Tango Kinesis: Dancing with love, mourning, sadness and passion
Short stories written with embraces, kisses, slaps across the face, battles, sadness, passion, pain, mourning and love. Combining Argentinean passion, ballet and contemporary dance, this is «Nuevo Tango,» a production created by Argentinean dance troupe Tango Kinesis. Following a performance at the Lycabettus Theater last night, the company’s dancers return to the stage tonight before heading to Thessaloniki for an appearance at the city’s Dassos Theater on Thursday. Prior to the troupe’s arrival in Greece, Kathimerini caught up with Ana Maria Stekelman, Tango Kinesis’s artistic director and choreographer and the «Nuevo Tango» director. Stekelman appears stern and composed. Here is a woman who, following a successful dance career, has dedicated herself to the study of tango and, in particular, its relationship to contemporary dance. After 10 years of research, Stekelman founded Tango Kinesis in the early 1990s. What does tango symbolize for you after all these years? For me tango is a crossroads for music, poetry and dance. Tango symbolizes the temperament of the citizens of Buenos Aires. How would you describe new tango, namely nuevo tango, when compared to the old version of the dance? Like with all kinds of dance, tango is evolving. New generations have managed to decode the existing language and practice, giving it a new structure which allows teachers to pass on the feeling much easily to their pupils. Nowadays teachers are able to explain how and where each move comes from – tremendous progress in our work. Had you not trained as a dancer, would you have been able to carry out your multitasking role? I don’t think so. Not if I hadn’t gathered all this experience in my work and my life in general. I began my career as a dancer and later on, much later, I turned to teaching and directing. In the end, I started testing my abilities as a choreographer. Then I thought of including my city’s dance, tango, into all of this. But everything came very naturally, like an answer to different moments of my life. What is the relationship between tango and contemporary dance, especially at a time when tango is considered fashionable? What kind of elements bring the two together and what separates them? Although one is academic dancing and the other simply popular, both genres have common points and not just because they are relevant today. There are similarities in terms of technique. The secret, in both genres, is landing with the weight on your thighs, for instance. When it comes to the differences, I would say that tango is a dance for couples, as two people are asked to discover it together. Also, the back and the hands are restricted to the embrace, something which should not be violated in traditional tango. The principal elements in modern dance, on the other hand, are back and hand movement. Which countries are more passionate about tango and which countries haven’t discovered it yet? Tango has the entire world excited. If you can find a country that doesn’t know about it, please let me know, so that we can go and show them what they’re missing out on. What are your plans after «Nuevo Tango»? Right after our return from Greece, we will appear at the Buenos Aires amusement park, celebrating 10 years of the Julio Bocca Foundation. We are also scheduled to travel to Mexico for a nine-city tour in October. In December, Tango Kinesis is invited to join Julio Bocca’s farewell production. As for next year, we are thinking of celebrating 15 years of the tango movement. Lycabettus Theater, Lycabettus Hill, 210.722.7209. Tickets are available at Metropolis music stores.
