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Culture
Porteños are very culture orientated and naturally the capital offers a wide range of options for the enthusiastic culture vulture. Buenos Aires is most famous for its tango but it also has good ballet, theatre, cinema, opera and classical music. There are many large cultural centres that offer a multitude of options, including free tango sessions, art exhibitions and concerts. A few good ones are: Centro Cultural Recoleta, Calle Junín 1930, Centro Cultural General San Martín, Sarmiento 1551, or Centro Cultural Borges, Viamonte and San Martin. Most concert halls and theatres are shut mid-December to end of February, when many Porteños take their holidays.
The entertainment sections of newspapers Clarín (website: www.laguia.clarin.com) and La Nacion (website: www.lanacion.com.ar/vialibre) list events, performances and screenings. The tourist office and kiosks can always supply the most up-to-date details about what’s on. The Agenda sections of Buenos Aires Day & Night magazine, available at tourist offices and cultural centres, have extensive entertainment listings; as does the website Tangol (website: www.tangol.com). Bars, bookshops and hotels are also good sources of information along with flyers and posters at the city’s cultural centres and museums. Tickets can be purchased at the individual venues but there are also centralised ticket agencies (carteleras) in the centre, where music, theatre and cinema tickets can be obtained at discounted prices, for example Cartelera, Lavelle 835 (tel: (011) 4322 9263). Advanced credit card bookings can be made by telephone with Entrada Plus (tel: (011) 4324 1010) and Ticketek (tel: (011) 4323 7200; website: www.ticketek.com.ar).
Music: Classical music is not as widely on offer as live music in bars, despite Argentina having world-class classical performers, such as soprano Maria Cristina Kiehr and tenor José Cura. The Teatro Colón, Avenida Libertad 621 (tel: (011) 4378 7344; website: www.teatrocolon.org.ar), is where the Buenos Aires Philharmonic plays and there are usually free classical music recitals held in the Salon Dorado. Opera, also performed by the Philharmonic, is of a high standard.
Theatre: Theatre is exceedingly popular with a good mix of international and Argentine productions available to both locals and visitors. Argentine playwrights of merit include Roberto Arlt, Roberto Cosa and Griselda Gambaro. The season usually begins in March and local people are both enthusiastic and critical about the productions they attend. Fringe, independent, standard and children’s theatre have all carved a niche for themselves in Buenos Aires society. Complejo Teatral de Buenos Aires, Avenida Corrientes 1530 (tel: (011) 4374 1385 or (0800) 333 5254, information line; e-mail: teatrosanmartin@tsm.datamarkets.com.ar; website: www.teatrosanmartin.com.ar), is a favourite modern venue among theatre-goers and it stages a varied programme of Argentine and international plays, as well as children’s theatre. Babilonia, Calle Guardia Vieja 3360, Almagro (tel: (011) 4862 0683), and El Galpon del Abasto, Calle Humahuaca 3549, Almagro (tel: (011) 4861 8764), both offer the chance to see fringe theatre, while the Teatro del Pueblo, Avenida Roque Sáenz Peña 943 (tel: (011) 4326 3606; website: www.teatrodelpueblo.org.ar), stages modern and independent Argentine productions. Tickets are available at respective theatre box offices.
Dance: Argentine Julio Bocca is famous in the world of ballet but the general standard in the city is not that high. Top venues include the Teatro Colón (see Music above) and Teatro Coliseo, Calle Marcelo T de Alvear 1155 (tel: (011) 4381 0662). Tango is by far the dominant dance form and tango shows can be viewed in countless bars, cultural centres and even in the city streets at various stages in the day. Salsa is also popular.
Film: Porteños are avid cinema-goers and Argentina has a strong film industry. Established directors include Maria Luisa Bemberg, Alejandro Agresti, Fernando Solanas and Eliseo Subiela. Hollywood films are constantly being screened, as are arthouse films, while free films are often displayed at cultural centres and museums. Big-screen pictures are shown in the original language with Spanish subtitles. The mainstream cinemas tend to be centred around Lavalle but multiplexes have sprung up around the city. The Galerias Pacifico, Calle Florida 753 (tel: (011) 5555 5357), and Village Recoleta, Vincente López and Calle Junín (tel: (011) 4805 2220), are multi-screen cinemas showing popular films, while Cosmos, Avenida Corrientes 2046 (tel: (011) 4953 5405), is a good place to view an arthouse selection. Cinema listings can be found on the Pantalla website (www.pantalla.com.ar/cine).
Buenos Aires has been the setting for a number of films, most notably Alan Parker’s Evita (1996), starring Madonna as Eva Perón. More recently, the critically acclaimed and Oscar nominated Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens) (2000), directed by Fabián Belinsky, tells the story of a group of small-time swindlers in Buenos Aires.
Cultural events: Locals and visitors watch, dance and experience the music and culture of the tango, at the World Tango Championships and accompanying festival held each November. The International Festival of Independent Cinema held in the capital in April is one of Latin America’s most important film festivals. Each year in July, the ARTE BA art fair brings together the work of contemporary Argentinean artists from the city’s most significant galleries at Palermo’s La Rural Exhibition Centre. September sees the country’s biggest combined arts event in the International Arts Festival.
Literary Notes
Buenos Aires has inspired many writers, playwrights and poets, none more so than one of its own sons, Jorge Luis Borges, known throughout the world for his poetry and short stories. Having grown up in the city’s Palermo district: ‘Palermo in those days, just some idle swamps skulking behind the fatherland’s back’ (Evaristo Carriego; 1930), he writes avidly about the city’s areas with the notable exception of La Boca. His first book, following his return from Europe, Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923), is a collection of poems about the city, with references to La Recoleta Cemetery. His most famous short story, ‘El Aleph’, was based in the Constitucion area.
Ernesto Sabato wrote about the city’s people and places in his psychological novel On Heroes and Tombs (1961). Buenos Aires resident, Julio Cortazar focused on Argentinean characters in novels such as 62 (1968) and Hopscotch (1963), while novels by Manuel Puig – Betrayed by Rita Hayworth (1968) and Kiss of the Spiderwoman (1976) – centre on the role of popular culture in Argentina. Tomas Eloy Martinez, in his books The Perón Novel (1985) and Santa Evita (1995), mixes the lives of the Peróns with fact and fiction.
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