Tango music arose from a clash of cultures, and true
to its roots, Victoria’s Tango Festival will blur the line between tango, jazz
and Latin American music.
“There’s a big crossover in Buenos Aires and other
places between Latin music and tango,” said event co-ordinator June Waters.
Dance floors in Argentina will vary between the dance styles, giving everyone a
chance to get up and dance, she said.
Local group Kumbia, known for helping to start the
salsa scene in Victoria, will perform, giving audiences a chance to listen and
dance to their tango and broader repertoire.
“We also have a jazz concert this year that has jazz,
jazz-tango and tango in it, because … we’ve got a fabulous musician who is a
world champion harmonica player that isn’t bound to one (style),” said Waters.
The annual event, in its fourth year, has a mandate to
increase live tango music in Victoria.
While many people think of tango as a style of dance,
this festival is about the music.
The style of music started in the culture clash “that
began in Buenos Aires in the late 1880s,” said Waters. A large immigrant
population contributed influences from Cuba, Italy and other countries. “It was
their grief and longing for their homeland that was expressed in the tango
music. Then it was transported to Europe … and it continued to evolve.”
Composer and musician Astor Piazolla changed the genre radically in the
1970s, drawing on an existing movement by tango musicians.
“They didn’t want to play just dance music. They
wanted to go further and develop and expand it,” said Waters. Piazolla’s music
was intended for concert halls, rather than dance halls. It’s his style, called
“tango nuevo” that inspires the festival’s headliner this year, Norteño.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment