Canaro's Poema has a special significance for me. It was the first piece of tango music I ever truly loved, and it still grabs me my the heart every time I hear those gentle opening notes. Even at my lowest moments, listening to Poema reminds me why it's all worth it.
A really good performance to Poema will impress me more than almost anything else, because flashy choreography does not work with it, it's all about the musicality. That means you can really see when a couple are feeling it - or when they're not.
Here are a couple of my favourite Poemas: the first, Pablo Inza and Moira Castellano; the second, Jennifer Bratt and Ney Melo. I'd really like to be able to add the gorgeous performance that Analia Vega and Marcelo Varela gave at the Crypt recently, but I can't find it anywhere, I don't even know if it was recorded.
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10 comments:
Have you seen this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnC03nKl_rE
In my opinion, this is POEMA.
Hey, NYC Tango Pilgrim!
Thanks for this. It is lovely. I especially like the tiny soft quick steps here and there. I'm not so keen on the kickies in this context, though - I love a good sharp adorno, but for me Poema's energy is so gentle that sometimes the kickies feel a little much here. Heresy, perhaps! But hey, it's just personal taste.
I must go and explore your blog now...
Well, I must say Pablo Inza surprise me in the beginning of this video. I always see him as a Chicho wanna be with all the defects of only "tango nuevo" dancers but he actually can walk. He just loose elegance when go to open embrace. If he can be able to dance organic tango a little more like Pablo y Dana does, with a a nice embrace, he actually could be pretty good.
Moira is great.
Besos.
Hey Tanguillo, welcome!
Pablo and Moira both have a beautifully grounded walk. I adore them. I think this video really shows their sensitivity to the music.
I'm a little uncomfortable with your use of the word 'defects'. For me, differences in style are like different accents in the same language. A Glaswegian may speak very differently from a New Yorker, but I hope neither would say the other's accent was 'defective', whether or not it was to their taste. Perhaps I've misunderstood what you were trying to say.
I'm going to check out Pablo and Dana as soon as I get home (I have no sound on my computer at work).
Another two links if you've not already watched them:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0XBNoYNNccQ
and
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7WK81lsSFto
I thought the kickies mark the piano well. It's just my opinion.
Happy dancing!
TP
Yes, probably there was a misunderstood. I'm not talking of defects of organic tango as technique, but defects that a lot of organic tango dancers have. For example Pablo Inza look too much to the ground, even moving his head down. That's not a wanted as a new look, but something that happen because the difficult steps he try. But the steps can be do it without look so much the feet.
Other common problem is posture of shoulders. Not so much Pablo Inza, he looks good, but for example Chicho (and a lot of new dancers) had that problem.
There are a few more: problems with walk (not clean at all), man moving a lot the left arm, etc.
Organic tango tend to look for comfort of dancers instead of aesthetical beauty. If you go too much in that way you start to look bad. A lot of typical mistakes start that way. In that case is not something they want that look that way, but something that happen to look that way. So when it don't look good, you can talk of defects.
That's why the best organic tango dancers have a strong base o classic tango, to have a firm structure and nice walk, and then they go for the "freedom", if you want, of new tango.
I hope I was more clear this time. In my defense I will have to say it's difficult to me explain this things in english.
Besos!
something tanguillo said is really interesting: my teacher once gave me a lesson on how different a tango can feel and look, based on overall goal. for instance:
if one is dancing for the pleasure of one's partner (feeling good, as opposed to looking good), versus if one is dancing for the pleasure of oneself (melting and demanding at the same time), versus if one is dancing for the pleasure of the audience (looking good, as opposed to feeling good).
i think in the context of a performance, aesthetic beauty is the most important. to sacrifice form for creative content (or creative ingenuity) is not so good, in my opinion...
anyway, thanks for the videos, these are so beautiful. my favorite is the one with pablo and moira. and her romantic billowy skirt makes the dance all the more charming. :)
Poema...so lovely.
Thanks for posting the video with Ney and Jennifer. I love how slow and careful she is with her feet. I just had a private lesson with both of them on Friday so to watch this video again after spending time with them makes me realize how lucky I am.
I'm going to do a little series of playlists of different couples dancing to the same piece of music. I think it's interesting to compare them close together and see what they do with it.
I happened to start with Poema, mainly because it's easy to find examples, and the playlist includes your two. Gallo Ciego (a personal favourite, but with fewer examples) is next in the queue.
Hi everyone, sorry it's taken me so long to reply to this. I've been up to my neck in packing.
Hi Nuit! Yes, I love Moira's outfit here! So romantic. Your teacher's analysis of the different priorities of different circumstances is very interesting, and I think also priorities differ betwee dancers as well as between occasions. When I watch couples performing, I tend to be looking for the same kind of things I would be looking for if I were dancing with them; musicality, feeling, joy. I really don't prioritise aesthetics much. I like to see people dance exactly the same way they would at a milonga (or at least the way they would if they had infinite space), or even a practica. I'd much rather watch two people messing about and having a blast than two people trying to look good! But I guess it's all personal taste, isn't it? I also loathe show tango, and I hate to see anything choreographed in an exhibition: I don't care what people can do if they've planned it, I want to see what they do spontaneously, from their hearts and souls.
Tanguillo - thanks for that clear explanation, I see what you're saying now. And your English is very clear! (My Spanish is lamentable.)
If Pablo is indeed doing something he doesn't want to do, then I agree it's fair to call it a defect. From what I've seen of him, though, he's so dedicated and focused that I'd be surprised if he were unaware of anything he was doing.
It's impossible to generalise, of course, as every dancer is different, but I think this area is partly a question of the differing *priorities* of new and old tango - or classic and organic, if you prefer (that's an interesting way of looking at it, and one I will go away and think about). The more classical dancers that I know care very much about elegance - to quote a classic-style teacher friend of mine, for them things like posture are 'not negotiable'. But in my experience that's not necessarily the case for new-style dancers. Sure, some may have an upright posture, but others may dance very low, or with shoulders forward, and it's not always a mistake, it's often simply that classical elegance genuinely doesn't matter to them. They're more interested in other things, and are flexible with form in the same way that they are prepared to be flexible with the embrace for a moment if it allows them to do something they feel moved to do.
This is also the case for me. I'm a nuevo girl. Well, to be accurate, I vary my style depending on who I'm dancing with, but I'm nuevo trained. For me, elegance is not one of the goals. I work on my posture, but I do that because it improves my balance, not because of how it looks. What matters to me in my own dancing is that I am a pleasure to dance with, and that I myself enjoy it. If I can look pretty doing it, then that's a nice bonus, but it's not a priority. What matters to me in my partners are things like musicality, creativity, connection, comfort. I honestly don't care in the slightest whether they look elegant. I can't tell whether their feet are pointed, so I don't care. For me, tango is something to be done, not something to be watched.
As I was saying above in reply to Nuit, when I watch performances, I have the same priorities. I look at performers the same way as I would look at a couple in a milonga. I love to see a couple with connection, a couple who are really enjoying themselves, a couple who are expressing the music. I don't mind whether their posture is classical.
To complicate matters further, there's the fact that aesthetic ideals naturally change over time. One moment everyone likes a pointed toe, another it's a flexed toe. One minute girls are supposed to keep their knees together, the next they want to let their legs fly as far as possible.
So anyway, I guess I'm back on my old hobby horse - that there are as many different ways of dancing tango as there are people who dance tango - and so much comes down to personal taste.
By the way, thanks for the Pablo and Dana recommendation - I've been watching them on YouTube!
Tango pilgrim - thanks for those links! The first couple have a kind of naturalness that I like very much. They seem very unpretentious.
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