Published on May 2020 in Infobae. Read the original interview in Spanish.

The streets of an empty Berlin, in black and white, confuse with the Buenos Aires that saw the birth of the dance that conquered the world. With the desire to return to the tango to its place of transgression, Juan Pablo de Lucca proposes this original version of the classic of “La chicharra de Villa Crespo.

The international band El Muro Tango has just published what they consider “a love letter to tango, to the city of Berlin and to the fans”: a video in the form of a film set to their interpretation of Recuerdo, a classic by the master Osvaldo Pugliese with lyrics by Eduardo Moreno.

This tango was published in 1924 and premiered by the quartet of bandoneonist Juan Fava, at the Café Mitre, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Villa Crespo.

The first recording was made on December 9, 1926 by Julio De Caro’s orchestra. It was only instrumental: the following year Rosita Montemar recorded the sung version accompanied by musicians from the RCA Victor label.

Inspired by the origins of tango in the popular districts of Buenos Aires, the video marks new connections between the unbridled desire of the milongas and the rough margins of Berlin, one of the great contemporary melting pots of the world, a city of refuge for the queer community and a mecca for performers, musicians and artists.

The dancers of the novel staging are the Argentines Juampy Ramírez and Dani Arroyo who seek to convey the desire to dance and experience life with an intensity that only tango can offer. Their movements are relaxed, with marked pauses through which they tell a story and way of freedom of expression.

This musical proposal is the story a journey through the traditional boundaries of the genre and gender in search of a sound that represents the true nature of tango.

El Muro Tango presents the version of Recuerdo with the desire to immerse oneself deeply in the origins of tango and to establish itself as a defining influence of its as yet undefined identity in alternative Berlin.

The group’s pianist is Juan Pablo de Lucca, grandson of the legendary singer and actor Alberto Castillo. The musical accomplishments of their colleagues are no less impressive. Together, they seek to make tango “transgressive, extravagant and dangerous again,” they say.

As their instrumental interpretation accompanies the dancers – who reflect on what has been lost and what remains, hiding in plain sight on the margins of the city, in the beauty of empty urban spaces, in the transformation of two dancers into living emblems of defiant hope – the lyrical fragments hover like ghosts between the notes:

Yesterday they sang poets / in the soft nights of the atmosphere of pleasure / where bohemian and fragile youth / withered in the bar of the barrio sur dying of illusion / dying their song.

The result is a black and white film that moves and connects with great intensity as it speaks of the present moment. “It is clear that although COVID-19 does not discriminate, the impact of the virus still corresponds to the inequalities of society. Those on the margins are, once again, among the most vulnerable – and courageous. Like Dani and Juampy, they still wear make-up and dance,” say the members of the quartet.

El Muro Tango is an Argentine tango band that has reached the international scene of the genre, reaching all of Europe and South America. Their music consists of traditional Argentine tango with a fresh and modern harmonic language, incorporating elements of jazz and South American rhythms.

Since its debut in 2016, the group has toured all over the world and played to a full house at prestigious festivals and concert halls such as the Oslo Chamber Music Festival, the Innsbruck Tango Festival, the Royal Concertgebouw and the Usina del Arte.

In November 2018, El Muro Tango presented its first album, Nostalgic, at Galileo Music (DE) and received excellent reviews in the international press. Its music consists of traditional Argentine tango with a fresh and modern harmonic language, incorporating elements of jazz and South American rhythms.