Mingo Pugliese

(1932-2017)

One of the most well respected tangueros of the Argentine tango revival was Mingo Pugliese. Born in Villa Devoto, northwest of Buenos Aires, Mingo started dancing the tango in the salons in 1948. The most complete biographies of Mingo can be found in Alberto Paz and Valorie Hart's tango magazine El Firulette, cited below. Mingo is most noted for devising a teaching method for the 8-point giro (turn). This method was adopted by his students Alberto Paz and Valorie Hart.

When Mingo started dancing in 1948, the world of tango was already eight years into a transformation. In 1940, a group of dancers led by Carlos Alberto Estevez, a.k.a. Petroleo and Salvador Sciana, a.k.a. El Negro Lavandina, were part of a new generation that included new turns and the cross. Mingo taught and danced a style that incorporated both the old and new styles of dancing.

The Argentine dictatorships feared and discouraged tango and its public gatherings, but when the last dictatorship fell in 1983, Mingo Pugliese was one of those dancers who retained the skills of Golden Age salon tango. He was at the forefront of the tango revival. Tango Salon does not refer to a single specific way of dancing tango. Rather, it is literally tango as it is danced socially in the salons (dance halls) of Buenos Aires. Salon tango was danced throughout the Golden Era of Argentine Tango (1935–1952) when milongas were held in large dance venues and full tango orchestras performed. (Wikipedia. Argentine Tango)

Mingo and Esther's son Pablo Pugliese still teaches tango throughout the world. Pablo was the youngest ever faculty member of Stanford University’s famous Tango Week of the 1990's. The video at right shows a young Pablo dancing with his mother.

According to Mingo, there has always been only two types of tango: salon and orillero. Salon was the tango that danced at the city salons. Orillero was the tango danced on the fringes of the city. Originally the fringes were the territory of scoundrels and rogues. Later the fringes became the neighborhood clubs. In other words, in the center of the city there were the salons and in the barrios there were the clubs. The tango salon was danced walking in a very simple way, plain, unadorned. The tango orillero was danced with steps (elaborated figures and patterns). This is the way it has always been.Alberto Paz El Firulete

I began performing professionally when I was 10 years old and taught my first international workshop in the United States at age 16. Pablo Pugliese

Click on YouTube or this link to play video: https://youtu.be/dN617i5dB2s

For the second part of the video, click here: https://youtu.be/cTxrdsWA2kk

We first met him on April 5, 1997, at the corner of Corrientes and Medrano, the night we arrived in Buenos Aires. Tall, fit, standing straight, he led us past a crowd waiting to get into Club Almagro. That night, the Tango community was paying homage to radio program FM Tango. For the next couple of hours, we witnessed the parade of celebrities and civilians who stopped by our table to greet and shake the hand of this man who now had become a gracious host to us. Over the next 30 days we were made part of the Pugliese family and we had the rare opportunity to find out a lot about Mingo Pugliese. Alberto Paz El Firulete

Resources

Alberto Paz. "Mingo, a controversial link to the history of the Tango dance." El Firulete Magazine. http://www.planet-tango.com/elfiru/mingo-97.htm Accessed June 23, 2017

Alberto Paz. "Mingo's Golden Anniversary" EL FIRULETE MAGAZINE https://elfirulete.wordpress.com/1998/08/16/mingos-golden-anniversary/ Accessed June 21, 2017.

Argentine tango. (2017, June 12). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved

23:26, June 21, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Argentine_tango&oldid=785258853

Adela Fernandez Cruz. Mingo Pugliese: The tango world at his feet (In Spanish: "Mingo Pugliese: Por el mundo con el tango a sus pies") Natalia & Gabriel: Tango Argentino. https://nataliaygabriel.com/segun-mingo-pugliese/item/16-el-tango-según-mingo-pugliese Retrieved 6-22-2017.