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Ricardo Ponce is "El Chino Perico", a tango legend. I'd like to welcome you.
It's an honor for us to have you here.
=Thank you, young lady.
=We appreciate your graciousness in sharing and conceding us this interview.
=The truth is that I was touched by your invitation. I feel comfortable.
=I feel very good with you, but I'm not so special as you said.
=You're very modest. We will start with the beginning.
=Tell us a bit about your childhood. I understand that you were born in Villa Mercedes, San Luis.
=Yes, when my parents and my brothers and sisters came here, I was five years old.
=I grew up in the municipality of Vicente López, in the Florida neighborhood.
=You're one of the youngest of the eleven children.
=I'm the second youngest.
=Did you already know the tango in San Luis by your older brothers or did you get to know it when you came to Buenos Aires?
=No, [I learned it] when I came here. My brothers also learned to dance here.
=How did you learn it?
=I crept under the table with my sister when some guys came to our house to practise, because we had a big dining room.
=They put the table aside, installed the gramophone and practised steps.
=When they were finished, I took my sister and tried to do what they had done.
=Apart from that, my sisters were single.
=When my oldest sisters began having boyfriends , they had to go with a brother, and then they chose me.
=My sister who was a dressmaker made my clothes and everything.
=I remember that she had made me black velvet trousers with a beige, silk shirt to take me to a dance.
=She took me to a dance on the corner of the Melo and Maipú streets. I did not to go.
=The only way that my father would may sister go dancing with his boyfriend was with me.
=That's why my sister's boyfriend used to buy me all sort of candies.
=In that time dances were with lunch.
=They put a buffet table in the back, you went there and helped yourself.
=Actually, it was the boyfriend who went with a plate and he chose sandwiches, pastries...
=Imagine how many we were. There were as many boys as girls who had to take them along. And we ate all of it.
=That way I learned to dance, watching how the others were dancing.
=But that was another style, they were kind of dancing with little jumps.
=The tango of that period was very different from the tango that you later danced.
=Yes, of course. Then you had Edgardo Donato, Biagi, Canaro. And later the big orchestras coming on the scene.
=When did you start going to dance?
=After some time because then I was about ten or eleven years old.
=I began going out when I was about fifteen. But I had to escape to go to a dance.
=From what did you escape?
=I was living in a big house that was the center of a ranch.
=In the summer, my father opened both doors and sat there in a wicker rocking chair.
=When my father fell asleep, I took off my shoes and passed after him,
=through the kitchen via a courtyard to a path that came out on the street.
=At the street door I put my shoes on and went to the dance.
=Sometimes my father woke up because he went to my room to see if I was asleep or uncovered...
=And when I came back he made sure I paid for it. Well, what're you going to do?
=How did you go about forming your dance style? Your style is very personal and very characteristic.
=It is part of the Villa Urquiza style. How did that style develop?
=On one side of the General Paz Avenue they danced one way and on the other side, towards the Center, they danced another way.
=I learned that tango, I learned to dance like they did.
=But when I was about 15 or 16 years old, a boy who lived in Villa Urquiza moved to the Florida neighborhood,
=because his parents bought a property there, and he frequented the same café as me.
=From time to time he disappeared, and one day we decided to follow him thinking that he had a girlfriend.
=Because before, those who had a girlfriend tried to keep it secret because otherwise the boys would tease them.
=So we followed him, he took the train and we also, we followed and saw him going to a club named Viento Norte.
=Everyone was dancing very well there. I never saw dancing that way.
=I still have never seen better dancing than there.
=And I began watching and I thought that that was ugly because men dancing together...
=one of the two had to be homosexual. And it wasn't that way, they were only practising.
=And there I was learning. When I was dancing I was bending over and sometimes they pinched my bottom, then I got upright.
=They said that if I didn't try to straighten up, I couldn't come any longer.
=They got a piece of wood, that wide, that long, they fastened it to my belt and with another rope to my neck.
=When I was bending over the rope tightened my neck, so I had to dance upright.
=There was no other way for you.
=Well, yes.
=What were your favourite places to go dancing?
=To go dancing you had Atlanta, Palermo Palace, Viento Norte on Sundays.
=Ah! Viento Norte where the prácticas were, also organized dances?
=Yes, they had dances on Sundays, and for example María Nieves was going to dance there with her sisters.
=You became a big name in the tango.
=Are you the only one of the family who achieved that or do you have some brother...?
=To tell you the truth,I tell you the truth, I don't know if I'm dancing good or bad.
=Seriously, I don't know if I'm dancing good or bad.
=I've realized that some like the way I dance, but I've never considered myself much in tango.
=Maybe it's not something that you're looking for, but I tell you how I see you
=and how I believe that many people see you and I know that you're a reference in the tango.
=I never wanted it, no, not never wanted it, but I never thought that so many people would come to know me.
=Sometimes I go to dance and there are people who come to greet me: "Hi Chinito, how are you?"
=I reply "Hi, how are you?" And I reply, yes, but I'm asking myself, where do I know that man from?
=I don't know if it's because of my age, but...
=They told me that they're calling me the last milonguero from Urquiza.
=Actually I'm the only one who remains, but I don't want to take the place of the great ones of the past.
=Can you believe it?
=Whom do you admire?
="Milonguita" (Luis Lemos), he was fantastic. Thereafter... May I use a crass word?
=Go ahead!
=They used to call this guy that invented the turn ("giro") "cagada" (i.e. "***") and he was turning!
="Turco" José, "Negrito" Lencina. There were many really good dancers!
=Sometimes a young guy says to me: "Chino, it's time to retire".
=I reply: "Yes, but do you know what happens?
=At times I'm going to the dances and I don't dance but I like to be there, I like to watch.
=The guys come and ask: "What do you think?" I tell them: "You should stand more upright".
=Or "Don't fasten all the buttons of your jacket".
=Because the guys who begin wearing a jacket - with suit -- think that if it has three buttons, they all should be fastened.
=And if it has four buttons, as it happens, they fasten all four of them.
=Well, let's give a lesson. How do you button the jacket of a milonguero's suit?
=Only the middle button of the jacket of a milonguero's suit is fastened,
=that way the waist get accentuated and it gives a better form to the body.
=When you're standing, because it is somewhat adjusted, it will look terrific.
=However, if you fasten all the buttons you will look like a "matambre" ("stuffed beef roll").
=Which orchestras did you like, those that you're following and that you surely prefer?
=I did prefer Osvaldo Pugliese, Troilo, Osvaldo Fresedo.
=But Osvaldo Fresedo wasn't booked by the clubs because he was very expensive.
=He performed in Hotel Tigre.
=We would sneak into the dances, we would dress well and went around midnight.
=We stood near the entrance, and when someone left, the first in the queue went
=and discreetly took the password of the one who was leaving.
=You fixed yourself up a bit and gave the password to the ticket man,
=who knew that I had been outside, but never said "you cannot come in".
=They couldn't say anything to you.
=If you had the password they couldn't say nothing. We used to sneak in like that.
=So there was a queue of guys waiting till they began leaving to receive the password.
=Till the boys left with their girlfriends.
=Sure, but I didn't imagine it that way. I knew about the password
=but I didn't imagine the queue, like waiting for a bus. How nice!
=All the guys who go to the dance, I know thousands of them, are calling me Chino or che, all of them!
=It doesn't bother you.
=No! On the contrary, I want to be one of them.
=How nice...
=I explain to them for example that if they have to demonstrate something
=because they're going to some foreign country,
=that they should show our thing and not something invented.
=This music is ours and today it's rarely played,
=we only have 2 or 3 radio stations and on television there's no tango.
=Nothing.
=And sometimes it's a shame that in whatever country of the world they play local music 70% of the time.
=Tango was danced everywhere. In the confiterías of the Center everything was tango, even with orchestras.
=Today we're invaded by another music.
=Yes.
=Chino, there are two things that you said that keeps popping up in my mind.
=One is that speaking about the young people you said that you want to be part of them.
=Correction, not that you want to be part of them, you said that you want to be one of them.
=You were referring to the manner in which they should express themselves.
=Talking with them, I speak like they do. When I get together with them, we're speaking in their way.
=That's very nice and in addition it shows your modesty and also that desire to give and to share.
=And about that I'd like to ask you what message you'd convey to the young people who're coming to the tango.
=The most important thing is that they should take care on the street, because it's dangerous.
=Another thing is that they shouldn't consume anything strange and shouldn't get drunk.
=Because that leads them down a bad path. I see that many young people are dancing well,
=and that they're returning to the roots, and that's the most important,
=that many young people have returned to the roots.
=Sometimes they want to change the tango but the tango is like the National Anthem, you can't change it.
=It's our genuine music of Buenos Aires. But they're trying to change it...
=We have sentiments, we Argentines are very sentimental.
=You're dancing tango and you know that you should be dancing your music with your heart.
=You dance it with sentiment, the tango is a piece of life that you can dance.
=It's a sentiment that you dance during two minutes.
=What do you feel when those young people come to greet you and to show their admiration?
=I don't want them to show me admiration.
=I feel good because I appreciate them as if they were my children,
=and I'm looking for someone to provide something that gives more life to the tango.
=I don't know if it's possible that the national government or the municipality will do it.
=Because there's not much...
=Not much dissemination.
=But I just think that all of you have a lot to pass on, the people of your generation
=who have the life experience that obviously we don't have,
=and at the other side the young people who want to learn that
=and who perhaps start dancing a tango somewhat more messy but...
=Like the electronic tango. I really don't understand what they see in the electronic tango.
=I have watched how they dance, but...
=One is dancing alone, another with an embrace, I don't understand. I'd have to practise, maybe I'll get it.
=Well, but the interesting thing is that they should return to the roots, as you said.
=Therefore I think that it's important to show the roots, and that, among others,
=is the reason for these interviews, to show you more, to get you better known,
=and to provide a reference for the young people.
=Yes, a friend wrote a book about me. I didn't want it, because who am I to have a book?
=About the history of your life?
=Yes, and I did it mainly so that young people could read it
=and know how it was before and compare our music with that of today.
=Which is good but not so good as the orchestras of the past.
=Always impeccable dressed from head to toe.
=I think that it is the main basis for a man.
=I think that a man should dress well, with a jacket, to dance tango.
=But they're dancing in a T-shirt, on sneakers, before that didn't exist.
=In the past, you couldn't enter a confitería wearing sneakers, but today they do.
=I was dancing with a girl, one tanda for example, and then another tanda.
=In that case the other guys who were dancing noticed that you danced two
=or three tandas with the same girl and they wouldn't ask her to dance.
=Just because they saw us talking and perhaps arranging an invitation or a date on a corner.
=Because before it was a question of obtaining a date from the girl.
=The date was on the corner of her street and she went out on the pretext
of buying something in the shop. That date lasted only minutes.
=And to get a kiss from a girl took about 6 months. Yes, it was like that. It's changing.
=What happens is that because I'm staying in this, I keep going to the dance, I remain there.
=It's like climbing a staircase, if I stop, the staircase keeps going up ,
=I'm climbing with the young people. But I won't invite a woman at her table.
=I look at her and if she looks at me, I invite her to dance, if I succeed it's fantastic..
=If she's pretending not to see me I'm not going to invite her anymore.
=Your dance, how would you define it? How do you indicate her, how do you guide her?
=I'm guiding her without mistreating her, without indicating her roughly
=because I'm guiding her with my forearm and body.
=In your style, both stay on their own axis?
=Yes, facing each other. Many are dancing sideways.
=I don't want to finish before you tell us about your book:
=people who want to buy it, where can they find it?
=They'll find it in Sunderland and in Canning.
=Do you have an email address?
=The dancer listens to the music.
=You should know what you're dancing to, what the singer is saying.
=Most people don't know it because they like the dance.
=That's OK, the tango became fashionable and they're dancing.
=But the milonguero dances and with his body he has to explain to people that that tango is sad.
=Like there are tangos by Pugliese who can make you fall in love with the girl you're dancing with, you dance it gently.
=The milonguero steps on the floor with a woman that can dance.
=He who knows to dance steps on the floor and when they ask him what he's going to dance,
=he replies: whatever.
=Because that's the milonguero, he knows the orchestras and the tempo in which he should dance.
=You should be one member more of the orchestra.
=Exactly! Could you define the tango with one word?
=The tango with one word...
=Well, the tango would be, because it remembers me of my mother,
=who died when she was 104 years old, and of my father. The tango is like a family.
=A family... great. Thank you very much Chino! Many thanks.