As good as it gets

I love this! Every now and again a tango video comes along that makes complete sense of everything. If you ever have doubts about tango, how it should be danced, whether you should be doing something else, what it's for, what it's about, here's the complete answer. It just makes sense.



Cumparsita, the last tango, the end of the night. Only a few couples are left on the floor, and the table cloths are being folded away. This is Centro Leonesa, so it could have been the Nino Bien milonga. Adela Galeazzi and Santiago Cantenys are dancing. They have as much space as they can use, but they aren't dancing a demo and only the camera is watching: they are dancing just for themselves. It's the last dance of the night, they've been on their feet for hours, but there's no romantic softening or slowing down about it: their dance is full-on and filled with the energy of the music, as intense as if it were the first tango of the evening. In effect it says: if you dance tango, do it full on. Put all the meat on the grill every time; no half measures.

Her feet are wonderfully fast and precise: she marks time with her feet, but there are no superfluous, fussy ornaments that get in the way of the dance as a whole, and there's nothing ostentatious about his posture or his dance. They aren't 'old generation' (although they aren't exactly young, either) but this must be about as good as it gets. I love this. It's the fluent dance of a couple who dance a lot together.

& it was her birthday. At least, according to Irene and Man Yung's blog, where I first saw it. OK, so I'm copying them, but at least I'll be able to watch it every time I open Tangocommuter, and anyway, they're in BsAs right now, too busy to notice, I hope! And they mention Adela's site: worth keeping an eye on.

And when I checked out Adela's site I found this: a video of Adela and Santiago joined by Elba Biscay. I linked a video of the three of them dancing together a while back, and I think this one is even better. If that's possible.