Tango tango tango

LOCATION: GW Lisner Auditorium TIME: Saturday, April 9, 2005, 8:00pm EQUIPMENT: $25 (discounts for seniors, students & groups) OPTIONAL: Fire in your soul

I've never really mastered any kind of formally rigid dance, but watching Latin dancing is enough to kindle a Vesuvius in the loins of even the most rhythmically challenged person. You walk differently for days.

So, go!

Pan American Symphony Orchestra presents
Todo Tango IV
Featuring world renowned Bandoneon Player Raúl Jaurena and Tango singer Marga accompanied by professional Tango dancers Pablo and Carolina and the Pan American Symphony Orchestra

he Pan American Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Sergio Alessandro Buslje, presents an extraordinary evening of symphonic tangos, from traditional tangos to the Nuevo Tango of Astor Piazzolla. Joining the orchestra is Raúl Jaurena, master Bandoneon player, who recently performed at Carnegia Hall with the Berlin Philharmonic and with Yo-Yo Ma, brings the authenticity of the tango of Buenos Aires to the concert hall with his incomparable skill on this most difficult of instruments. He is enthusiastically complimented by the passionate singing of the talented Venezuelan Marga Mitchell who demonstrates such depth of feeling in her interpreations that you are transported to a smoky cafe near the docks of the port city where tango was born! Of course, no tango show would be complete without dancers, and this show features a pair who promises to enthrall with their sensual and graceful "jotas" and "ochos" -- steps authentic to Argentine tango.

The show features compositions by Argentina's best-known contemporary tango musician, Astor Piazzolla. When Piazzolla returned to Argentina after long stays in New York City and Paris, he transformed the tango into a modern form that was noticeably influenced by classical composers such as Stravinsky and Hindemith, and also by American jazz. At first scorned and rejected in Argentina for what was believed to be a corruption of the nation's most loved music, Piazzolla was responsible for the renaissance of Argentine tango, and by the time he died in 1992, he had written over 300 tango compositions and played to standing room crowds across the globe. Tonight's performance includes Piazzolla's Balada para un loco, Tangazo, Oblivion and Verano Porteño.