Conference

From thearrabal to the centro and back again: tango to the rhythm of the city of Buenos Aires (19th-20th centuries)

The history of tango and that of the development of the city run parallel, with music and dance emerging in step with immigration and the rural exodus. The figures and topics of tango are inscribed in the very urban planning and architecture of the city: arrabal, esquina, barrio, conventillos... So many words that inform both the tango lyrics and the fabric of the city. By going back to the origins of the creation of Buenos Aires in the 16th century and moving around the city in the light of tango literature and poetry, we will follow the movements of the "tango territories" - understood literally and figuratively - in the Argentine capital.

The lecture will be punctuated by screenings of historical documents and readings of extracts from Buenos Aires in v.o.

Gwen-Haël Denigot is a doctor of political philosophy, journalist, author, translator and cultural agitator in the tango scene in France and abroad. After directing and co-writing the Dictionnaire passionné du tango (Seuil, 2015), which focused on the internationalisation and universality of tango, its original crossbreeding and contemporary fusions, she turned her attention to the city itself, because tango is Buenos Aires, and Buenos Aires is tango!

Buenos Aires en v.o. (Atlande, 2020, reed. 2021), part travelogue, part anthology of bilingual texts organised into 50 key words, is a literary portrait of the dream city of poets and the real city of historical and political figures. From Borges and Evita to Cartoneros and Pizza, the book offers the traveller a literary stroll through the city of all passions, and the tanguero reader the context of the birth of tango.