Such a nice place, Lisbon... All those hilly cobbled steep streets lined each side with limestone sidewalks, the old grannies putting their clothes to dry on the window sills and talking to each other in the thin streets, the scent of grilled sardines where you least expect it... It was in this kind of setting, in Graça, one of Lisbon most traditional neighbourhoods, that Lisbon Tango festival happened.
The festival started (for me) with a workshop with Graciana Romero and Juan Capriotti. The workshop was very nice, JyG were extremely amicable and precise, guiding us to giros and volcadas while exployting our axis and taking advantage of our weight. The next day we had a wonderful workshop with Pablo Villarazza and Dana Frigoli. My god, they are good! Their musicality and intricate understanding of tango dynamics were obvious and more obvious was that they wanted us to get there, to the point of the exercise. By the end of the class we successfully managed to get there, which was quite nice.
As for milongas, they were always accompanied by the magnificient orchestra Color Tango. Unfortunately they were also marked by the presence of Felix Picherna an annoying DJ they kept talking on the microphone over the tracks. The way how the music went was not very congruent either and, to be honest, I'll give FTL a miss next year if he is there. DJ Melenita was a bit better but a more ecclectic choice in the tracks would be desirable. How can you explain only 3 electronic tangos in two milongas? My partner found it really hard to be invited to dance. It seems that everybody is afraid or not interested in asking people out to dance and that is rather annoying - the reason why you go to a tango festival is actually to dance with other people and learn from them, right?
Finally, the show was again 1 hour late. I particularly did not like this year's show as the dancers did not seem to have rehearsed any of the tracks. Certainly, Roberto Herrera and Tamara Bisceglia were listening to other music because their dance was completely off the plot. The individual demos were very good, though. PyD for their musicality, RyT for their irreverence, GyA for their speed and JyG for their elasticity.
It's a nice festival with a wonderful selection of very good dancers, a lot from Madrid, but generally, a quite international festival. If man were more daring and invited more women that they hadn't met before it would make it an unmissable festival!
The festival started (for me) with a workshop with Graciana Romero and Juan Capriotti. The workshop was very nice, JyG were extremely amicable and precise, guiding us to giros and volcadas while exployting our axis and taking advantage of our weight. The next day we had a wonderful workshop with Pablo Villarazza and Dana Frigoli. My god, they are good! Their musicality and intricate understanding of tango dynamics were obvious and more obvious was that they wanted us to get there, to the point of the exercise. By the end of the class we successfully managed to get there, which was quite nice.
As for milongas, they were always accompanied by the magnificient orchestra Color Tango. Unfortunately they were also marked by the presence of Felix Picherna an annoying DJ they kept talking on the microphone over the tracks. The way how the music went was not very congruent either and, to be honest, I'll give FTL a miss next year if he is there. DJ Melenita was a bit better but a more ecclectic choice in the tracks would be desirable. How can you explain only 3 electronic tangos in two milongas? My partner found it really hard to be invited to dance. It seems that everybody is afraid or not interested in asking people out to dance and that is rather annoying - the reason why you go to a tango festival is actually to dance with other people and learn from them, right?
Finally, the show was again 1 hour late. I particularly did not like this year's show as the dancers did not seem to have rehearsed any of the tracks. Certainly, Roberto Herrera and Tamara Bisceglia were listening to other music because their dance was completely off the plot. The individual demos were very good, though. PyD for their musicality, RyT for their irreverence, GyA for their speed and JyG for their elasticity.
It's a nice festival with a wonderful selection of very good dancers, a lot from Madrid, but generally, a quite international festival. If man were more daring and invited more women that they hadn't met before it would make it an unmissable festival!
