Tangos, Sublime to Ridiculous

First, the good news: “Su Historia,” the latest tango spectacle created by the veteran dancer and choreographer Miguel Angel Zotto for his company, Tango x 2 (“Tango por Dos”), has at least a dozen stylish, sophisticated tango numbers. Elegant women, their long swishy dresses slit to the thigh, press their foreheads to their partners’ cheeks as they stride emphatically down the floor. Mr. Zotto, looking debonair in a tailored suit, executes delicate, feathery steps and rapidfire footwork while in the arms of a svelte redhead (Romina Levin).Unfortunately, Mr. Zotto, who also directed, surrounds these gossamer numbers with crude, Vegasstyle bits. Worse, his misguided attempts to frame the show as a history of the tango give it a run-on feeling. At a flabby two and a half hours, the evening cries out for streamlining.The trouble lies in Mr. Zotto’s weak sense of theater. He seems practically allergic to the notion of building a section dramatically. “Su Historia” moves at a steady pace, studiously avoiding highs and lows.This understated quality turns out to be a merit in Mr. Zotto’s stagings of classic tango dancing, where he thankfully sidesteps camp. His dancers rarely glare or snarl. The flashier lifts and spins are used sparingly, woven into the fabric of a dance; they’re never trotted out as circus-like stunts.As for Mr. Zotto: Though he whacks the stage with a whip in homage to Rudolph Valentino, he soon tosses it into the wings in favor of unadorned dancing. His flashy moves are of the virtuoso variety — including a memorable duet in which he dances along the very perimeter of the stage, repeatedly dangling one foot out over its edge, to the crowd’s glee.Like Mr. Zotto, the musicians favor restraint over ostentation. The orchestra is stocked with veterans who know how to make the music smolder and tease. (If only they weren’t so obviously amplified; their skill makes you long for the acoustic version.) The two bandoneón players, Pocho Palmer and Alejandro Prevignano, coax various styles out of these darkersounding accordions, from carnival jauntiness to nightclub angst.The throaty singers, Claudio Garcés and Vanesa Quiroz, breathe much-needed barroom authenticity onto a stage dominated by slick costumes and video projections. When the statuesque Ms. Quiroz enters the traditional milonga (tango club) and begins to belt “El Choclo,” the sound of her husky voice is mesmerizing. When four men surround her, pulling her into the dance while she sings, you don’t know which to applaud: her lungs or her legs.The fine dancers — 14 in all — are masters of posture and glide. As the name says, this is an evening primarily of tango por dos, with one or more couples performing at a time. The hips and knees swivel with oily ease. A leg darts between the partner’s feet, then slides swiftly back into place. For accent, the couples employ quick little hopping turns, fast-twisting steps, lickety-split lifts, and final poses that land firmly on the last note of the music.If these elegant tangos comprised the entire show, “Su Historia” would be sheer pleasure. Unfortunately, this sprawling hodgepodge of styles also includes some real clunkers. There’s an oddball sequence in which department store mannequins come to life and jitterbug to “You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog.” There’s a bizarre, fetishistic number for scantilyclad girls carrying long bandoneónes, which is neither sexy nor funny. There’s a historical section about Polish immigrant girls being sold into brothels, in which a sinister fellow meets their boat and slices off their dresses; minutes later, they show up dancing the tango in lingerie.Perhaps the most tasteless — and most inscrutable — of the segments is the one devoted to the composer Astor Piazzolla and the lyricist Horacio Ferrer, stars of the 1970s and ’80s. In this section, the women look like they’ve wandered over from a Fosse musical — they wear high heels, black bras, and buttockexposing panties, with or without black suit jackets that barely cover their rumps. Spread-eagled lifts and scissoring kicks that looked virtuosic in gowns turn vulgar when performed in scanty panties.It’s telling that when Mr. Zotto reappears for his final number, it’s not with one of the Fosse girls, but with a lady in a classy velvet evening gown. Moving between fleet-footed steps and slow, expressive poses, the two dancers move with delicious deliberateness. As a director, Mr. Zotto has much to learn. But as a dancer, he understands the beauty of restraint.

Tangos, Sublime to Ridiculous

Tangos, Sublime to Ridiculous

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