The Fresh Air of Renovation
by Alberto
Paz
Copyright (c) 2000, Planet Tango. All Rights Reserved
Recently a film crew of RAI, the Italian Television Network was in Buenos
Aires to interview Diego Maradona, the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and
Mora Godoy. Soccer, politics and Tango are some of the main ingredients
that make Buenos Aires the undisputed Emotion Capital of the World.
Mora and brother Horacio Godoy taught at the 1997 Stanford Tango
Week. We ran an exclusive interview with Mora in the June '97 issue of
El Firulete. Ever since, the Godoys have been doing what they love and
do best, living a full life of Tango. This month, Mora is opening a "space
for Tango." Mora's Place (our guess for a name) is a project that had been
brewing for a couple of years. It brings closure to a sense of loss that
Mora felt when she began to dance Tango and sensed the reticence of some
selfish "maestros" to give a complete set of information as opposed to
cutting corners and keeping vital information close to their chests.
Mora Godoy is an exclusive artist of cable TV Channel Solo Tango.
She has been seen in the series Asi se baila el Tango with Osvaldo Zotto
and she hosts a segment called La Yeca (a reversed syllabe slang for calle,
the street) where she takes to the streets of Buenos Aires to talk to people
about Tango. She has been a member of Tango x 2 with Osvaldo Zotto and
performed in London, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Paris, Milan, Rome,
Athens, Tokyo, Osaka, Mexico, Madrid and Hong Kong.
She is a graduate of the Superior Institute of Art of the Teatro
Colon. Her Tango career was guided by the teachings of Pepito Avellaneda,
Antonio Todaro, Miguel Angel Zotto and Graciela Gonzalez.
In her new "space" Mora hopes to offer classes by a wide variety
of teachers, to have a place to rehearse and develop her creativity in
the area of choreography. Any group, small or large, local or foreign will
be welcomed to use the facilities, to request specific curriculums and
choose the teachers they wish to study with. Mora has made a commitment
to provide complete information of everything that is happening in the
Tango scene worldwide and to have music, videos and Tango attire for sale
at accessible prices.
Along the way Mora and Horacio have been very busy. She has been
a guest performer at the functions offered by Teatro Cervantes featuring
the Juan de Dios Filiberto Orchestra. She has danced Tango at the most
characteristic spots of Buenos Aires for Telefe Network's international
micro programs. Her classes at Club Almagro with brother Horacio assisting
have set records of attendance topping 140 persons per class. In November/December
'97, she choreographed and performed at Sr. Tango's late night show and
the company's tour of Brazil and Uruguay.
The explosion of the Tango dance has shaken the political and corporate
worlds, and the Show of Mora Godoy has been one of the preferred party
themes at the most important political and corporate conventions in Buenos
Aires.
At age 26 Horacio Godoy is riding high in popularity as the host
of La Estrella, a favorite milonga regularly attended by 500-600 persons,
and as a top rated DJ at Club Almagro, another popular night spot on the
Buenos Aires Tango scene. Prior to that he has worked in some of the most
famous and well known Tango places, such as Club Sunderland, Salon Gricel,
Salon La Argentina and Club Juvenil.
Horacio studied Tango on the dance floor with the milongueros from
different neighborhood clubs and his solid technique reflects that. He
has had the benefit of further studies with Miguel Angel and Osvaldo Zotto,
Graciela Gonzalez and Julio Balmaceda. He is part of sister Mora Godoy'
teaching staff at Club Almagro and as a teacher he has given seminars in
Buenos Aires, Rosario, La Plata and other important Argentine cities as
well as having been a faculty member of the 1997 Stanford Tango Week.
He has danced in a film by famous Argentine classical dancer Maximiliano
Guerra and also has performed on different stages with Mora. Recently he
participated in a festival in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Without a doubt, there is a change of guard happening right now on
the Tango scene. This is right on schedule with the 40 year stages that
the Tango seems to take to renovate itself. Jose Gobello, president of
the Academia Porteña del Lunfardo has written in El Tangauta that
as the porteño changes so does the Tango. And that seems to happen
every 40 years. It started with 40 years of the Tango of Villoldo, cocky,
impish, joyful and lackadaisical; it continued with the 40 years of the
Tango of Contursi, nostalgic, sentimental, emotional; it was followed by
the 40 years of the Tango of the megalopolis, of the hippies and the yuppies,
created by Piazzolla
The current renovation has began. The Tango dance rules again and
it is bringing about the onset of the new guard, perhaps as Gobello calls
it, the Tango of the Zapping, replacing the clavel en la oreja with pierced
earlobes.
Mora says that the dance proposes an encounter, the chance of communication,
the benefit of enjoyment and the setting aside of the daily stress that
life in the big city puts into our lives. La milonga is a world of its
own where everything seems to come to a halt and time becomes an embrace
that becomes dance.
Both, Mora and Horacio, believe it is important that people enjoy
themselves while they are "consuming" Tango, because it is something authentic
and endless, a viral infection for which there is no cure. A truth that
always exists in the embrace.
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