Buenos Aires, Argentina
Kely Posadas turned 69 on December 24, 2008. She passed away after losing her battle with lung cancer on April 27, 2009. The news made its way slowly through various Internet groups, and as it seems characteristic of the narcissist tendencies of many people involved in the business of tango, the two things that were most mentioned in context with the news of Kely’s passing were “I shared the stage with Kely,” and Kely’s “one show dress being her modest and limited wardrobe,” preceded by a ‘no disrespect meant’ by the disrespectful offender. Banality, vanity and selfishness could very well be a cover for the inability for some humans to behave in a human way.
The Kely we knew was born Clara Raquel Lamdam in 1939, just as the Golden years of the tango got underway. Just before the Thanksgiving holidays in 1952, Bill Haley’s band had changed their name and their image for the last time. Off had come the cowboy boots and the white Stetsons. With some regrets and more than a little apprehension, the four young musicians, had turned their backs on their beloved country/ western music and had bravely faced an unknown future as “Bill Haley and his Comets”. Shortly after, Kely became a teenager as the wave of rock and roll captured the imagination of sons and daughters of the upper, middle, and lower class families. With Bill Haley and his Comets came Little Richard and Elvis Presley leading the way with their rambunctious music into a craze that lasted way into the mid sixties.
It was around 1958 that she met Facundo Posadas and they both became an item taking the dance floors by storm with their unique brand of rocanrol. Eventually they parted ways and for almost thirty years they lived different lives until they run into each at the after hours dance at Michelangelo. They both have been married and they were now divorced hanging out at the dance halls with other aging rock and rollers who were discovering the fascination with the tango by foreigners. As the renewed enthusiasm for the tango grew, Facundo and Kely became part of the flora and fauna of the traditional milongas in Buenos Aires, being known as the “roqueros.”
Jorge Firpo, Facundo Posadas, Alberto Paz, Kely Posadas and Valorie Hart at Club Akarense
We met them during our first trip to Buenos Aires on April, 1997. Our popular and prestigious magazine El Firulete was a door opening calling card. We received an invitation to their upscale apartment in Barrio Norte, as guests of one of their classes for white collar professionals. We were surprised when a few days later they joined Mingo and Esther Pugliese, Pupi Castello and Graciela Gonzalez at La Galeria del Tango for a special series of exhibitions at a surprise birthday party for Alberto given by Graciela.
During a memorable month in Buenos Aires, we had the opportunity to see Kely enjoying life on the dance floor, first at Club Akarense, a legendary milonga in Villa Urquiza run by Rodolfo and Maria Cieri, then at another legendary Tuesday hang out, Club Almagro, and finally, on the night they announced their engagement to be married at Club Sunderland.
Los Angeles, CA
In the dead heat of the 1997 Southern California summer, we had been planning a major event for a Japanese dancing company, Tango Libertad. Actually it was a birthday party with a tango theme for one of the leading dancers of the troupe. She invited her teacher and his partner to head a show that would include us as well. Just about that time we received a message from Facundo informing us of their pending arrival in Los Angeles, on their way to a fabulous tour of the USA managed by an undisclosed personality of the tango. Considering it a natural gesture of professional courtesy we squeezed the budget for the party and invited Facundo and Kely to be part of the show for Tango Libertad. Watch their first ever USA performance HERE.
While waiting for the mysterious tango personality to materialize, we took Facundo and Kely under our wings and spent an extra week in Los Angeles. Here is Facundo first experience with an American steak and french fries.
A visit to the Universal Studios in Hollywood, CA is something that a foreign visitor can appreciate, especially when they have seen many of the products coming out of this studio on local television. Here is Kely posing for posterity under the famous sign.
Kely in a a couple of poses in and around Universal Studios. Twelve years before Michelle Obama, Kely was already making a fashion statement claiming her right to bare arms on a summer day.
The Hollywood hills are a magnificent place to spot the smog covered city of the Angels from a vantage point. The Apollo 13 capsule was a hit with Facundo and Kely, and here is proof they were there and then.
A candid camera moment capturing Kely's stroll through the Universal Studio food court.
A life size bronze statue of Charlie Chaplin at the historic Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard, steps away across the street from the Chinese Theater. The temptation to join Chaplin for a rest was too hard to resist.
On the left, they stand outside the Roosevelt Hotel with the Hollywood Boulevard street sign in the background. On the right, in the lobby of the hotel in front of a giant poster of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
At the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, Kely leaving her hand prints
The sense of friendship and camaraderie is something a photo can only begin to suggest.
One last pose at the magnificent and imposing gallery of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood.
A surprise encounter with Michael Walker and Luren Bellucci at a Los Angeless milonga
A week had gone by and still no news from the mysterious tango personality Facundo still refused to identify, so we had one final look at the Los Angeles skyline before we headed home to Sunnyvale in the Bay Area, with our newly adopted guests in tow.
Northern California
Back in the neighborhood we were very happy to open our home to the unexpected guests, and decided to contribute to their cause by showing them around at the various milongas, organizing a series of workshops (that’s when the term “milonga candombera” was first coined to add an exotic touch at the promotional blur) , and finally turning over to them our monthly milonga at the Dance Spetrum Studio in Campbell, CA. At the same time we took them around to show them the beautiful sights of the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, CA
Kely at the steering wheel
Sweeping the leaves from the porch
Out for a stroll
Grocery shopping
In the kitchen
In the living room
A whole month went by. Facundo was becoming very uptight about the lack of news from his mystery tango personality, although the writing in the wall was so obvious that we had already figured that he was talking about Carlos Gavito. For reasons only they knew, Gavito was nowhere to be found, and he didn’t seem aware that the promises he might have made on a night of excesses in Buenos Aires, had been taking seriously by these two 57 year old kids.
In the meantime our first Labor Day weekend tango getaway in Reno, Nevada was in full swing of preparation. We had gotten the commitment of Daniela Arcuri and Armando Orzuza to join us, and we now were trying to figure out what to do with Facundo and Kely, still without a plan of action and hanging around the house.
Reno, NV
Finally, we decided to forgo our own share of the proceeds (making money for everybody else, including hotels, airlines and self appointed tango legends seemed to have been our motus operandi at a time when we were driven by the purity and innocence of what the Argentine tango and its ambassadors symbolized) and add them to the roster, making the festival a three couple event. Little did we know about some past feud between Facundo and Daniela and a taxi ride in Europe, but at the Johnny Rocket’s hamburger join inside the majestic Reno Hilton, Facundo lwent ballisitc at the suggestion that we were going to get together with the other couple to plan a course of action for the following three days of the festival. That was perhaps the first time that he was reminded who was the boss and who was the paid help. This is worth mentioning because in over a month and a half of living together, Kely had been a grand lady and the big momma catering to every whim of a spoiled overgrown “teenager,” from the choice of food to the collection of souvenirs and mementos.
Reno, NV is indeed a little city with a feeling of grandeur. It is definitely a gambling city but nothing to do with the hype and hustle of Las Vegas. We had been lucky that the Reno Hilton seemed to be idle during the Labor Day weekend, and we got to use their facilities at a very reasonable cost. Not only that, but its location just a skip and a hop away from the airport and far removed from the strip, gives it a unique resort like quality. The charm of the city soon calmed the egos, and we actually proceeded to have a good time.
On the left, Daniela Arcuri, Valorie Hart and Kely Posadas taking stroll on the main strip of Reno. On the right, Facundo and Kely look proud and pleased to see their first promotional festival poster in the USA
Somehow treating these people with class and quality, like using a limousine to and from the airport plus to drive around the city seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Perhaps it was that understanding that the more one gives the more likely one is to receive as time goes by. Armando Orzuza, Daniela Arcuri ,Valorie Hart and Kely in the luxury comfort of a stretched limo. We do know how to treat tango people with class, don't we?
In the lobby of a Reno casino waiting to go see the musical show Smokey Joe's Cafe
An impromptu chorus line on the lobby of a casino denotes happy times and a certainty that nobody can take away what we danced.
At the theater, waiting to see a great musical show, the last photo of Kely with Valorie
Shortly after we returned to Sunnyvale, we realized that we would have to intervene and do something to help these people get on with their journey. We called on our newly created network of good friends, the ones we had set up and put on business organizing workshops for Carlos Gavito during the first triumphal tour of Forever Tango in 1996. By the way Gavito was still AWOL.
In a matter of days, we put together a tour for Facundo and Kely that would take them to Chicago, New York and Montreal. Bob Dronksi in Chicago volunteered to buy their airline tickets and Danel in NYC agreed to host them, house them and eventually send them to Montreal. Then it was time to leave. Things didn’t go very well, we kept hearing, so we flew to New York to offer support and rescue them from a far away place where they have been housed. We called upon another friend and this time Facundo and Kely stayed in Manhattan for the rest of the week.
This would be the last time we would look back at this month and a half experience as the beginning of a great relationship. By the time they arrived in Montreal, Facundo blew a gasket because he confused paying back Dronski for his generosity in buying their tickets with his own money, with an intention on our part to shortchanging him of the money he felt entitled to regardless of what it cost to put him on the road to stardom. In a matter of days, we had gone form being these great hosts with the open ended generosity to a couple of crooks stealing Facundo’s God given right to pocket everything in sight regardless. “It’s the obligation of the promoter to provide housing, meals and travel,” he would write a year later, when reminded of what we had done to take care of them while stranded, and all we did to launch their career in the USA at age 57.
Years passed as we witnessed from the sidelines the rise in popularity of Facundo and Kely, as we read the accolades from newly acquired hosts and promoters, and as we heard about the growing tales about their accomplishments. Then, on the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, after spending four months on the road, we set anchors in Buenos Aires. It was on a Sunday evening in the month of December, 2005 that Kely walked across the crowded floor of the Circulo Trovador in Vicente Lopez to greet us, to welcome us and to tell us how concerned she had been about our well being when the news of the flooding of New Orleans reached her in Buenos Aires. It was like time had never passed.
We didn't realize at the time that this would be the final good bye to Kely, the friend, and we now sadly say it again this time with our prayers for the eternal rest of her soul.
We saw her one more time at Niño Bien and then, months later we learned about her illness. She stopped traveling on advice from her doctor after her last US appearance sometime in 2007. News from her and the condition of her health were less and less forthcoming until the dreadful subject line of a message on April 28, read, Kely passes away in Buenos Aires.
Suddenly the realization of that ray of hope that one day we would resume the wonderful friendship we cultivated in the summer of 1997, took an irreversible turn for the worst as the reality that this time she had left forever set on.
Rest in peace Kely.
