On our 2015 trip to Buenos
Aires, my partner and I participated in Demian
Garcia´s Milonga and Vals classes at the Nueva Escuela Argentina de Tango, and we also had the fortune to
enjoy a number of private lessons by this sympathetic, internationally renowned
tango teacher.
I was very pleased when Demian agreed to give
an interview for this blog, and I was overwhelmed to know that his professional
partner, Inés Muzzopappa was going to
join us. So, one Thursday evening the four of us were sitting at the dinner
table of our modest rented apartment in Barrio
Recoleta. The weather outside was rainy, but the atmosphere at the table
was cheerful, due to the warm personalities of our visitors.
 |
| Our sympathetic interviewees, Demian and Inés. |
THE
UNWILLING TANGO STUDENT
Would you believe that a tango Maestro, with a dance career of twenty
years, did not want to start dancing tango, at all? Well, that is the true
story of Demian Garcia.
Although the Garcia family lived in Boedo, a famous tango district, his
father ”rather listened to rock-and-roll”, and the parents were not dancing.
They did have a desire to learn tango, but an attempt to go to a class had
failed, and as Demian´s father was working as an engineer on a ship, his long
absences complicated the issue.
When Demian was about 17 years of age, a new
tango place (Gricel) opened, just
around the corner to their house. One day, when Demian´s mother was out
shopping, she noticed the new tango place, returned home, and said to Demian
and his 11-years old sister: ”let’s go!”. When they arrived in Gricel, Demian bursted out ”mother, you
are crazy to wish me accompany you here”, and left the scene. The mother and
Demian´s sister eventually joined the tango lessons, but the mother felt
uncomfortable to dance with unfamiliar men. ”So my father bribed me to join in,
by letting me use his car”, Demian says, with a laugh.
After 5 months of participating, Demian was
still not at ease with the tango lessons, and quitted. Half a year later,
however, he returned voluntarily! Why? ”I do not know, I cannot say. Probably
it just was important for me to join voluntarily, and not because of someone
else´s will”. He attended the Gricel
group lessons, given by Efrain Ordoñez,
a total of 2-3 years, and ”eventually I started liking it”.
DANCING
SINCE CHILDHOOD
Inés Muzzopappa´s story is rather the opposite
to Demian´s. Her family was living in the barrio of Saavedra, and her mother was a performing modern dancer. When Inés
was at the age of 4, her mother started dancing tango, and Inés would accompany
her to the tango lessons. At 7, she started to dance with her brother, and at 8
she accompanied Vincente Lopez to
tango lessons.
She commenced serious tango training in 2002,
at the Sunderland Club, where she met
skilled milongueros, and started to take lessons from Jorge and Liliana Rodriguez
and Carlos and Rosa Perez. In the class of the latter teachers, she met Dante Sanchez in 2006, and they joined
to train for dance competitions.
WORLD
CHAMPIONSHIP IN BORROWED SHOES
The almost unbelievable fact is, that in only
one year after having started to work together, Inés and Dante won the tango
World Championship, in 2007. But wait a moment - the story is even more
incredible!
Their original ambition was to participate in
the Campeonato Metropolitano, i.e. the Buenos Aires championships, and
specifically in the Milonga series.
However, at the registration, they also applied for the Tango series - in which they ended up
at the 2:nd position! That granted them the entrance into the finals of the
World Championship, which was due about 2 months later.
They started to practice for the World
competition. But a couple of weeks before the contest, Dante´s father fell ill,
which jeopardized the training situation. On the day of the competition, Dante
decided that he was forced to travel to his father, who lived far from Buenos
Aires. However, he did not manage to leave Buenos Aires, because of troubles in
the airline traffic.
So, at 7 p.m. of the evening of the
championship´s final - which was to start at 9 p.m. - Dante calls Inés, who is visiting a friend of
hers, asking if she can make it to the contest! Inés borrows her friend´s dress
and shoes, hurries to the contest site, dances the competition with Dante - and they end up as champions!
CAREERS
While for Inés the world championship was a her
boost to start a professional career, Demian was then already an acknowledged
authority - and he even was a member of the 2007 championship jury! Because of some
age difference, they belonged to separate circles of tango friends, spending
both their spare time and their professional activities in different
environments.
Their professional CV:s are overloaded, and
only a very brief synopsis can be given here.
Demian´s career has included countless visits to international tango
events and seminars in North America, Europe, Russia, Australia, New Zeeland,
Middle East and Asia. His dance partners have included Milena Plebs, Aurora
Lubiz, and Carolina Bonaventura. Demian has also served as judge in several
international championships, and performed in tango shows, both in Buenos Aires
and worldwide.
From the very start of her tango life, Inés
performed extensively in Buenos Aires milongas with different companions. After
the championship she started her international career with Dante. After their
partnerhip broke, she partnered from 2008 to 2012 with Federico Naveira. In
2012, the organizers of the World Tango asked Inés and Dante Sanchez to partner
again, for the World Tango Festivals. Before joining with Demian Garcia in
2014, Inés performed with different renowned partners.
TANGO
PARNERSHIP
I am curious to know how professional dancers
find their partner. ”Your first partner often is either your partner in private
life, or a person from the same tango class, like in the case of Inés and
Dante”, they say, adding that sharing your private and professional lives with
the same person has some practical advantages. However, at present both of them
are very content with sharing a professional partnership, while having separate
private lives.
They also recognize that ”When you already are
an acknowledged artist, finding a new professional partner is a more complex
issue”. Which prompted me to ask Inés
and Demian about how they partnered. Firstly, I am told, they became a bit more
acquainted in the milonga scene, through mutual friends. And, of course, they
were aware of one another´s merits. ”But”, they tell me with a laugh, ”what
actually happened is that Demian called”. About one year ago, Demian needed a
partner teacher for certain classes, and Inés agreed to join in. The idea of
forming a professional partnership evolved eventually.
GROWTH
During the interview, Inés repeatedly refers to
the concept of ”growing as a dancer”. She ponders on implications both at the
individual and at the dance couple level. ”In the first year of a new
partnership, you adapt quite easily to the new partner, but later you may find
that you are growing in different directions”.
When I ask her, what a ”growth” is all about, she concludes that ”it
depends on what phase of your process you are in”.
When asked about the definition of a ”phase”,
Inés and Demian, after some pondering, list different elements, such as your
technical level, your level of recognition, and your over-all relation to life.
They both stress the importance of enjoying your life, having relatives,
meeting friends, going to theatre, and so on. Demian recently bought a
motorboat, with which he enjoys moments of leisure in the Tigre delta.
Inés stresses the personal aspects of a growth.
For her, this has lately related to starting studies in Social Education, and
reading South American literature from outside Argentina, ”to be pushed to increase your scope”.
TEACHING
Both Demian and Inés are internationally
acknowledged and beloved tango teachers, and in their home town they give
regular classes in renowned tango schools and high-end milonga sites. When I
ask them what specific aspects they want to stress in their teaching, I get answers
that differ a bit, but fit well together.
Demian recalls his own early years as a tango
student. ”At that time, teachers just showed different moves, without giving
explanations. For me as a teacher, a progressive curriculum is an important
issue, as well as explaining the details of any move”. He adds that he tries to
give the students challenges, but without making it too complicated. ”An
important, but not always easily achieved aim is to keep the students
interested, but not overwhelmed, by introducing just the right amount of new
things”.
Inés concludes, that whereas Demian focuses
skilfully on a tango class at the group level, she likes to focus on the
individual student. ”I try to make the students thrive, and by that way keep
them attentive. I like to talk to the students in person, to hear about their
feelings and desires”. She also would prefer a slower pace of teaching than
what is common, to improve the quality of learning.
TANGO
– MILONGA – VALS?
When I ask Inés and Demian ”Which of the three
dances do you like most?”, both say that their preference has been changing
during their tango years. Demian, with a reputation for his Milonga dancing,
surprisingly tells that ”In the beginning, I did not like the Milonga at all”.
Inés recapitulates that when she started dancing, she like Vals the most, but
now she would put Tango first. ”I find it to be the richest. The different
tangos invite you to different styles of dancing, into so many variable
feelings, so many changes in rhythms”. Demian agrees that Tango is the most
variable of the dances, ”but I very much like the fluidity of Vals dancing”.
WHAT NEXT?
When inquired about their near future plans, Inés and Demian
tell me that in Buenos Aires they have been regularly teaching together at
Gricel, and have recently started classes in Club Fulgor, but they still mostly
have separate tasks.
Demian gives classes in Canning, and they both teach
separately at Nuevo Esquela Argentina de Tango. In San Telmo Inés hosts her
Bendita Milonga on Mondays. Internationally, Demian has many solo-teacher
commitments, including assignments in Brazil, Slovenia, Belgium and England,
and Inés is negociating on task both in Europe and in the USA.
