Peter Viney's Blog

Tangomotion

Poole Lighthouse
Wednesday 23rd October 2019, 19.45

Tango Siempre
Jonathan Taylor- Piano
Julian Rowlands – Bandoneon
Debs White – violin
Matt Ridley – double bass

Dancers
Alexandra Wood & Guillermo Torrens
Paula Duarte & Richard Manuel

From the Poole Lighthouse website:

From virtuoso displays of traditional tango dance in stunning costumes to the exquisite sounds of 1930s and 40s Buenos Aires and the powerful Nuevo Tango music of Astor Piazzolla, Tangomotion is a breathtaking journey into the heart of Tango Argentino. Tangomotion features new choreographies created by world class tango dancers Alexandra Wood, Guillermo Torrens, Paula Duarte and Richard Manuel, with new original music and evergreen tango classics from the acclaimed Tango Siempre quartet.

My knowledge of tango is extremely slight. I never watch Strictly Come Dancing. To me TANGO is one of those synthetic rhythm settings which you never use on a cheap electronic keyboard after the first day of playing around: Samba / Tango / Bossa Nova / Beguine / Swing / Waltz. Then there are the two useful ones, rock and slow rock.

My old textbook writing partner, Bernie Hartley, spent much time teacher-training in Argentina, which was indeed our very best market for books between 1978 and 1982. We also taught many Argentinian teachers in England. It was also Bernie’s favourite country as a lover of steak and red wine and he spoke of tango singers in clubs. He did talks in Argentina. I did talks in Japan (as a lover of fish, I guess). My father in law also did two long trips to Argentina investigating air crashes and also very much liked the country. I wish I’d had the opportunity of going there.

Looking at reviews online, this Tangomotion show has been going off and on for several years with a constantly changing line up, and both violinist Debs White and bassist Matt Ridley are recent recruits. This figures, because everyone was reading music throughout, but it is complex stuff.  There was no sign of improvisation, or even looking away from the music stand. None of them are Argentinian either, and as was explained the sad tragic lyrics are an important feature of tango (that’s one thing I did know), but they didn’t have a singer so wouldn’t be doing any. OK, I guess few in an English audience would be accomplished enough in Spanish even if they had had a singer.

The essential bandoneon, played by Julian Rowlands, is a type of elongated button concertina. It was explained that it was invented in Germany by Heinrich Band. They found their way to Argentina from Germany and apparently nobody knows how it happened. I really shouldn’t have whispered “By U-Boat?” to my companions. The buttons have an odd arrangement which is different on each end making it astonishingly hard to play, but mostly only one end is being manipulated. This is how complex it is!

I know there is much discussion of the musical influences which coalesced in Argentina and Uruguay in the early 20th century to create tango, mainly in the less salubrious parts of Buenos Aeries. I’ll pontificate from ignorance, but Brazil to the north had a vastly greater African slave population so more African rhythms, while Argentina had major Italian immigration, hence the instrumentation, and to me the link sounds Neapolitan.

We were expecting dance theatre, and really its not dance theatre at all. It’s a musical recital with illustrative dancing and some interesting but quite serious narrative history and explanation from Jonathan Taylor.  There’s some dry humour which I enjoyed. I’m sure it was a slip rather than an error, but Bahia Blanca (title of one tango) is not “in Buenos Aeries” it’s a very windy city a long way south of the capital.

I would guess around 35-40% of the show was instrumental music with no dancers in sight. All the players are highly accomplished, and there were interesting additions like a scratchy rhythm part created by playing the violin on the wrong side of the bridge. I particularly liked the two tangos composed by Justin Rowlands, which I think were Tango #5 (Enchanted Garden) and Black & white. Both were instrumental only but when you have a double bass player that good, I can happily watch all night. I was surprised at the lack of percussion instruments as I’d thought of it as a rhythm setting. I guess piano is percussive, and the bass did a lot of the rhythm work, as did the violin at times. On a couple of numbers they beat out an intro rhythm on their instruments.

Also the two pairs of dancers worked separately. Until the encore, there was only ever one pair on stage, and even in the encore each pair was doing completely different moves to the same music. There was no ensemble work, which I guess is the tango, the paired sexual dance of Argentina. However, they often situationalized the dance by the way they walked on and met to begin and their costume, so it was theatrical.

The costume changes were elaborate and theatrical, and ran to shoes, hair, jewellery, the lot. They also took us from the late 1920s to the 1970s. When they got to the later Astor Piazzola pieces, the split skirts essential for all that leg entwining, gave way to denim shorts in one number.

Paula Duarte & Richard Manuel

Richard Manuel shares a name with the late singer and pianist in The Band! But no, I was not confused.

They carefully brought out the wide variety of tango. It sent me to Wikipedia, which informed me that variety of rhythm and style is Argentinian Tango (as is the entwining of legs) and contrasts with the more rigid Ballroom Tango. The Astor Piazzola 1950s Nuevo Tango pieces stood out and again according to Wiki, his work brought Tango closer to Modern Dance. That was brought out in the dancing.

I suppose for a non-specialist viewer, there is slow tango, fast tango, theatrically very slow indeed tango (probably my favourite one and which looks most like modern dance) and athletic tango, but by the time you’ve seen four or five styles of dances, it’s the costume change that counts. I noticed the couple of bits where the women suddenly kick up between the mens’ legs. Risky, I thought, if you’d just had a row with your dance partner before going on stage.

We all enjoyed it, but overall I found it quite academic even.

COUGHING

Right behind me for about a third of the show. Don’t people know that any boiled sweet helps, but better Olbas pastilles or Fisherman’s Friend lozenges. Or failing that sip a bottle of water.