Tango Dérive, Williamsburg Bridge

Filed under Walk/Tour, projects

Event Information

Artist: Robert Lawrence
Website: www.tangointervention.org

Tango Dérive, an action/website, is part of a series of “Tango Interventions” presenting tango in unlikely contexts to intervene in the routine of public life and ask questions about identity, place and cultural practice.

Tango Dérive, Williamsburg Bridge is a dance from the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side across the bridge to the Conflux Gallery in Williamsburg. The dance is a dérive in the tradition of Debord. It is not walked however, but rather Tangoed by an open group of dancers who receive the same music wirelessly from a micro-radio broadcast that will travel with them.

The audio broadcast includes traditional tango remixed with historical references to the re-migration of immigrants in Manhattan to Brooklyn after the opening of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903, as well as the cultural/economic migration to Williamsburg in recent decades. Tango Dérive is a metaphoric reenactment of these historic migrations. It is both a sincere and absurdist gesture of De-Colonialization.

Tango was born of Italian, Spanish, African, Cuban, Indigenous, Creole and other influences in Argentina during the early 20th century. The dance has continuously re-migrated and been exported back to its source countries and throughout the world. Tango Dérive is part of a developing series of Tango Interventions, that use the cultural history of Tango to ask questions about contemporary globalization. While the open public actions on the street are primarily festive, the website directly engages issues, and culturally leverages the social dance, Tango as an expression of migratory culture.

Tango is considered a conversation between two people. I am stretching this perception to include a broader social conversation about issues concerning place, migration, and interpersonal and intercultural expression.