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<b>choreographed by Sergio Trujillo & Julio Zurita to music by Gustavo Santaolalla, directed by Sergio Trujillo
BASE Entertainment, Panasonic Theatre, Toronto
February 13-May 11, 2014
</b>
“Remembering the Disappeared”
<i>Arrabal</i>, now receiving its world premiere, is like no other tango show you have ever seen. Do not go expecting to see a collection of separate tango numbers as in such popular shows as <i>Tango Argentino</i> (1985), <i>Forever Tango</i> (1990) or <i>Tango Fire</i> (2005). Instead, as conceived by Sergio Trujillo and John Weidman, <i>Arrabal</i> is narrative dance-theatre where the story is told via modern tango music and dance rather than the steps of classical ballet. For a story set in Buenos Aires and connected to recent Argentine history, this is the perfect medium. <i>Arrabal</i> has been brilliantly choreographed by Sergio Trujillo and Julio Zurita, has been given a dynamic production under Trujillo’s direction and blazes with fiery performances from the entire cast. <i>Arrabal</i> proves with authority and verve that the vocabulary of tango is so varied and so adaptable that it can easily carry the narrative weight of a full-length story.
The story begins in 1979 where we meet Rodolfo (Julio Zurita) living in one of the slums of Buenos Aires with his mother Abuela (Marianella) and his baby daughter. As a projected newscast informs us this is the time of the dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla (1925-2013), who led a military coup in 1976 to depose Isabel Martínez de Perón, the third wife and widow of Juan Perón. Videla’s brutal regime that last until 1981 was characterized by state terrorism during which an estimated 30,000 actual or merely suspected political opponents disappeared.
During the first scenes, Trujillo makes symbolic use of two cloth objects. A red scarf that Rodolfo lays over his daughter becomes associated with his love for her and her bond to him. Rodolfo wears a T-shirt with a prominent P above a V, meaning “Perón vuelve” (Perón will return”), which marks Rodolfo as an opponent of the regime. He meets other opponents at an underground tango club run by El Puma (Carlos Rivarola). When the club is raided by the secret police, Rodolfo is physically tortured and psychologically tortured with a mock execution. The scene of his detention ends ambiguously. El Puma keeps his T-shirt as a memento. Later a third cloth becomes a symbol. That is the white headscarf that Abuela wears as one of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, mothers of “los desaparecidos” (“the disappeared”), who from 1977 onwards paraded in silence in front of the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace, in protest against the government.
Projected titles tell us that we move 18 years later. Representative democracy has returned to Argentina and Videla has been tried for crimes against humanity and is under house arrest. We meet a young woman with a red scarf, Arrabal (Micaela Spina), Rodolfo’s daughter, living with Rodolfo’s mother in the same flat as he did. (“Arrabal” means “slum” so it’s difficult to imagine anyone would name his daughter that, but so it is.) Arrabal moves out of her grandmother’s flat into a pension near the tango clubs she knows her father used to habituate. There she meets Juan (Juan Cupini), a handsome young man who tries to protect her from the rougher elements of the clubs and the jealousy of his former girlfriend Nicole (Soledad Buss). Looking for clues in the clubs, Arrabal finally comes across El Puma, who has kept Rodolfo’s symbolic T-shirt in memory of his friend, and learns the truth.
Choreographers Sergio Trujillo and Julio Zurita make use of both classical and newer forms of tango that have developed through the years. They also explore other forms of movement that can be danced to tango music. Arrabal’s first dance is pure classical ballet. Scenes of struggle use the vocabulary of floor-oriented modern dance combined with tango footwork. The choreographers reference the elegant classical salon tango style when Rodolfo dances with Abuela, when El Puma dances with his partner Berta (Verónica Alvarenga) or when Arrabal dances with El Puma, or most movingly, with the image of her father. When Arrabal enters her first club in 1997, the dancers are all engaged in <i>tango nuevo</i>, with a faster disco-like beat and its assimilation of acrobatic lifts and drops from swing and ice skating.
It’s fascinating to see the range of expression Trujillo and Zurita can give the same tango steps. Foot play – such as the <i>barrida</i> (displacing the partner’s foot), the <i>empujadita</i> (displacing the partner’s leg), the <i>mordida</i> (trapping the partner’s foot) or the <i>parada</i> (halting the partner’s movement) – can be done playfully as in the dances between Arrabal and Juan or be given a sense of aggression and struggle as in the dances between Juan and Nicole. As danced by Spina, Arrabal is characterized by the gracefulness of her movements while Buss emphasizes the vehement athleticism of Nicole’s. At the same time, the choreographers create a parallel between Rodolfo and Juan through the similarity of their dancing styles that balance grace with athleticism.
In a lovely scene El Puma recalls the good time he had with Rodolfo. The choreographers begin with the two kicking a soccer ball, but soon the two men dance together hand to hand and the use of <i>ganchos</i> (hooking the leg around the partner’s) and <i>patadas</i> (kicking between the legs) echos the soccer game they had been playing. When, in contrast, we see Rodolfo fight with the secret police the <i>ganchos</i> and <i>patadas</i> take on the air of violence.
Perhaps the most moving scene of the work is when Abuela parades with other Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, all wearing pictures of their lost relatives around their necks, while a projection fills the entire back wall with faces of <i>los desaparecidos</i>. The choreographers show us the women’s dreams fulfilled when images of their the lost ones, Rodolfo included, emerge and dance with their mothers only to disappear again into the darkness.
The music by Gustavo Santaolalla and his terrific band Bajofondo may all be based on tango rhythms but is so highly varied in tempo, style, mood and orchestration that one never tires of it. Especially enjoyable are the powerfully mordent tangos inspired by recent composers like Ástor Piazzolla (1921-92). My one complaint is the use of a synthesizer to lend the string sound of a full orchestra to what is only a five-piece band. Tango music played by a fine band like this is so expressive that such artificial amplification isn’t necessary. Patricio Bonfiglio on bandoneon and Marcello Lupis on violin deserve special recognition for their inspired contributions.
Peter Nigrini’s projection design is both informative (for those unfamiliar with Argentine history) and tastefully executed. He seldom projects a moving background again the back wall while the dancers are in motion, which would distract us from their steps. The one use of video that Trujillo as director should have avoided is showing El Puma’s recognition Rodolfo in Arrabal as a projection rather than making it part of the dancer’s interaction on stage.
All the principals delineate their characters clearly, except for Micaela Spina as the title character. This is not Spina’s fault at all. She is wonderfully sympathetic in the role, but John Weidman, the author of the ballet’s scenario, has not made her actions entirely clear. As an innocent, trying to discover what happened to her father, she shows an unwavering dislike of the unwanted attention she attracts in the streets and in the dives of the less savoury part of town. It is therefore hard to understand why she allows herself to be seduced by Nicole into joining what seems to be an orgy in the back room of a club. In the conclusion to the work, which I will not reveal, Weidman sets up a tension between Arrabal’s commitment to her father and her love for Juan. That is a tension that should have made its appearance far earlier, say for example, when Juan first makes romantic overture toward her. It would also have been helpful for Weidman to have distinguished Arrabal more clearly from Abuela, in that Abuela actively protests her son’s disappearance every day, while what specifically motivates Arrabal to investigate the truth remains a mystery.
Despite this, <i>Arrabal</i> is a fascinating, high-energy show filled with all the spectacular dancing you could wish for in a tango show but now brilliantly used to tell the all-too-relevant story of what happens to a people when a government seeks to preserve its power at all costs. The dazzling combination of tango, history and human emotion make for a thrilling evening.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) Juan Cupini and Micaela Spina, ©2014 Cylla von Tiedemann.; photo of graffiti in Buenos Aires from <a href="http://www.conuvi.com.ar/posts/noticiasnumismticas/2475/Rareza-quot-Peron-vuelve-quot-en-serie-San-Martin-Anciano.html">www.conuvi.com.ar/posts/noticiasnumismticas/2475/Rareza-quot-Peron-vuelve-quot-en-serie-San-Martin-Anciano.html</a>; Marianella as Abuela in foreground, ©2014 Cylla von Tiedemann.
For tickets, visit <a href="http://www.mirvish.com">www.mirvish.com</a>.
<b>2014-02-14</b>
<b>Arrabal</b>