The show “Noestango” is premiered by the homonymous company, Photo Lucía Merle
The title of the exhibition that opens today, Tuesday, in El Galpón de Guevara, in the district of Chacarita, contains a resounding denial: I’m not. So in a word. So what can the spectator expect when he goes to see five beautiful tango dancers, if the first thing he is told is that he will not find what he imagines?
Talk about all of this in depth. dancer, choreographer and co-creator of the show with which Noestango’s company debuts in great shape: Ollantay Rojas.
-How was this company born?
Ollantay Rojas with Lisandro Eberle and Milagros Rolandelli, the creators of Noestango. Photo Lucia Merle
-Centrally we are three people: Milagros Rolandelli, Lisandro Eberle and me. The name of the group was born first and as such we feel very identified when it comes to composing and which worlds to tell.
-Do you mean that you were born as a group from certain coincidences at the time of creation?
-No. We started making small pieces already with that name for the group. But this premiere, which for us is a big leap, was born on the first day of imprisonment in 2020. So the same thing happened to us as to many others: zoom, research, training moments each at home, writing texts, video analysis. . Anything that could be done virtually, we did.
-How many people attended?
-In addition to the three of us, who are also the creators of the choreography, we invite three other dancers: David Palo, Marcela Vespasiano and Nicolás Minoliti; I took the direction. At a certain point along this path, the Revolutionary Quintet – which makes up the repertoire of Piazzolla and is the reference group of the Piazzolla Foundation – approached us to offer us a theatrical work beyond the concert format. It is therefore a dance show with live musicians.
A scene from the show “Noestango”. Photo Lucia Merle
-And basically they use Piazzolla’s music.
-Not only. But there is another aspect of the Grupo Revolucionario that interests us: some time ago they started playing by heart, without scores, and this allowed us to highlight their bodies, which are no longer mediated by scores and are not not even connected to amplifiers.
-And can they develop physical and scenic actions?
-Sometimes yes. And this produces a very interesting integration between dancers and musicians. We did a residency at the Cultural San Martín and one of the experiences consisted of improvisations between them, which led to truly unique moments.
The beginnings of the project
Ollantay Rojas Lisandro Eberle and Milagros Rolandelli today preview a new work by Noestango. Photo Lucia Merle
-As for the dance itself, what were your first ideas?
-We started applying tango exercises that come from performance, theater and contemporary dance to our practice. That is, elements that are not common in the choreographic composition of tango.
-You say that Noestango “tries to rediscover an artistic identity in the twilight of the tango fashion”. What do they mean by this term?
-We understand that tango-dance as a theatrical show has already completed a cycle that has lasted four decades if we take rather arbitrary dates. I refer to it as the start year in 1983 with the premiere of Argentine tango in Paris, and the closing date is 2021 due to the death of Juan Carlos Copes.
Almost four decades have passed with a boom in shows that have brought the fashion of tango back to the world and that has also had the effect of multiplying ballrooms, teachers and festivals.
-And this expansion begins to retreat for what reasons, according to your point of view?
-For example, the reduction of costs at an international level, which is why, for some time now, there have been far fewer tango shows around the world. On the other hand, the pandemic had a very strong impact on the tango: he was the first to retire and the last to return for his couple dancing characteristics. But there was also a positive effect: for many tango dancers it was time to introspect and think about what post-pandemic tango would be like.
Ollantay Rojas Lisandro Eberle and Milagros Rolandelli tango choreographers. Photo Lucia Merle
-What would this tango be like, beyond your proposal?
-In fact, I can talk about us and our path. We are interested in finding new possibilities; how to go back to dancing and how to open up to other disciplines and how to face non-commercial challenges as it happened in the 80s.
-What were the challenges of that time?
-The information on the work refers a little to that Manifesto of “postmodern dance” of the 1960s in New York, which formulated everything that those dancers rejected about modern dance of the 20th century. But they didn’t say what they approved.
-In the case of Noestango, is there anything they say yes to?
-The answer is almost therapeutic: you have to ‘kill’ the parents to understand them and then evolve.
On the other hand, behind this denial there is a great affirmation, as Piazzolla did with his music. It is to be and not to be in a genre that has so much legacy, so much legacy and at the same time so much weight on the shoulders of today’s dancers and choreographers. What to do with this legacy, we might ask. There are hardly any living characters to honor and therefore the tributes are focused on past glories. But what about us, with the new generations?
-And the answer would be which one?
– Detach from what the collective imagination considers tango and see where we are going. The musicians and dancers of I’m not they have a long experience in all imaginable tango circuits. That is, they have such great support that it allows them to be, so to speak, behind. But knowing that they are bodies profoundly shaped by the tango. This is important.
INFO Premiere: Tuesday 16 to 20, Galpón de Guevara, Guevara 326.
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Laura Falcone
Source: Clarin
