Over the past number of months I’ve read several posts by tango bloggers who find that performances are leaving them cold. A consistent theme was the dislike of performances where the dancers focus was on the audience and everything was on display. Conversely the performances that were favoured were those where the dancers focused in on each other and not everything in the dance was visible to the audience. A little bit of that is down to the power of suggestion. What we cannot see draws our eye and engages our imagination. What we cannot see is limitless and goes on beyond what is actually on offer. Our sight fills in blanks, rounds out figures and tells subtle little lies. We are seduced by the dance because we want to be seduced in the hope that it will reveal what we cannot see.
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That’ feels like quite a good description of what is meant by “chemistry”.
The artist who can make full use of the art-ee’s brain, is a good artist.
There is an added element that is not often discussed: energy. We are touched by the energy of a performance. If the energy is directed inward (towards each other and/or the “steps”), not that much of it reaches the audience. When the energy is focused outward (yet connected to each other), the performance touches more people.
Either way, trying to pinpoint matters of personal taste is always like trying to wrangle kittens.
Your words ring true and they go beyong tango to talk about art.
Energy, connection and suggestions in no particular order, are what I want to see in a tango performance.
I will admit that the origins of this post lie in thoughts I was having about photography.