Collaborative artistic reconfiguration of the tango dance towards fado

Abstract

Fado began to be known as a musical genre in the taverns and brothels of Lisbon in the middle of the 19th century. Chronicles of the time refer to the fact that Fado had a danced expression with a marked bodily sensuality (Pais 2012; Carvalho 1903). At the beginning of the 20th century, these bodily expressions of which we have no records were censored. In 1999 the author of this work began to promote the dance of Tango with the music of Fado in a recreational club in the Madragoa neighborhood where there was regularly Fado. This practice that was born in the milonga was gaining popularity among Portuguese dance couples and Fado musicians. The former argue that from the steps and the embrace of tango they can give a corporal expression to the meaning of the poem and the music of Fado (something that does not happen to them with tango text lyrics). The latest report the pleasant feeling of playing while watching the dance and listening to the rhythmic shuffling of the feet, without missing the ritual of the Fado houses "which asks for absolute silence, mysterious gloom, and a certain dose of sadness in the heart" (Pimentel 1903). The author, in his double perspective of researcher and dancer, observes that when Fado is sung in the milonga, the couples adapt their movements to the narrative of the story and the musical cadence of Fado. This two-decade experience corroborates the idea that there is a relationship between Fado and Tango, and that from the crossing of both cultures, reconfigurations of Tango dance and new body gestures towards Fado music emerge. In this work, a couple of professional dancers who dance in Fado houses and develop collaborative research with fadistas will show examples where tango movements are reconfigured towards ways of moving that adapt to the expressive musical characteristics of Fado.