Tango
Stylistic origins	European styles including polka, habanera, flamenco, mazurka, and contradanse; Candombe, vals criollo, milonga.
Cultural origins	Argentina and Uruguay[1]
Typical instruments	Violin, piano, guitar, flute and bandoneón
Mainstream popularity	Major, became a craze in Europe and North America in 1930s and 40s
Subgenres
Neotango – Tango-canción
Fusion genres
Tango-rock
Regional scenes
Dodompa (Japanese tango) – Easter Island
Other topics
Dance – Maxixe (Brazilian tango) Record labels A bandoneón popular in Argentina and Uruguay.

Tango rhythm.^[2]

Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay (collectively, the "Rioplatenses").^[1] It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneóns. Earlier forms of this ensemble sometimes included flute, clarinet and guitar. Tango may be purely instrumental or may include a vocalist. Tango is well-known across much of the world, along with the associated tango dance.

Origins[link]

Early bandoneón, constructed ca. 1905

Even though the present forms developed in Argentina and Uruguay from the mid 19th century, there are records of 18th and early 19th century Tango styles in Cuba and Spain,^[3] while there is a flamenco Tangos dance that may share a common ancestor in a minuet-style European dance.^[4] All sources stress the influence of the African communities and their rhythms, while the instruments and techniques brought in by European immigrants in the 20th century played a major role in its final definition, relating it to the Salon music styles to which Tango would contribute back at a later stage.

The first Tango ever recorded was made by Angel Villoldo and played by the French national guard in Paris. Villoldo had to record in Paris because in Argentina at the time there was no recording studio.

Early tango was played by immigrants in Buenos Aires, where many argue the tango was born.^[5][6][7] The first generation of tango players was called "Guardia Vieja" (the Old Guard). By the end of the 19th century, this blend of salon, European and African music was heard throughout metropolitan Buenos Aires. It took time to move into wider circles: in the early 20th century it was the favorite music of thugs and gangsters who visited the brothels, in a city with 100,000 more men than women (in 1914). The complex dances that arose from such rich music reflects how the men would practice the dance in groups, demonstrating male sexuality and causing a blending of emotion and aggressiveness. The music was played on portable instruments: flute, guitar and violin trios, with bandoneón arriving at the end of the 19th century. The organito, a portable player-organ, broadened the popularity of certain songs. Eduardo Arolas was the major instrument of the bandoneón's popularization, with Vicente Greco soon standardizing the tango sextet as consisting of piano, double bass, two violins and two bandoneóns.

Like many forms of popular music, the tango was associated with the underclass, and the better-off Argentines tried to restrict its influence. In spite of the scorn, some, like writer Ricardo Güiraldes, were fans. Güiraldes played a part in the international popularization of the tango, which had conquered the world by the end of World War I, and wrote a poem ("Tango") which describes the music as the "all-absorbing love of a tyrant, jealously guarding his dominion, over women who have surrendered submissively, like obedient beasts".^[4]

One song that would become the most widely known of all tango melodies^[8] also dates from this time. The first two sections of La Cumparsita were composed as a march instrumental in 1916 by teen-aged Gerardo Matos Rodríguez of Uruguay.^[9][10]

Argentinian roots of Tango[link]

Besides the global influences mentioned above, early Tango was locally influenced by Payada, the Milonga from Argentine Pampas, and Argentine Candombe. In Argentina there was Milonga "from the country" since the mid eighteenth century. The first "payador" remembered is Santos Vega. The origins of Milonga seem to be in the Pampa with strong African influences, especially though the local Candombe (which would be related to its contemporary Candombe in Buenos Aires). It is believed that this candombe existed and was practised in Argentina since the first slaves were brought into the country.^[11]

Although the word "tango" to describe a music/dance style had been printed as early as 1823 in Havana, Cuba, the first Argentinian written reference is from a 1866 newspaper, that quotes the song "La Coqueta" (an Argentine tango).^[12] In 1876 a tango-candombe called "El Merenguengué"^[13][14] became very popular, after its success in the Afro-Argentines carnival held in February of that year. It is played with guitar, violin and flute in addition to the Afro-Argentine Candombe drums ("Llamador" and "Repicador"). This has been seriously considered as one of the strong points of departure for the birth and development of the Tango.^[15]

The first "group" of tango, was composed of two Afro-Argentines, "the black" Casimiro Alcorta (violin) and "the mulatto" Sinforoso (clarinet).^[16] They did small concerts in Buenos Aires since the early 1870s until the early 1890s. "The black Casimiro" is author of "Entrada Prohibida" ("Entry Forbidden"),^[17] then signed by the brothers Teisseire, and "la yapa"; in turn, is credited with the tango "Concha sucia", which was later amended and signed by F. Canaro as "Cara sucia" ("dirty face").^[18] It must be said, thought that this duo was the author and performer of many of the early tangos now listed as "anonymous", since at that time were not used to signing works.

Before the 1900s, the following tangos were being played: "El queco" (anonymous, attributed to clarinetist Lino Galeano in 1885),^[19] "Señora casera" (anonymous 1880), "Andate a la recoleta" (anonymous 1880),^[19] "El Porteñito" (by the Spaniard Gabriel Diez in 1880),^[19] "Tango Nº1" (Jose Machado - 1883), "Dame la lata" (Juan Perez, 1888),^[19] "Que polvo con tanto viento" (anonymous 1890),^[19] "No me tires con la tapa de la olla" (A.A. 1893), "El Talar" (Prudencio Aragon - 1895).^[20]

The first recorded musical score (though no author) is "La Canguela" (1889) and is in the Museum of the City Score Rosario. On the other hand, the first copyrighted tango score is "El entrerriano", released in 1896 and printed in 1898 - by Rosendo Mendizabal, an Afro-Argentine. As for the transition between the old "Tango criollo" (Milonga from the Pampas, evolved with touches of Afro-Argentine Candombe, and some of Habanera), and the Tango of the Old Guard, there are the next songs: Ángel Villoldo ("El choclo", 1903) ("El Pimpolla", 1904), ("La Vida del Carretero", 1905) y ("El Negro Alegre", 1907), de Gabino Ezeiza ("El Tango Patagones", 1905), y de Higinio Cazón ("El Taita", 1905). Moreover, the first tango recorded by an orchestra was "Don Juan", whose author is Ernesto Ponzio. It was recorded by the orchestra of Vicente Greco.^[21][22]

1920s and 1930s, Carlos Gardel[link]

Carlos Gardel, perpetual symbol of the tango

"Por Una Cabeza" (1935) by Carlos Gardel and Alfredo Le Pera. Sung by Carlos Gardel.

Tango soon began to gain popularity in Europe, beginning in France. Superstar Carlos Gardel soon became a sex symbol who brought the tango to new audiences, especially in the United States, due to his sensual depictions of the dance on film. In the 1920s, tango moved out of the lower-class brothels and became a more respectable form of music and dance. Bandleaders like Roberto Firpo and Francisco Canaro dropped the flute and added a double bass in its place. Lyrics were still typically macho, blaming women for countless heartaches, and the dance moves were still sexual and aggressive.

Carlos Gardel became especially associated with the transition from a lower-class "gangster" music to a respectable middle-class dance. He helped develop tango-canción in the 1920s and became one of the most popular tango artists of all time. He was also one of the precursors of the Golden Age of tango.

Gardel's death was followed by a division into movements within tango. Evolutionists like Aníbal Troilo and Carlos di Sarli were opposed to traditionalists like Rodolfo Biagi and Juan d'Arienzo.

Golden Age[link]

The "Golden Age" of tango music and dance is generally agreed to have been the period from about 1935 to 1952, roughly contemporaneous with the big band era in the United States.

Some of the many popular and influential orchestras included the orchestras of Juan d'Arienzo, Francisco Canaro, and Aníbal Troilo. D'Arienzo was called the "Rey del compás" or "King of the beat" for the insistent, driving rhythm which can be heard on many of his recordings. "El flete" is an excellent example of D'Arienzo's approach. Canaro's early milongas are generally the slowest and easiest to dance to; and for that reason, they are the most frequently played at tango dances (milongas); "Milonga Sentimental" is a classic example.

Carlos Gardel, Mural painting by Carlos Páez Vilaró

Beginning in the Golden Age and continuing afterwards, the orchestras of Osvaldo Pugliese and Carlos di Sarli made many recordings. Di Sarli had a lush, grandiose sound, and emphasized strings and piano over the bandoneón, which is heard in "A la gran muñeca" and "Bahía Blanca" (the name of his home town).

Pugliese's first recordings were not too different from those of other dance orchestras, but he developed a complex, rich, and sometimes discordant sound, which is heard in his signature pieces, "Gallo ciego", "Emancipación", and "La yumba". Pugliese's later music was played for an audience and not intended for dancing, although it is often used for stage choreography for its dramatic potential, and sometimes played late at night at milongas.

Tango nuevo[link]

The later age of tango has been dominated by Ástor Piazzolla, whose Adiós nonino became the most influential work of tango since Carlos Gardel's El día que me quieras was released in 1935. During the 1950s, Piazzolla consciously tried to create a more academic form with new sounds breaking the classic forms of tango, drawing the derision of purists and old-time performers. The 1970s saw Buenos Aires developing a fusion of jazz and tango. Litto Nebbia and Siglo XX were especially popular within this movement. In the 1970s and 1980s, the vocal octet Buenos Aires 8 recorded classic tangos in elaborate arrangements, with complex harmonies and jazz influence, and also recorded an album with compositions by Piazzolla.

The so-called post-Piazzolla generation (1980-) includes musicians such as Dino Saluzzi, Rodolfo Mederos, Gustavo Beytelmann and Juan Jose Mosalini. Piazzolla and his followers developed Nuevo Tango, which incorporated jazz and classical influences into a more experimental style.

Neo-tango[link]

Tango development has not stopped here. The following examples are not filed under "Tango Nuevo" since such classification is usually done with hindsight rather than when still undergoing development. These recent trends can be described as "electro tango" or "tango fusion", where the electronic influences are available in multiple ranges: from very subtle to rather dominant.

Tanghetto and Carlos Libedinsky are good examples of the subtle use of electronic elements. The music still has its tango feeling, the complex rhythmic and melodious entanglement that makes tango so unique. Gotan Project is a group based in Paris, consisting of musicians Philippe Cohen Solal, Eduardo Makaroff and Christoph H Muller. They formed in 1999. Their releases include Vuelvo al Sur/El capitalismo foráneo (2000), La Revancha del Tango (2001), Inspiración Espiración (2004), and Lunático (2006). Their sound features electronic elements like samples, beats and sounds on top of a tango groove. Some dancers enjoy dancing to this music, although many more traditional dancers regard it as a definite break in style and tradition. Still, the rhythmic elements in Gotan Project's music are more complex than in some of the other "electro tango" songs that were created afterwards.

Bajofondo Tango Club (Underground tango club) and its follow-on album "Supervielle" are examples with a stronger "electro" feeling than Gotan Project. Bajofondo Tango Club's beats are more regular, more dominant. The rhythms are less complex but the tango feeling is still there. Other examples can be found on the CDs Tango?, Hybrid Tango, Tangophobia Vol. 1, Tango Crash (with a major jazz influence), Latin Tango by Rodrigo Favela (featuring classic and modern elements), NuTango. Tango Fusion Club Vol. 1 by the creator of the milonga called "Tango Fusion Club" in Munich, Germany, Felino by the Norwegian group Electrocutango and "Electronic Tango", a various artists' CD. In 2004, a music label, World Music Network, also released a collection under the title The Rough Guide to Tango Nuevo.

Musical impact[link]

The tango has become part of the repertoire for great classical musicians. One of the first classical interpreters to do this "cross over" was the baritone Jorge Chaminé with his Tangos recording with bandoneónist Olivier Manoury. Since then, al Tango, Yo-Yo Ma, Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Gidon Kremer, Plácido Domingo and Marcelo Alvarez have performed and recorded Tangos.

Some classical composers have written tangos, such as Isaac Albéniz in España (1890), Erik Satie in Le Tango perpétuel (1914), Igor Stravinsky in Histoire du Soldat (1918). The list of composers who wrote inspired by tango music also includes John Cage in Perpetual Tango (1984), John Harbison in "Tango Seen from Ground Level" (1991), and Milton Babbitt in "It Takes Twelve to Tango" (1984). The influence of Piazzolla has fallen on a number of contemporary composers. The "Tango Mortale" in Arcadiana by Thomas Adès is a striking example as is the orchestral Totentango by Matthew King.

Many popular songs in the United States have borrowed melodies from tango: the earliest published tango, El Choclo, lent its melody to the fifties hit Kiss of Fire. Similarly Adiós Muchachos became I Get Ideas, and Strange Sensation was based on La Cumparsita.

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tango

	Argentina portal
	Buenos Aires portal
	Uruguay portal

• History of Tango
• Finnish tango
• List of tango music labels
• Music of Argentina
• Argentine tango
• Music of Uruguay
• Uruguayan tango
• Vals (dance)

Ukrainian tango songs.Audio files. http://www.orpheusandlyra.com/news.html

References[link]

 Latin Tango by Rodrigo Favela http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG0Q530daGI

Monica Bellucci
Monica Bellucci at the Women's World Award 2009
Born	Monica Anna Maria Bellucci (1964-09-30) 30 September 1964 (age 47) Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Occupation	Actress and fashion model
Years active	1990–present
Spouse	Vincent Cassel (1999–present)
Children	2

Monica Anna Maria Bellucci (Italian pronunciation: [ˈmɔnika belˈluttʃi]; born 30 September 1964)^[1] is an Italian actress and fashion model.

Early life[link]

Bellucci was born in Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy^[2][3] as the only child of Luigi Bellucci.^[4]

Career[link]

Modeling[link]

Monica Bellucci began modeling at age 13 by posing for a local photo enthusiast.^[5]

Monica Bellucci at Cannes Film Festival in 2002.

In 1988,Bellucci moved to one of Europe's fashion centers, Milan, where she signed with Elite Model Management. By 1989, she was becoming prominent as a fashion model in Paris and across the Atlantic, in New York City. She posed for Dolce & Gabbana and French Elle, among others. In that year, Bellucci made the transition to acting and began taking acting classes. The February 2001 Esquire's feature on Desire featured Bellucci on the cover and in an article on the five senses. In 2003, she was featured in Maxim.^[6] Men's Health also named her one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time", ranking her at No. 21.^[7] AskMen named her the number one most desirable woman in 2002.^[8] Bellucci's modelling career is managed by Elite+ in New York City. She is considered an Italian sex symbol.^[9][10][11] From 2006 to 2010 she was the face of a range of Dior products.^[12] Bellucci is signed to D'management group in Milan and also to Storm Model Management in London.^[13]

In 2004, while pregnant with her daughter Deva, Bellucci posed nude for the Italian Vanity Fair Magazine in protest against Italian laws that prevent the use of donor sperm.^[14] She posed pregnant and semi-nude again for the magazine's April 2010 issue.^[15]

In 2012 she became the Dolce & Gabbana face.^[16]

Acting[link]

Bellucci's film career began in the early 1990s. She played some minor roles in La Riffa (1991) and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). In 1996 she was nominated for a César Award for best supporting actress for her portrayal of Lisa in L'Appartement^[17] and strengthened her position as an actress. She became known and popular with worldwide audiences, following her roles in Malèna (2000), Brotherhood of the Wolf, and Irréversible (2002). She has since played in many films from Europe and Hollywood like Tears of the Sun (2003), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Passion of the Christ (2004), The Brothers Grimm (2005), Le Deuxième souffle (2007), Don't Look Back (2009), and The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010).

She was supposed to be seen portraying Indian politician Sonia Gandhi in the biopic Sonia, originally planned for release in 2007, but it has been shelved.^[18]

Bellucci dubbed her own voice for the French and Italian releases of the film Shoot 'Em Up (2007).^[19] She also voiced Kaileena in the video game Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, and the French voice of Cappy for the French version of the 2005 animated film Robots.

She is for Empire, for her role of "Persephone" in Matrix, one of "The Sexiest 25 Characters In Cinema".^[20]

Personal life[link]

Bellucci is married to French actor Vincent Cassel, with whom she has appeared in several films. They have two daughters, Deva (born 2004) and Léonie (born 2010).^[21][22]

In the documentary movie The Big Question, about the film The Passion of the Christ, she stated: "I am an agnostic, even though I respect and am interested in all religions. If there's something I believe in, it's a mysterious energy; the one that fills the oceans during tides, the one that unites nature and beings."^[23]

Awards and nominations[link]

Wins[link]

• 2003 – Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists: Silver Ribbon for Best Supporting Actress (Ricordati di me)
• 2005 – Golden Globes, Italy: European Golden Globe

Nominations[link]

• 1997 – César Awards for Best Promising Actress (L'appartement)
• 2001 – European Film Awards: Audience Award for Best Actress (Malèna)
• 2002 – Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films: Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress (Brotherhood of the Wolf)
• 2003 – Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films: Cinescape Genre Face of the Future Award for Best Female (The Matrix Reloaded) and (The Matrix Revolutions)
• 2003 – David di Donatello Awards for Best Supporting Actress (Ricordati di me)
• 2003 – Teen Choice Awards for Choice Movie Female Breakout Star (The Matrix Reloaded) & (Tears of the Sun)
• 2004 – MTV Movie Awards for Best Kiss (The Matrix Reloaded)
• 2005 – Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists: Silver Ribbon for Best Supporting Actress (The Passion of the Christ)
• 2007 – Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists: Silver Ribbon for Best Supporting Actress (N (Io e Napoleone))

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Film portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Monica Bellucci

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Monica Bellucci

• Monica Bellucci at the Internet Movie Database
• Monica Bellucci at BFI Film & TV Database
• Monica Bellucci at the Fashion Model Directory
• Monica Bellucci at AllRovi
• Monica Bellucci at Yahoo! Movies
• Corliss, Richard (10 March 2003). "It's Monica Mania". TIME. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1004378,00.html. Retrieved 26 May 2007. 

Michael "Mike" Figgis (born 28 February 1948) is an English film director, writer, and composer.^[1]

Personal life[link]

Figgis was born in Carlisle, England and grew up in Africa. Figgis for several years had a relationship with the actress Saffron Burrows and cast her in several films. He is cousin to Irish filmmakers Jonathan Figgis and Jason Figgis who run the award-winning film production company October Eleven Pictures in Ireland. His sons Arlen Figgis and Louis Figgis have also followed their father in to the film industry, as editor and producer respectively.

Career[link]

Figgis's early interest was in music and he played keyboards for Bryan Ferry's first band. In 1983 he directed a theatre play, produced in Theatre Gerard-Philipe (Saint-Denis, Paris, France). This play performed with great success at Festival de Grenada and in Theater der Welt (Munich, Germany).

After working in theatre (he was a musician and performer in the experimental group People Show)^[1] he made his feature film debut with the low budget Stormy Monday in 1988. The film earned him attention as a director who could get interesting performances from established Hollywood actors. He initially made a splash in America in the 1990s with the gritty thriller Internal Affairs that helped to revive the career of Richard Gere. His next Hollywood feature Mr. Jones was misunderstood by the studio who attempted to market the downbeat story as a feelgood movie resulting in a box office flop. Figgis poured his disenchantment with the film industry into Leaving Las Vegas, creating star turns for Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue which earned Figgis Academy Award nominations for Best Directing and Best Screenplay. His most ambitious film to date is the low budget film The Loss of Sexual Innocence, a loosely based autobiographical movie of the director himself.

Forays into digital video technology led him to conceive of and direct Timecode, which took advantage of the technology to create an ensemble film shot simultaneously with four cameras all in one take and also presented simultaneously and uncut, dividing the screen into four quarters. Since then, his work output has almost exclusively been on the cutting edge of creative digital filmmaking, with the exception of star-laden Cold Creek Manor.^[1] He returned to the Timecode quad-screen approach for his section of Ten Minutes Older, but has also worked on documentary pieces including a segment of The Blues (called Red, White, and Blues) and a short piece on flamenco. His curiosity with the cinematic use of time has led him to cite Robert Enrico's 1962 film version of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge as an influential film for him. Figgis has a well-documented love-hate relationship with the Hollywood system which leads him to often be an outspoken critic of the system while also despairing the lack of a better alternative, in his mind, at the moment. At an appearance at Camerimage in 2005, he expressed the view that filmmaking had become "boring and perhaps need[ed] to become even worse before anything better can emerge" successfully at least in reaction.

He was the founding patron of the independent filmmakers online community Shooting People. At one of their events in 2005 he said that filmmaking with a small digital camera made the experience more like painting or novel writing than the movie industry. His fascination with camera technology has also led him to create a camera stabilization rig for smaller video cameras, called the Fig Rig which places the camera on a platform held within a steering wheel-like system and has since been released by Manfrotto Group.^[2]

In 2007, Figgis shot his newest feature Love Live Long set between Istanbul and Bratislava on the infamous Gumball 3000 Rally, starring Sophie Winkleman and Daniel Lapaine.

Since 2008 Mike Figgis is professor of film studies at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he conducts intensive summer seminars.^[1]

In 2008, Figgis was called upon by Transport for London to help shoot a PIF entitled A Little Thought From Each of Us, A Big Difference For Everyone, encouraging more considerate behaviour on London's public transport systems, which was then shown in London cinemas. The ad comprised the screen split into four sections, each section showing one of four scenarios all on the same double-decker bus. At the end of the ad, the friction-creating scenarios were resolved and the ad ended on "A little thought from each of us. A big difference for everyone."

To promote a new camera phone, Sony Ericsson commissioned Mike Figgis to create Life Captured - a short film made out of mobile phone snapshots taken by fourteen people from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, who were selected to submit a series of photos after winning the global Life captured competition.^[3]

Filmography[link]

• The House (1984)
• Stormy Monday (1988)
• Internal Affairs (1990)
• Women & Men 2: In Love There Are No Rules (1991)
• Liebestraum (1991)
• Mr. Jones (1993)
• The Browning Version (1994)
• Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
• Flamenco Women (1997)
• One Night Stand (1997)
• The Loss of Sexual Innocence (1999)
• Miss Julie (1999)
• Timecode (2000)
• Hotel (2001)
• The Battle of Orgreave (2001)
• Ten Minutes Older: The Cello (2002) Segment: About Time 2
• The Blues (2003) - Episode: Red, White, And Blues
• Cold Creek Manor (2003)
• The Sopranos - Episode: Cold Cuts (2004)
• Co/Ma (2004)
• Love Live Long (2008)
• The Co(te)lette Film (2010)

Bibliography[link]

• Mike Figgis: Collected Screenplays 1 –– Stormy Monday, Liebestraum, Leaving Las Vegas (2002)
• Digital Filmmaking (2007)

References[link]

External links[link]

• [1] Wellcome Trust oral-history interview from July 2009
• Mike Figgis Faculty page at European Graduate School (Includes biography, filmography, photos and video lectures)
• Mike Figgis at the Internet Movie Database
• Mike Figgis biography and credits at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Digital Filmmaking book
• A short film for Agent Provocateur
• Interview
• Mike Figgis judged the Film of the Month competition in January 2009 on the independent filmmakers networking site Shooting People.