Nito and Elba: The Story of Love
There are many words to describe Argentine tango, but none so powerful and accurate as that of love.
Even during its inception, tango was all about love: love for the place and people that the immigrants left behind, love for life, love even for the profound heartbreak that sometimes accompanied one’s pursuit of romance.
Tango has always been — and will always be — associated with love expressed in varying degrees.
In many cases, those who are swept away by the winds of Argentine tango discover not just love for another person, but also for themselves, as well as for the craft that led them to a life-changing experience.
When dancing the tango, it is not uncommon to find a milonguero and milonguera who became dance partners and, eventually, life partners. Whether these tango partners are esteemed luminaries in the community or simply those who enjoy milongas at their leisure, one can find a treasure trove of love stories that first blossomed on the dance floor.
Among these stories is the story of Nito Garcia and Elba Sottile, whose legacy as dance partners and life partners embody the genuine and mystical love that can arise from sharing Argentine tango as a passion.
Nito’s Early Life
The 1930s to the 1950s was the Golden Age of tango. Many talented dancers, musicians, singers, and composers shared their inimitable skills, drawing the world’s attention to a dance that used to be thought of as “immoral.”
Many of those who learned the Argentine tango during these years would live on to become well-respected, highly esteemed legends in the tango community even up until the modern age.
One of these was Juan Aurelio Garcia, more popularly known as Nito Garcia.
Describing Nito’s early life as a tango dancer, The Dance Journal, a publication of PhiladelphiaDANCE.org, states:
“Nito Garcia learned tango the old-fashioned way, watching his uncle and aunt dance on a packed-earth patio in the province of Buenos Aires more than half a century ago.”
“As a young man, he polished his skills in the dance halls of Buenos Aires, winning 15 dance contests between 1955 and 1965. In the 1960s, he was a principal dancer with the orchestra of Osvaldo Pugliese, considered by tango dancers and musicians alike to be the greatest tango orchestra in history.”
In those days, Buenos Aires still held a strictly traditional culture in which women were only allowed to dance the tango if they were closely chaperoned by their mothers, aunts, or a guardian.
Though he was still a teenager, Nito began to formally practice tango dancing during that time. This meant he was still able to experience what it was like for tango to be danced between men, as opposed to tango being danced largely between men and women today.
Even as a young man, his talent for tango dancing held so much skill that an article from the New York Times even claimed that Osvaldo Pugliese was “said to have delayed retirement so that he could continue to watch Mr. Garcia dance.”
For the next decade or so, Nito would continue to dance the tango, gaining recognition and accolades for his performances. However, in 1970, tragedy struck.
Love Lost and Love Found
As in many stories of great and lasting love, one cannot tell how unfortunate events may become an opportunity for one to find happiness again despite the loss.
In the case of Nito Garcia and Elba Sottile, the death of their spouses in the same year, 1970, was what would eventually bring them together.
A post from The Dance Journal offers a brief summary of what had happened and what was to come in their partnership for the next 40 years:
“Nito and Elba met in a small town outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1973"
They had experienced parallel tragedies three years before. In 1970, just two months apart, both had lost their first spouse to a car accident.
Not long after meeting, they fell in love, got married, moved to Junín (a city in the province of Buenos Aires), and began dancing tango both socially and in performance with local tango orchestras.
Later, they moved to Mar del Plata (a coastal town in the province of Buenos Aires), and continued performing and also teaching.”
Speaking to Diario de Mallorca in 2017, the couple — who by then had gained international acclaim as tango dancers — still get emotional every time they recount the story that has brought them together. In an interview during the Mallorca Tango Festival, Nito and Elba talk about this phase in their life:
“‘We had other lives before, but we found each other,’ they smile, grateful for that new opportunity after the tragic death of their previous partners.
‘I lost my mother and my wife in a traffic accident; Elba had the same thing happen to her husband a few months later, but in the same year,’ they recall. They met at a dance, but she turned him down that day ‘because she was recently widowed, with two little girls.’ Five years later, they met again, never to be separated again. The two express their mutual admiration, both as dancers and as partners.
“‘Our story is like the tango, the man sets the pace, but he walks following the woman,’ ”
Since that fateful second meeting, Nito and Elba have shared their lives as a married couple and dance partners.
Even their tango de salon fantasia — which they have been revered for worldwide — seems to exude the kind of love and affection that has transpired between them all these years.
One stellar example of this is their performance at the Philadelphia International Tango Festival in 2017. An article from the New York Times describes how Nito and Elba moved deftly on stage, exemplifying what it is about Argentine tango that makes so many people fall in love with it:
“Mr. Garcia and Ms. Sottile, dressed in combinations of black and old gold, danced without any overlay of drama and certainly no sexiness. Their manner tended to be cool and objective, and yet they were a different couple in each of their numbers. The first was a straight tango (full of give and take, constantly suspenseful), the second a tango-valse (rapturous and witty), the third a near-tragic piece of lyricism that, for all its lack of theatrics, turned out to contain its own drama: an attempted kiss on his part, a break away from her, a forlorn retreat by him, and finally a sudden, tender reconciliation and embrace. [...]
“The dance remained seamless. You could never tell when he was about to let her turn him or he her. Some of his unsupported turns, briskly revolving while never losing the basic tango embrace, won applause.
“Their final number was to a romantic song. Marvelous as it was to behold Mr. Garcia and Ms. Sottile simply holding a pause, brow to brow, during a particularly sustained high note, it was even better to see how they then stepped out of it before the music changed, beautifully anticipating its return to rhythmic progress.”
Of Love and Tango
In 1991, Nito and Elba were invited to teach in San Francisco and Los Angeles, marking their international debut.
Since then, they have gone onto countless tours around the world to headline tango festivals, perform during stage shows, and share their knowledge as teachers in workshops. Even in their old age, they continued to travel and spread the gospel of tango to the world.
By 2018, The Argentine Tango Society produced a short documentary about their life. “Nito y Elba: Nobleza de Arrabal” (“Nito and Elba: Suburb Nobility”) was directed by Daniel Tonelli and Marcelo Turrisi.
Describing the documentary, a post from The Argentine Tango Society states:
“The documentary also introduces us into their most intimate world. For decades, Nito and Elba (his wife), have become references of several generations of dancers around the world…
“Owner of an unmistakable style, in his dance, and in his particular way of dressing, Nito does not hesitate to define himself as ‘a bit farolero:’ ‘Sometimes I get upset because I'm wearing these flashy clothes, and people think that I earn a hundred thousand pesos a month; otherwise, they do not respect you…’”
In her forties, Elba had actually set out to write and finish an autobiography detailing their life, travels, and tango experiences.
It is yet to be published, but Elba — with the help of Nito — was able to begin and may, soon enough, be nearing completion. (It was published! And WE HAVE A COPY. Stop by the studio to read. Caveat - it’s in Spanish!)
Perhaps the biggest challenge to the legendary dance couple, after years and years of touring, dancing, and teaching, was the outbreak of the pandemic.
Like many tango dancers, Nito and Elba had to endure almost two years of being locked down, compelled to reconcile with the health protocols that intended to keep the general public safe but pulled tango dancers away from their beloved milongas.
Reflecting on these unprecedented turn of events, Nito and Elba share their thoughts in a 2021 Zoom interview with Historias Mayores:
“‘We were very lucky,’ says Nito when taking stock of a history full of trips and international tango festivals that since 1991 did not stop hiring them.
When the pandemic began, they had to suspend tours in the United States and Europe, but they did not suffer for staying at home. Elba loves cooking and sewing, Nito is happy watching television.
Being close to their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren is a gift for the grandparents who live in gratitude for the affection of family, friends, and students. ‘I never thought we would reach what we have reached, so many people who love us and help us so much,’ they remarked.”
However, as the restrictions eased and with the world slowly facing a new normal, Nito and Elba finally managed to return to the dance floor sometime 2021 — despite Nito’s recovery from five heart surgeries. In the same post by Historias Mayores, the couple maintains that tango is, indeed, a “medicine for the heart:”
“Nito now wears a pacemaker that after five operations allows him to dance again. Elba, after a terrible back pain that has afflicted her since 2019, is dancing again. "I think that if we are well now, it is due to the amount of dancing we have [made]", maintains the maestro who danced with Osvaldo Pugliese's orchestra, and later with Elba together with Mariano Mores.
“[...] They are still surprised when people give them a standing ovation at the end of their show.
And the fact is that in the dance they manage to transmit the love of an older couple that has a recipe for this feeling to last: ‘We love each other and we never argue.’”
A Lifetime Embrace
Stories of love, romance, tragedy, and loss are just some of the things that make Argentine tango truly captivating. These are heard in its music and felt through the dancers who transform themselves as conduits of profound emotionality.
Nito Garcia and Elba Sottile have shared a lifetime embrace, and it is heartwarming to know that there still exists the kind of love that cannot be separated by time or space.