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Nelly, thank you very much, you're very welcome.
Thank you very much.
Please, it's an honor and a pleasure that you're here and that you're granting us this interview.
Thank you.
I'd like to begin with a question that's already a classic of these interviews.
And that is: what is your oldest memory of tango?
The oldest? When I started to dance...
In my house, because before the women were learning at home, we didn't have places to learn like today.
The men, yes, they had clubs to practise among them, but the women didn't.
Moreover, in the past, in every house they were listening to and living the tango, it wasn't like today.
My oldest memory is this, when I learned to dance in my home.
So before learning to dance, you were already listening to it on the radio...
Often, they're ask me when I learned to dance.
Jokingly I answer, in my mother's womb because when my mother was pregnant of each of us, she danced.
So you and your 2 siblings were 2 girls and 1 boy?
Two girls and a boy and all three we were dancing.
Your brother was the oldest?
He was in middle child. First, it was my sister, then my brother, and then me.
You were the youngest.
Yes.
So you also learned from your big brother and sister who were already dancing.
Yes, we were learning among ourselves and with my father and my mother.
Did your parents teach you to dance?
Yes, because they were dancing. When there were family house parties, they danced tango.
They also danced to other kinds of music, you heard a lot of tango at that time.
because it was on the radio, something that doesn't happen today.
When parents were going to the dances in the clubs, they could go with their family.
Did they take you along?
Of course. We went everywhere together.
And while the adults were dancing in those places, what did the kids do?
I was the only girl in those dances, I was nine, the rest were adults.
The other couples didn't bring their children?
No. In the neighborhood clubs yes, but not in the dance halls downtown.
And they were taking you to the dance halls at a young age?
Yes, I started at age nine. We went to "Salón La Argentina".
Later when I was older, after my thirteenth birthday, I was going with my sister to the confiterías of the centre.
What dances did you like the most, the ones at the [neighborhood] clubs or the downtown ones at the confiterías?
All of them because I danced everywhere.
At that time there were many young people in the dances.
Yes, we were all young, there were many girls and all of them could dance, without exceptions.
At that time, they all were dancing, and dancing very well. The same for the boys.
We were looking at the boys who danced well and chose depending on the orchestra.
For example, we accepted one who danced well to Di Sarli for dancing to that orchestra,
and the same with the others, one who danced well to Troilo, and another to Pugliese.
And the men were choosing in the same way.
That means, they chose their partners based on the orchestra.
Yes. Moreover, the men were watching and when a girl was new in the dance,
they didn't invite her for some tandas until an acquaintance asked her to dance.
After that, others began asking her to dance.
My mother, my sister, me, my aunt and my grandmother used to go to Club Oeste because my aunt was also dancing, and very well.
Three generations of women!
Yes. I said my grandmother, my aunt, my mother, my sister and me, but people often thought
that my grandmother was my mother and that the rest were sisters.
In what year was that, approximately?
In 1949 or 1948.
From the age you mentioned at which you began dancing, you fully lived the golden era.
The era of good dance, the golden era of the tango.
With what live orchestras did you dance?
With D'Arienzo, with Oscar Alemán... with several orchestras,
but we didn't really like dancing to a [live] orchestra.
You preferred recordings?
We preferred recordings because then we could dance to several orchestras.
On the other hand, in dances with a [live] orchestra you were only danced to a single orchestra.
How frequently were you going to the milongas?
With my siblings, we seemed like "The Three Musketeers," we went on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
But to our father, we told him that we went to the movies on Thursdays and Fridays
because my father didn't like us going on weekdays, but the three of us managed to escape.
We went by the movie theater, bribed the usher and he gave us a program.
The next day we had to tell our father about the movie, and he said: "but you're always going to watch the same movie."
We said: "Sure, dad, but you don't know how beautiful it is!" Instead, we went dancing.
Could you describe one of those days, not those on which you were fooling your father,
but when your father and everyone knew that you were going to dance.
A Saturday, for example. How did you get ready to go to the milonga?
On Monday I went with my sister to buy fabric to make us a dress.
Every Saturday we were dressed differently because my sister and I made our own outfits.
My brother was the one who needed the most time to get ready for the milonga.
He would be ironing his trousers and preparing his suit since noon. He needed more time than us women.
Can you imagine, maybe closing your eyes, a Saturday entering the milonga.
What kind of world appeared there? How were those places?
How did they seat people? What kind of people were there?
We were all dancers. There were seats against the wall where the mothers sat.
We girls often remained standing and the boys were in the center of the dance floor.
The dances were the places where the youth congregated and met, right?
The boys and the girls. What was more important when choosing a partner: his dancing or his looks?
For me, it was how he was dancing. Though at that time, all the boys were very smartly dressed, with suit, shirt, tie.
But I didn't look at their face, I was watching their feet to see how they danced.
I didn't care if he was good-looking or ugly.
Nevertheless at that time many couples were formed in the dances.
Yes, my sister was one of them.
Really? In your case, the reason to go dancing obviously was the passion for the dance.
And I still got it. I was born dancing and I think that I will die dancing.
I love the tango... the tango and other music. I like everything: jazz, tango, milonga, vals. I love it!
The men always say that at that time, there were many codes among them.
For example, when a girl had been a friend's girlfriend, they wouldn't ask her to dance...
That's right.
Were there codes among the girls?
Sometimes not.
But if you're saying "sometimes," that means that they existed.
Some didn't have codes. Others did.
For those that did have them, what were those codes?
For example, if a girl had been in a relationship with a certain guy,
you could befriend him and go out dancing but not become his girlfriend.
An indiscreet question. Did you have boyfriends in the milonga?
Yes, he who recently died.
Ah! You met in the milonga?
Yes.
Do you want to tell us how it happened?
I was fifteen years old, we were at the "Salón Salta," on the corner of calle Salta and avenida San Juan.
He danced with everyone, not with one partner. I asked my friend who the man called Pocho was.
She said that it was he who used to dance with me. Now that I knew him, I danced the whole night with him.
When we left, he asked for a date and so we started a relationship.
We were boyfriend and girlfriend, but he didn't enter my house. He was doing military service and I went to dance all the same.
On one occasion there was a woman dancing next to me and my partner.
She said: " I don't understand why those who have a boyfriend doing military service, come to dance anyway".
Because of her, we quarreled and we didn't see each other for thirty years...
Then we you ran into Pocho again you were...
After being apart for thirty years, it was a great pleasure to see him again. We were in "Salón La Argentina."
I was dancing with a man and asked him to interrupt the tanda, that we would dance again later.
When I sat down I saw that my future husband was dancing with a woman.
When he saw me he recognized me by my smile because used to smile with a smirk.
Even though I had gained weight, that my hair was short and had a different color... And thirty years had passed!
That night we started talking and then dancing. And so the relationship started again.
And you stayed together for thirty-one years. Incredible, the trials and tribulations of life.
With your husband Pocho you formed an outstanding dance couple. How did that feel?
On the floor we danced for ourselves and not for the public. We danced like we were feeling the tango or the milonga.
We did more exhibitions of milonga because everyone liked our way of dancing milonga.
So your fame was based on the admiration for your dancing of the milonga?
Yes.
I'd like to return once more to the first period because I have a question about the carnivals of that era.
They were beautiful!
Your face lits up! How were the dances of carnival? How many days did they last?
Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. My sister, my aunt who was single, and I prepared the dresses.
Was [the carnival] with costumes?
Yes, there was a fabric called cretonne with flowers that we'd place sequins on.
We used flat shoes. We always put on a costume.
People mostly danced tango?
Tango, jazz, milonga, vals. Jazz was danced a lot in those days. I lived in the best era of tango.
Yes, in private you told me your age, I don't know if...
I don't have any problem with that, next Saturday I'll turn seventy-eight. I don't hide my age.
How was that phenomenal one... Morán when he performed with Pugliese, did you see those performances?
I have an image from when I was nine years old. I remember that all of my father's sisters used to dance.
We used to go to Club Esporti in Villa Urquiza. When Pugliese performed with Morán we all were going,
I was a little girl and I sat watching the women who were standing before the stage, looking spellbound at Morán.
I never liked that. In my opinion, it was a bad thing that the women were standing there that way.
Therefore, when my sister and I went to Villa Malcolm, we didn't stay for long,
we watched a while and we left because we never liked to stay there standing, watching the orchestra.
We were going to dance.
If you had to define the tango with one word, what would it be?
For me it's life.
Everything...
For me the tango is life.
Thank you very much.