After
seeing Ricardo Vidort's milonga in Rome, I started to look for other milongas
from that generation... and remembered Ricardo Suarez, who was five
years older than Ricardo Vidort and celebrated his 90th
birthday a few weeks ago.
When
I first watched him in Maipu 444 six or seven years ago I didn't know
who he was: he certainly appeared to be the oldest dancer there, and
yet didn't miss out many tandas. I kept watching him because he
seemed to have an incredibly precise sense of the beat: he seemed
more 'on the beat' than anyone else in a room full of some of the
most experienced tangueros in Buenos Aires. Every time I've been
there I've seen him at a milonga two or three evenings a week,
dancing most tandas, dancing with old and young, dancing all evening.
His
movements aren't big, but look very precise. Small movements doesn't
mean movements without energy: his steps are absolutely decisive. That back-step has a sudden precision
to it: you don't need to take a big back step to get the energy of
the movement. As usual it's not what you do it's how you do it. Useful on crowded floors, and also useful if you want to keep dancing all night: no energy is wasted.
There
have
been a few recent
videos related
to his birthday,
and several are milonga. The
feeling that he's more 'on the beat' than anyone else is still there,
and
I
assume
that his partners are exactly with him, very precisely on the beat
too. (There's
nothing approximate
about
'on the beat' in traditional
Buenos
Aires tango, as
I've been reminded a few times while
there.)
For some reason the 'embed' isn't working: the video is here. Abretango also has other videos of Ricardo's birthday celebrations.
Here's Ricardo and the late Enriquetta Kleinmann at Ricardo's 89th
birthday last year, a well-lit and very clear video. (You have to fast forward to about 2:40 to get to
the dance.) Same music: curious how similar Tati Caviglia and
Enriquetta Kleinman are, both in height and dance, although I think
Enriquetta looks more assured.
And to return to the 90th birthday: Ricardo Suarez dancing with Muma. Not a milonga, but a lovely tango. The film is mainly close up
on upper body, and the movements of the dancers are very clear, and
it's extraordinary just how much movement there is, up and down, side
to side and round, little movements back and forth, like a
conversation. It's not exaggerated, and it is precise. But when the
camera does pull back... Muma is dancing barefoot! Wonderful. In
conversation once, a 'porteña' deplored women wearing jeans
to milongas: But, I said, just last night I saw Muma at Cachirulo in
jeans! 'Ah! Well. Muma!' she replied. Muma can wear jeans to a
milonga, and she can dance barefoot too. But that's Muma.
One
thing clear in this clip: Muma and Ricardo actually look as if they
are dancing together, and enjoy dancing together. Sad to say, that's
not so with some of the other dancers visible. A pity they are
surrounded with dancing that seems to lack this personal, interior absorption, lost to the world in each other for a few moments.
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