Tete Rusconi
Pedro Alberto "Tete" Rusconi,
(1936 - 2010)
"Dance the music. Because the music is the tango."
Tete Rusconi was a great milonguero, who led a revival of Tango Salón in close embrace from the Golden Age of Tango.
When the music of the Beatles swept through 1960's Argentina, the tango culture was less popular among young people. The large orchestras disappeared, no longer economically viable. Younger porteños took up rock and roll. At the same time, middle-aged milongueros stopped dancing tango for 20-25 years to work and raise families. By the 70's, the Argentine dictatorship discouraged tango for fear of public gatherings. As a result, the dance skills of close embrace tango began to fade, even in Argentina. (See Garvey)
With the 1980 revival of tango, older milongueros, who still knew the tango salón, came back to the milongas. Tete was one of them. Tete was one of the first to teach the close embrace style in the U.S. around 1994, under the auspices of Susana Miller. Within a few short years, Tete and his partner Silvia were teaching around the world. They were particularly noted for their beautiful vals. (See SilviaCeriani.com)
A letter from Tete - dancing to the music.
(from original Spanish)
"The tango is a feeling. It is not difficult to learn. Nor is it easy. But it is not danced by figures and steps. It is danced to the music. I know of no
dancer anywhere in the world who dances
without music. You cannot be mistaken for so long. Dancing without music, you will never learn tango.
You choose your teachers and invite those from whom you want to learn. You deal with the issues of tango from another point of view, and I'm going to tell you why. Because tango is and always will be music and learning how to walk it, to listen to it, to feel it, because it becomes a part of you that you cannot detach. After that, each person, each dancer learns his or her own style. Men and women."
"A letter from Tete - dancing to the music." Dicussion from the Tango Mailing List. http://wwwstud.rbi.informatik.unifrankfurt.de/~garrit/tango/art/tete.html
A Blog Entry by Tete
(from original Spanish)
"In 2002, there is nothing more beautiful than the Tango Salón, although it might appear to be some special fantasy. And here is for the young: based on what they are doing now, this dance is going on, why not put in your dancing all of the beauty that tango has. Cadence is an essential thing. And why not with the music? D'Arienzo is not the same as Di Sarli. If we the elders believe that the youth took the wrong path is because they weren't taught right. Otherwise you cannot confuse both the way of dancing and the orchestras. That's how they confuse people coming from other countries to learn, or learning poorly in their countries. There is a relation ship with the dancing floor. The ground is a magnet that energizes and at the same time makes the man glued to the floor move his feet with a special sensuality, that energy must not be lost.There is no need to hurry just to glide; all the while whenever you step on the floor you feel a lot of things, one is sure of his own balance; there is a special affair between the dancing couple, two people dancing as if they were one. It is at this point when it's shown how to step on the ground, with what certainty one glides on it. Therein lies the balance and emotions."
Tete Rusconi. Tete y Silvia Blog. miércoles, 22 de diciembre de 2010.
Resources
Garvey, Barbara (November 19, 2007). "Re: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed..etc.". Tango List. Michigan Institute of Technology. Retrieved March 2, 2016.
Tete Rusconi. Tete y Silvia Blog. miércoles, 22 de diciembre de 2010.
http://teteysilvia.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2010-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2011-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=4 Retrieved March 2, 2016.
Biography of Tete Rusconi. Todotango. http://www.todotango.com/english/artists/biography/1593/Tete-Rusconi/ Retrieved March 2, 2016.
AlexTangoFuego Blog. The Death of Pedro Tete Rusconi. http://alextangofuego.blogspot.com/2010/01/death-of-pedro-tete-rusconi-un.html Retrieved March 2, 2016.
TangoTales.com. Tete and Silvia. http://www.tangotales.com/tete-and-silvia/ Retrieved March 2, 2016.
2XTango.com. Adios Tete Rusconi. http://www.2xtango.com/adios-tete-rusconiadios-tete-rusconiadieu-tete-rusconi/?lang=en Retrieved March 2, 2016.
SilviaCeriani.com http://www.silviaceriani.com.ar/teteysilvia/english/eng_background.htm Retrieved March 2, 2016.
See also:
"Most of the milongueros we met in the late 80s and early 90s (among the well-known ones Finito Ribera and Pupi Castello) told us that they had stopped dancing tango for 20-25 years previous to the early '80s, mostly giving family as the principal reason although given the attitude of the Argentine government to tango during many of these years, there may be additional reasons. Thus Fino, who was considered the best social dancer of the '80s, who died in 1987 at the age of about 55, could not have been dancing more than a total of, if he started at 15, 20 years or so max. So probably a majority of the "old milongueros" who say they have been dancing for over 50 years and claim to have danced during the '40s are exaggerating especially if they are under 75."
"As for the origins of close embrace, Tete was, as far as I know, one of the first to teach the style [in the U.S.], in 1993 or 4, under the auspices of Susana Miller. In 1994 Daniel Trenner told me all about him, her and milonguero style as the only true form of social tango. He then began to propagate this myth at Stanford Tango Week."
Garvey, Barbara (November 19, 2007). "Re: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed..etc.". Tango List. Michigan Institute of Technology. Retrieved March 2, 2016.