La storia della vita è così corta
Che facciamo per pensarci e siam passati.
Ci cerchiamo, vogliamo stringere, vogliamo la vita,
E lei, la vita, era nel cercare.
Che un soffio è la memoria della strada
E vuota è la casa dove siamo arrivati.
Dove siamo c'è odore di nulla
E polvere abbiamo nel cuore e sotto le scarpe.
Stringiamo nell'aria la memoria nostra
e siamo al di là del nostro andare.

Antonio Todaro, the master of the masters
by Marco Castellani

To us, and to untold multitudes as well, Antonio was our Master.
He had a lot in common with Osvaldo Pugliese, the other Master of ours, since he was one of the few who verily used to tell the whole truth in Tango matters.
He was also an exceptional dancer, of course: while still very young, he spent an entire night with a friend who owned a gramophone and a contagious enthusiasm, winding up the former and dancing on the street with the latter, until "the police came on and threw both of us in jail".
Once out, he danced for life.
His passion for Tango was so strong, his emotion so deep, that he never wanted to be a professional, in the best sense we could blame this term for today. When he felt like performing in public, he performed at the milonga, among friends, dancing with his daughter. He became instead the greatest Tango teacher of all time. He regarded himself as a tailor because he sewed his made-to-measure sequences onto the dancers’ bodies, but he rather was, like Dior and Balenciaga, a Haute Couture Master.
He was the real craftsman and the ghost choreographer of the cream of Tango: during several years, he has been creating steps, sequences and figures on the forgetful stars’ demand. His imagination was without limit. He could work even 12 hours a day: only pairs or single pupils were accepted, he was severe with anybody. He mainly requested accuracy from the dancers, and precision, maybe in accordance with the apodictic and oily world of motors he was acquainted with in his early youth.
Antonio used to tour Europe every year for teaching to the local teachers; they drew from his creations a full stock of steps and sequences that, as the good crop or the firewood supplies, was expected to last all winter and keep each and every Tango instructor alive. They are still ticking over, thanks to his lessons.
On the other hand, Antonio was perfectly happy in his Tierrita, one of the few milongas with restaurant; he was prouder of the kitchen and the miles of sausages that were cooked in it, than of the ballroom itself; not to mention the large number of chicken’s necks that he pretended to have personally wrung one by one.
For these foolish things too we will never forget Antonio.
Perhaps the best way to remember him is this tearing poem by Franco Loi.
Antonio, like this poem, took part and shared the secret beauty of life.

Marco Castellani, 1995

His Majesty Pepito Avellaneda
by Marco Castellani

I am aware that the following few lines are quite inadequate for sketching one of the best Tango dancer ever; i wrote them at the end of 1995, when the Pepito's Great Art was still there, speaking for him and making my writings - any writings - look even more inadequate. He came with us in Italy for the Milonga Boulevard tour. Pepito's last tango - right him, the King of the Milonga - was La Payanca in the Pugliese's arrangement performed by Color Tango. His last stage was the Teatro Comunale of Casale Monferrato: it was the 25th of march, 1996.

Talking of perfumes, in Argentina they say that the essence is in the tiny bottle; when they coined that speech they were certainly thinking to Pepito Avellaneda.
From the bottom, his height starts simultaneously with Magic Johnson's; not only this: as Pepito himself would say, "if i losed ten grams or if i were three months younger, i'd get engaged with the most beautiful girl in town". I don't know you, but personally i have no doubt about this.
Inside this small bottle, ladies and gentlemen, there is the blended fragrance of milonga, vals and tango. Pepito is excellent in all three but, generally speaking, he is a Master in the art of processing music into movement instantly. It is a real delight to see him improvising, even on a tango he has never listened to before: he builds the choreography little by little, with amazing skill for composition and rhythmical refinement.
Nobody but him, gives you that impression of naturalness. Pepito, while improvising, seems to undestand the most suble intentions of the music composer and sometimes even to forestall them, as he didn't do anything else in life, but meditate upon those notes.
Last year, 1995, he celebrated his 50th anniversary with the tango. Since 1952 he had worked as a professional dancer in the most renowned clubs and theaters of Buenos Aires. Besides, Pepito is an irreplaceable instructor and a brilliant creator. Everybody owes him a debt: he created so many choreographies, even for the big names such as those of Orezzoli and Segovia's Tango Argentino.
Pepito's field of action is not merely the dance: like a indefatigable Cupid he has planned, arranged and cemented several marriages. His large heart, or an extremistic professional bias, doesn't let him tolerate the loneliness. Pepito can't stand singles, he does not admit someone unpaired. His nature is so beaming with joy that people get married just to see him smiling.
During these ten last years Pepito spinned around the world; he taught tango also at the Universities of Illinois and Stanford. He did all this with Suzuky who, talking of perfumes again, is an even smaller bottle.

Marco Castellani, 1995

Miguel Balmaceda, the art of walking
by Marco Castellani

If the Classical Ballet signifies spirituality through elevation, Tango is rather terrestrial. 
The milonguero worships the floor; his "caminar", and even more the way he "pisa", testify his telluric faith: i dare to say that in the Tango-salòn are the feet that attend to the divine service. The plutonic religion’s High Priest was certainly Miguel Balmaceda: here is a short and admiring portrait of the greatest walker i ever saw.

We give now Marcelo Menasché leave to speak
"… The porteño dancer does not run and does not jump, because these things are for the gringos. He does not embellish his dance, because this is not for men. Sober, infinitely sober, he just walks. This is his virtuosity. He performs variations of incredible refinement, whereas all the others see nothing but walking; he divides the rhythm, he slows down or quickens to the music, he always masters the timing."
As the Bruce Chatwin’s wonderful pages have demonstrated to the world, walking is a simple and pure human action that concentrates a millenary wisdom. Several top artists made themselves a name as great walkers: Arthur Rimbaud, for instance, the movie director Werner Herzog or the Raùl Gonzalez-Tuñon & Juancito Caminador poetical Duo. The top walker Miguel made rather himself a name as the great artist of walking.
In his Tango school you used to learn exclusively how to walk and how to place your feet on the floor without hurting it. Even though Miguel was a stocky-physique man, he touched the floor as firm as a rhizome and as soft as a cougar.
Monsieur Verlaine said once that Arthur Rimbaud was "l’homme aux semmelles de vent", or the man with the soles made of wind: we, as well as anybody who ever saw Miguel dancing, are certain that the springtime trades were always blowing under Mr. Balmaceda shoes.
He was the man who created the "base larga", a little something, as the Petrolinian Gladstone would say, which is the ultimate tool for walkers: no Tango dancer can seriously allow himself to ignore it today.
With his partner Nelly, Miguel Balmaceda directed the pratica and the milonga of Canning until 1992, when it was still called Salòn Helenico thanks to the prominent archaeological relics - some among them were not even self-moving - that graecized its upholstery. All the best dancers in Buenos Aires used to go to Canning: either the porteño peripateticism’s leading figures and the crowd of candidates for cougars.
Miguel knew the feet of all of them, personally.

Marco Castellani, 1995