Popular Culture and Nationalism, 184. Stone's erudite monograph on the Lebanese diva and the school of the Rahbani Brothers is indeed a rare example of a serious Anglophone academic study of the postcolonial musical and theatrical scene in Lebanon. Yet the mention of Arabicized tangos in Lebanon forms the substance of an endnote. Stone, Popular Culture and Nationalism, 184 (endnote 3).
82 Almashriq, paragraph ten.
83 Ibid.
84 With thanks to Maira Mazali for sharing this research.
85 On the ethnography of the night in tango, see Savigliano, “Nocturnal Ethnographies.”
86 Ibid.
87 Sarlo, “Why Buenos Aires is not the Paris of the South,” Words Without Borders.
88 Gharamophone; “Salim Halali – Je t’appartiens (tango) – Pathe, c. 1945,” by Chris Silver.
89 Ibid, paragraph 4.
90 Todotango; “La Cumparsita,” García Blaya.
91 al-Binaa.
92 See Raizen's PhD thesis, “Ecstatic Feedback,” on tarab's proclivity to melancholia.
93 Racy in Afropop; See also Racy, Making Music in the Arab World.
94 See Stone on the Rahbani's association with the Latin dance music genre, popular in Europe and the US at this time. Popular Culture and Nationalism, 43.
95 See n. 10 above.
96 Bushrui and Jenkins, Kahlil Gibran, 6.
97 See Gibran, Al-Mawakib, 73–120, for an example of one English translation with a commentary.
98 Rumi, Selected Poems, 17.
99 On the Romantics and Sufism, see Nilchian, “Shelley's Quest for Persian Love.”
100 These articulations about “nirvana” as the perfect tango state are common in discussions between tango dancers in tango-dancing communities worldwide.
101 Chasteen, National Rhythms, develops this concept of the “dance of two” throughout the book.
102 Chittick, Ibn al-‘Arabi's Metaphysics, 108–109.
103 In Werbner and Basu's chapter “The embodiment of charisma,” they state how “in reality, the emotional and ethical premises of Sufism are inscribed in such ways that negate such a dualism,” 6.
104 Nilchian, “Shelley's Quest for Persian Love,” 222.
105 See the renowned Sufi scholar Éric Geoffroy's Introduction to Sufism for a deeper explanation of fanaa, 14–15.
106 See Savigliano on the lament for the lover in tango lyrics, The Political Economy of Passion, 68; and Thompson on the tango lyric in his chapter “Tango as Text” in The Art History of Love.
107 Ibn ‘Arabi, The Tarjuman Al-Ashwaq, edited by Nicholson, has long been an established translation and interpretation of Ibn ‘Arabi's text. However, see also Sell's recent 2018 translation, Bewildered.
108 Nicholson, in the preface to Ibn ‘Arabi's, The Tarjuman Al-Ashwaq, 2.
109 Ibid., 7.
110 Piraino and Sedgwick, eds., in the introduction to Global Sufism, 3; and the the chapter in the text by Brigaglia, “Eu-rap-ia: Rap, Sufism and the Arabic Qaṣīda in Europe” for a further example of the convergence of two global aesthetics, 93–119; see also Elmarsafy's chapter on “User-Friendly Islams” and the reception of Rumi in France and the United States.
111 See Elmarsafy, “User-friendly Islams,” 264.
112 Varela, Mal de Tango, 178. Castillo wrote some of the most profound lyrics of the tango repertoire, particularly powerful when combined with the orchestra of Osvaldo Pugliese. For example, see Una Vez [1946]; Nasr describes Hafiz as “the greatest of all poets in the Persian language” in his introduction, “The Rise and Development of Persian Sufism,” 1.
113 Borges, On Argentina, 68.
114 Warner, Stranger Magic, 15.
115 For a scholarly analysis of the cultural and literary production of the Nights, see Mahdi, The Thousand and One Nights, and specifically the chapter on “Antoine Galland and the Nights,” 11–51.
116 Video of the concert held on 23 November 2017, at New York University, Abu Dhabi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WFfm4Mzt4A; accessed 8 December 2019.
117 The National AE.
118 Borges, On Argentina, 45.
119 Chittick, Ibn ‘Arabi's Metaphysics, 97.
120 Ibid., 352.
121 Ibid., 354.
122 See Apter, Against World Literature.
123 Interview with Hanan al-Shaykh at the workshop, “Translating Arabic Poetry,” SOAS, June 2017.
124 From personal experience in the milongas of Buenos Aires.
125 See Savigliano on the dynamics of the healing nature of the embrace in the context of race and class. The Political Economy of Passion, 68.
126 An interesting case study is provided by Tamara Lea Spira on the Argentine revolutionary folk singer, Merecedes Sosa, in her recently published article [2019]. Sosa was a key protagonist of the Latin American Nueva Canción movement and stood for decades as a “beloved symbol of Third World Movements […] supporting the construction of anti-colonial identities” whilst evidencing an “increasingly public Zionism” in later life. Spira, “Postrevolutionary Affect,” 120.
127 Fortuna, Moving Otherwise, 114.