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Our Last Tango
The Wim Wenders produced OUR LAST TANGO, by German Kral, reconciles art with life and narrative cinema with documentary. The lives are those of María Nieves Rego and Juan Carlos Copes, probably the longest enduring couple in Argentine tango as a performing art. I am careful how I put that, because there are social dance…
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Mariel Martínez
BUENOS AIRES … CUANDO LEJOS ME VI is the title of a show by Mariel Martínez & La Porteño Tango Trio currently in Madrid to promote a CD of the same name. I have admired Martínez’s recordings since listening to her 2010 Perfume de tango. The album includes a compelling interpretation of “Luna curiosa,” a…
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Glamour Tango
Polly Ferman presented her show GLAMOUR TANGO, subtitled “Tango in Feminine Form,” on Monday night at Tango House, using New York based, but international, talent, all of them, appropriately, women. It follows the basic form of a lot of tango shows. There is a live orchestra at the back of the stage, which includes Ayelen…
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Recuerdo tango
RECUERDO TANGO is the second of Mariela Franganillo’s tango shows that I have seen, and like the previous one, Tango Connection: Love Stories, it is distinguished by a feel for dramatic structure that goes beyond that of a revue whose main purpose is to showcase the history and virtuosity of the dance. Franganillo – in…
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Tango House
It is a cliché in criticism to call something a gem, but here you have it: the show at TANGO HOUSE is a gem. It is small, can be taken in at a glance, is faceted, fitted to the space, the talent, and the audience, and of undoubted value and elegance. I have now seen…
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Social Tango
I was privileged to observe a rehearsal of SOCIAL TANGO and am the more regretful that the show’s opening does not overlap with my stay in Buenos Aires. This does not fit the stereotype of a tourist show, but a tourist ought to love it. The dances are not about acrobatics or overwrought sexuality. There…
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Danko
DANKO is the creation of Carlos Paredes, who, with his partner Diana Giraldo, in 2006 pulled off the first non-Argentine victory in the world championship for Stage Tango. It plays tonight at the Boulevard in Queens. I saw the show last Sunday at the Kimmel Center and was thoroughly entertained by Paredes’ charming company of…
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8cho Aerial Tango
What the Brenda Angiel Aerial Dance Company of Argentina does in 8CHO AERIAL TANGO at the New Victory Theater is not easy. There are multiple movement vocabularies in play, a variety from the aerial arts and a huge number of steps and figures from stage and social tango. The obvious tension to be exploited is…
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Tango Connection: Love Stories
Act I of TANGO CONNECTION: LOVE STORIES by Mariela Franganillo , currently playing at the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts, exposes the private relationships of several couples through theatrical dance, song and music. Act II portrays the public face of those relationships in the context of a social dance event. Hence the private lives that…
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Tango Argentino (Revisited)
This – the article reproduced above – is what I thought of tango long before I started to dance it socially and engage with its history and culture on a deeper and more personal level. I have wanted to track down this clipping, from the Boulder Daily Camera, without knowing where it was that I…