7/27/2019 Tango Seminar

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  APG4789. Stephan Bajurnow. Student number 12288764  1

Research Seminar-

John Whiteoak, “The Tango in Australia as popular entertainment

and music and dance of “Place” before 1970’s Latin American

immigration.” 

Whiteoak delivered his lecture seated, reading verbatim from a

prepared script . To his right, an aid was on hand to cue the various

slides and audio examples. Whiteoak ’s manner of delivery was fairly

monotone and he only really engaged the audience and became

animated when he diverged from his script to divulge in impromptu

elaborations on matters of musical terminology or to physically

demonstrate and clarify various rhythms associated with the history

of Tango music in Australia such as the Candombe, Habanera and

Marcato rhythms.

The first few minutes of the lecture were marred by the

constant distraction of a looped audio visual example played over

Whiteoak’s narration that distracted the listener from the

information he was trying to convey.

Whiteoak systematically presented a thorough overview of the

complex history of the pre 1970’s Tango in Australia with plentiful

supplementary materials such as printed scores, photographs andletters reinforcing his oral narrative. In his fifty minute presentation,

Whiteoak covered much ground. His presentation began by

establishing the Tango as a dance style originating in Buenos Aires,

Argentina stating the origins of Tango music and dance as consisting

of  

influnces of Cuban “Habanera”, Argentine “Milonga” and

“Candombe” and creole “Milonga” rhythms. Whiteoak then re-

focused his presentation on Tango’s development within Australia,

touching on issues of its social evolution. He described the Tango’s 

surge in popularity during the 1914 Australian “Tango Boom” withits associated “Tango Tea” dances and gatherings. Then described it’s

subsequent criticism through associating Tango with lower class

“Gypsy” music. Whiteoak humorously conveyed the Tango’s later

condemnation by some critics as a “lewd” dance due to the close

proximity of its participants buy passing around a demonstrative

photograph.

Whiteoak then spoke of the Italian community as having a big

influence on developing Tango in Australia by essentially filling the

void left by the lack of Latin American immigrants pre 1970. TheItalian passion for Latin American music led to the formation of

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  APG4789. Stephan Bajurnow. Student number 12288764  2

Tango Bands such as “The Argentino Tango band” led by accordionist

Domenico Caffaro. The speaker detailed a correspondence he had

with Caffarro’s daughter also displaying a letter from one of these

correspondances .

Whiteoak then elaborated on the Australian approach to Tangoinstrumentation that featured the accordion rather that the more

traditional “Bandoneon” in other countries. He explored the

distinctly Australian approach to the Tango as incorporating the

American “cakewalk” rhythm and highlighted the Tango “Rag” as a

uniquely Australian invention. This led Whiteoak to conclude his

presentation by bringing to attention the current confusion amongst

scholars as to what constitutes authentic Tango rhythm and pointed

to the “Marcato” rhythm as one of these misappropriations.