the charm of the unfamiliar

Fuelled by nostalgia and longing for their homeland, peasants from the inland, European immigrants and creoles shared poverty and disillusions about their golden dream of Argentina in the immigrant packed conventillo houses. They acted out in violent music and dance in the patios and brothels of Buenos Aires, accompanied by violin, guitar, flute and bandoneón. Thus, the genesis of the tango. To see this longing for the homeland emulated by those desperately longing for a faraway place (the essence of exotism) by the very inhabitants of the fatherland of the inventors of tango is a reversed “mise en abyme” to say the least. Think Malando, Joseph Schmidt, Pjotr Leschenkov and Olavi Virta.