Dance Review | ‘Remembrances: Noches de Tango’ at SOhO Santa Barbara Is a Night to Remember

It was a night to remember! Powerful, graceful, fascinating, intricate, innovative, joyful, clever, heart-soaring, humorous, with just a hint of sarcasm, as well as nostalgic, educational, and dare we say it: erotic! Even all these adjectives are not adequate to describe the show put on by Corporación Tango at SOhO on Sunday, November 10.

A huge thank you goes to Alejandra Folguera, founder/director of Nomad Tango, and Rodney Gustafson, founding director of State Street Ballet, and now co-director of Nomad Tango, for creating this show and bringing these unbelievable artists from Buenos Aires to Santa Barbara.

And thank you to SOhO! I have not been there in a while, so please forgive me, but I was impressed with the new raised stage and new lighting system.

The show opened with a delightful pas de deux to Ravel’s “Bolero,” choreographed by Gustafson, and performed by Hannah Chudinova and Jack Stewart. The ballet dancers performed gravity-defying lifts smoothly and effortlessly, and provided a very sweet opening act to warm the audience up for the fire that was to come.

The tango dancers — Alejandra Armenti, Daniel Juarez, Valentin Juarez, Ivana Fleitas, and Mauricio Cordoba, have been dancing together for over 12 years in Buenos Aires, in one of the most famous casas de tango, El Vieja Almacen. To be sure, they presented tango at its best. No wonder they have been recognized by UNESCO and the government of Argentina for their work.

Valentin Juarez — son of Armenti and Juarez — is only 17. He and his parents are currently living in San Francisco until June, where he is training with Alonzo King and the prestigious Lines Ballet Company. Valentin’s passion and love of dance are apparent in every move he makes, from graciously partnering his mom to being partnered by his dad, to his breathtaking solos, and his humorous, yet very technical imitation of the late, great, Michael Jackson. Folguera said of him, “That kid…he is a master, well beyond his age!” I think the whole audience would agree.

Each piece was such a gem, but among the highlights of the evening for me, besides the spectacular and risky athletic tricks performed by Fleitas and Cordova, was the piece Remembranzas, a story about the Juarez family. It began with a film showing Valentin as a child, dancing with a young girl, and then melted into Valentin dancing solo on the stage with his parents on the dance floor, and ended with all three dancing together. Seeing this sweet dancing family brought me to tears.

The dance performances were interspersed with historic films highlighting the world of tango, showing large orchestras filmed in black and white, and interviews with famous tango composers and singers. Clever multimedia presentations preceded some of the dances, highlighting the stories behind each. One such example was Pandemic Tango, in which the dancers in the film were shown dancing alone in their individual boxes, a reminder of how many of us kept practicing separately-but-together during the pandemic. After the short film, the dancers came on stage dancing in person wearing masks, which they eventually discarded.

In Corporación Tango, danced to contemporary music, the five dancers made fun of modern corporate life, with people reading magazines on a train and rushing to work, yet still dancing tango together.

And the singer! Oh, the singer! Marcela Marcó, with her rich voice, provided musical interludes between the dances, impressively changing costumes for each solo.

“I believe in the power of music and dance, and in particular of tango, for healing the ills of isolation, loneliness, and resulting sadness through movement, embraces, and moments together,” said Folguera after the show. This evening brought together people from different corners of the larger Santa Barbara dance tribe who don’t normally interact: the ballet world and the world of tango. Nomad Tango filled the house to standing-room-only capacity, and everyone had a wonderful time.

Folguera and Gustafson chose to present Noches de Tango in the intimate setting of SOhO dinner theater club rather than a big stage, in keeping with the intimate nature of tango. In the sense that it was intimate, the venue worked very well, but I really want to see the show on a big stage. Next time, Santa Barbara. Next time, we need to bring Corporación Tango to one of our big stages, and keep them here for several shows and master classes!

Noches de Tango was produced and paid for entirely by Nomad Tango, a nonprofit dedicated to the performance, preservation, and pedagogy of Tango. As a nonprofit, Nomad Tango operates on donations to fund its events. The main donors for this show were the Towbes Foundation and Alejandra Folguera and her husband Upamanyu  Madhow. Folguera, together with a partner in Buenos Aires, is also sponsoring a new theater that will open in Buenos Aires in the spring. Called La Carbonera, the new theater will be a nonprofit cultural center for the arts in Argentina.

For more information about classes, events, and ways to support the work of Nomad Tango, see nomadtango.org.