Home 
Tango Show Otango
Tango Show Otango
Otango www.Otango.com
I've Heard This Song BeforeBy Keith WidyolarNovember 20, 2009 I woke up this morning from a deep sleep with a tango playing in my head. Not knowing the name of the song, I had to find it. The song is Astor Piazolla’s Libertango, the theme song of Otango’s 2009 French tour which sold out two shows this weekend at the Casino de Paris, the lovely theatre where the American entertainer Josephine Baker first found acceptance and fame. At it’s simplest, Otango is a story of the search for lost love set in Buenos Aires and Paris in the early 1900s, but nothing in tango is so simple as it first seems if you will stop long enough to feel it. If tango is music expressed in the body, then this is tango. The most memorable element of Otango is the performance of the Cincotango Ensemble led by Emiliano Greco. The musicians provide a steady undercurrent for the dancers and singers that goes home from the theatre with you. Watching the show I realized why tangueros rarely go to tango shows. Having to sit in a chair while great tango music fills the room is a peculiar punishment. For a dancer, it’s a bit like being forced to sit in the corner as a child after misbehaving in school. You cannot wait to get up and move. The vocals of Claudia Pannone and José Luis Barreto provided a lovely counterpoint that holds your attention during pauses in the action and scenery changes. The music is one good reason to see Otango, but the dancing is another. The show’s stars and choreographers, Adrian Veredice and Alejandra Hobert, are artists at the pinnacle of the show tango form. We first encountered them at the CITA, the annual congress where the top artists of tango from around the world meet in Buenos Aires each year and where Adrian and Alejandra are part of the teaching faculty. Unlike most of the other maestros, Adrian and Alejandra have an obvious stage style and after working with them at several festivals it is a pleasure to finally see them in a show. The stage is Adrian and Alejandra’s natural element, like the sea is to a fish. Then there is Claudio Gonzalez and Melina Brufman. They have performed in a few famous shows, produced several shows of their own and are recognized in Buenos Aires not only for the quality of their dance, but for their dramatic skills. You can tell when a dancer has theatrical training because of their broader vocabulary and sensitivity to the meaning of the scene. I always recommend that aspiring dancers study acting and this is one of the couples that tango dancers should go to Buenos Aires and study with. There is a humanity about Claudio and Melina’s expression that goes far beyond the dance. Christian Márquez and Virginia Gómez represent the elegance of tango. They did a lovely performance in Gotan Project’s Differente video and it’s a pleasure to see them live. Paula Rubín and Mariano Galeano express a playfulness in their work, while Sabrina Masso and Fernando Gracia bring a youthful sensuality to the show. Each of the show’s five couples presents a different face of the tango. The scenes of men dancing/fighting together were particularly beautiful because their rawness of their aggression reaches beyond the familiar clichés of tango passion. The couples’ duets tended to be more expressive than the ensemble numbers. To paraphrase Alistair Macaulay, the New York Times dance critic, it is difficult to express the passion of the tango, an improvisational dance, in a choreographed form, but Otango largely succeeds, partly through the lovely staging of Leni Mendez and Olivier Tilkin, and the period costumes of Mona Estecho Gardon. They reach right down into the heart of the romantic images that most people have of tango. If there is to be any critique of the performances, it is that in the last scenes, you could see that the dancers were tiring. Their timing and footwork lost the smart crispness with which they opened the show. Most tango shows impale themselves on the clichés of, “once upon a time in the milonga.” Perhaps the Argentines are held hostage by their own history which is nothing more than a fantasy for most Europeans, Americans and Asians. It has little relevance to modern life and we wait for the tango show that uses the traditional tango vocabulary to tell a modern story. Otango stretches a little beyond the milonga and the port bar. In the story Adrian’s violent passion leads to Alejandra’s death, perhaps a reference to the violence towards women that is a largely unspoken part of the tango story. Go to Buenos Aires and witness the legions of talented women dying to find a man who will lead them to fame and fortune, and you will see this violence even today. In his grief and “lostness,” Adrian journeys to the underworld to be with Alejandra one more time. This is represented beautifully on stage by the deep roots of a tree dangling from the theatre ceiling. Perhaps it is a reference to the journey of Orpheus who after losing his wife to a snake bite, traveled to the underworld to plead with the gods for her return before losing her forever with his impatience by looking back over his shoulder. Come to think of it, this very story is what propelled this writer into the tango. Somehow tango is a story of death and loss and the passionate embraces that we use to forget for a moment, for three songs maybe, that it is our unalterable fate to lose our loved ones. Piazolla recorded Libertango in Milan in 1973 after having a heart attack. The French slang for orgasm is “le petit mort” (the little death). In her 1980 song about the Parisian club scene, “Strange,” which was based on Libertango, Grace Jones sings, “Strange, I've seen that face before, Seen him hanging round my door,… Tu cherches quoi (What are you looking for?), a rencontrer la mort? (to meet your death?).” Otango continues its tour of France through December 6. If you can, go see it. Spending one night contemplating the meaning of death through art, helps us to be a little more alive each day. I awoke this morning with a tango in my heart. Strange, I’ve heard this song before… DancersAdrian Veredice y Alejandra HobertClaudio Gonzalez y Melina Brufman Paula Rubín y Mariano Galeano Christian Márquez y Virginia Gómez Sabrina Masso y Fernando Garcia SingersClaudia PannoneSebastián Holz José Luis Barreto Cincotango EnsembleEmiliano Greco, PianoRamiro Boero, Bandoneon Humberto Ridolfi, Violin Olivier Tilkin, Violin Juan Miguens, Doublebass |
What do you think? - ¿Qué piensas?
Comments are not for advertising. Advertise | Contact us Los comentarios no son para hacer publicidad. Publicidad | Contáctenos