Photographs and text by Pablo Corral Vega

Life is not life without poetry. I?m talking about the license we give the world to touch us, change us, wound us, carry us away, lift us up, drag us down, save us, expose us, wrap us in warmth, strip us naked.
Uno, Enrique Santos Disc?polo?s beloved tango, says, ?Filled with hope, we seek the path our dreams have promised our desires. . . The struggle is hard, and it is long, but struggle anyway, and bleed for the faith that drives you on. Through the thorns we crawl, and in our thirst to give our love, we suffer and destroy until at last we see that we?ve no heart anymore ? the price of a punishment we undergo, a kiss we never receive, a love that left us low. . . ?
When we live with poetry, we risk our heart, our feelings, our peace. We risk our mind, our skin, our bones.
The tango is the music of immigrants ? Italians, Spaniards, Germans ? who came to the area of the R?o de la Plata in the late nineteenth century. They had left everything behind ? it?s only natural that the tango is filled with nostalgia. But it?s not an unredeemed nostalgia; quite the contrary. It?s a nostalgia that is transfigured by an embrace, that finds harbor in the dialog of bodies. The music and lyrics of the tango are pure nostalgia, but the dance itself is all sensuality, presence, exchange. Redemption. Continue reading “Tango”