Limerick Tango

What really delights me about these three videos is that I can see the elements that Adrian & Amanda taught in the classes that day.

In the vein of Simba Tango’s Tailored for Tango post

This week Film4 are showing a selection of films from argentina. The following video clip is an early edit of Tango Dance for Channel Four Commercial advertising Argentina Film Season on Film Four.

Dancers: Jenny Sayer and Amir Giles

A charming video in five parts of several milongueros shooting the breeze, via Tango Thoughts.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

I don’t hold much with the idea of competitive tango dancing¹, it runs counter to my social dance ethos, but I have just been watching some of the clips of the Mundial de Tango 2008. They really are fantastic expositions of tango dancing. Eight, or so, couples trying to out subtle one another; far better than any mid-milonga performance piece. It might have something to do with having to perform while also sharing the floor, the enforced line of dance, the requirement to remain in close embrace or the prohibition on any feet rising above the knee. Either way it’s great stuff to watch, as many lords a leaping couldn’t keep me as transfixed.

¹Unless it’s for the hand of a fair lady.

I have changed my YouTube search methodology recently. Rather than search for particular dancers I have taken to searching for a particular piece of music to see how different dancers interpret it. The most recent search was for El Recodo, preferably by Biagi, which turned up the clip below of Mariano ‘Chicho’ Frumboli and Eugenia Parrilla.

I think it compares quite nicely to the clip of Adrian & Amanda Costa simply because most of what Chico is doing is simply a nuanced walk. The clip clearly exposes his background as a musician. He may be the standard bearer of avant-guard mile-wide-embrace legs-flying-everywhere neo-nuevo-what-ever-they-are-calling-it-tango but here you can see that he is faithful to the music. One foot then the other, maybe back again, but always with feeling and expression.