2039  Teatro Colon: Fact and Fantasy

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 15:47:50 -0800
From: randy cook <randycook95476@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Teatro Colon: Fact and Fantasy

Teatro Colon, just off Ave. 9 de julio,
Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Facts:
Teatro Colon has traditionally been considered one of
the four great opera houses of the world. It is
located along Avenida 9 de julio, just north of the
Obelisque, where it occupies an entire city block.
All the great opera stars of the last century have
appeared there, as well as symphonies, ballets, and
recently, spectacles of popular music such as tango.
Pugliese performed there, as well as Horacio Salgan
and Nestor Marconi. Such a performance is considered
to be the high point of an artist's career, and
Pugliese's fans used to chant the slogan "!al Colon!"
(to Colon!)at his concerts for years before he finally
stormed this ultimate bastion of classical music in
Latin America.

No matter how busy your schedule of tango classes and
milongas, you should visit Teatro Colon when you go to
Buenos Aires. There are tours in English every hour.
You will see the magnificent foyer with the busts of
Beethoven and Chaliapin, the costume workshops and
practice rooms in the four-story basement, and the
performance hall itself, with a chandelier and
curtains that weigh tons, and with acoustics so
perfect you can hear an unamplified voice singing
pianissimo, even in the remotest balconies. A wonder
of the world.

I went to see the ballet in Teatro Colon a couple of
weeks ago. The program was Lorca's House of Bernarda
Alba, a dance premier of Faure's Requiem, and Bizet's
Symphony in C with Balanchine's choreography. During
the performane, a friend joked that they ought to tear
out the seats and have a milonga in Teatro Colon.
Based on that remark, I wrote the following fantasy,
in which I pretend to be one of those tangueros so
immersed in the world of tango that he can't go to the
ballet without imagining it to be tango badly danced.


A Tango Fantasy in Teatro Colon:
We planned on going to El Beso, but we got the
directions mixed up and wound up at this Teatro
Colon place instead. They say Pugliese used to play
here, but the management must have changed things a
lot since those days, because it wasn4t set up for a
really good milonga.

Somebody had covered the main dance floor with rows
of chairs, so that the only people who got to dance
were up on the stage. Apparently, they all belonged
to a tango club called "The National Ballet of
Argentina", and they wouldn4t let any of the rest of
us come up and dance with them. That was a pity,
because they were short on leaders. A lot of the
women had to dance with each other in long lines,
doing these super-high boleos.

The couples seemed cold. They were dancing in open
position, and their moves looked choreographed. The
men liked to play with the women4s arms and legs,
and they kept putting their hands around the women4s
waists like they were measuring them for a dress.
Maybe that was what was really going on--the women
needed a better wardrobe. They were wearing nothing
but panty hose and leotard tops most of the time,
though some of them wore these little white ruffs
around their hips. It wasn4t as sexy as if sounds.

Footwear left a lot to be desired. They were
dancing in flats! No high heels, red suede with black
lace, silver sparkles, gold buckles...nothing more
exciting than pastel pink.

Floorcraft was decent. The dancers managed to avoid
collisions in spite of high boleos and without a
consistent line of dance. But I wouldn4t try some
of their steps on a really crowded floor.

The orchestra wasn4t bad. Not Pugliese, mind you,
but professional quality, no doubt about it. They had
a good string section, but it must have been the
bandoneon player4s night off.

In general, I would say that the dancers showed
promise, though they were rather young and obviously
hadn4t spent much time going to other milongas. I
liked their body control and ability to dance on
their own axis. They did great giros. But someone
really needs to work with them on maintaining better
contact with the floor, on not lifting their feet so
much when they walk, on not bobbing up and down so
much, and especially on resisting the impulse to jump.

Teatro Colon has a great sound system. So all they
need to do is clear those rows of seats off the main
dance floor, move in some tables with candles and
roses, hire waiters to serve drinks and parrilla,
invite this National Ballet club to come down from
the stage and dance with the rest of the guests, and
they could have themselves a fine milonga.

That4s all for now.
Randy