There are stage productions by local dance studios for young people or by school clubs. They function as introducing (mostly younger) people to the stage dances. Some may grow to professionals. Who knows?
There are life event occasions for adults (e.g. wedding, anniversary) that provide opportunity and a taste of public dance performance.
There are Pro-Am dances. There are Am-Am dances.
And, there is a world of dance shows by all Professional performers. They dance for entertainment of the audience. They provide something amazing and inspiring, something that is well worth the money.
I wanted to take a glimpse of the Professional world, and know how they prepare for their Stage shows.
Meet Hugo Patyn from Buenos Aires. He is the director, producer, choreographer and dancer for his company ACADEMIA HUGO PATYN's Argentine Tango shows. He has done many world tour travels (US, Europe, Japan, etc) for Argentine Tango and other dance productions for theaters, hotels and stages.
He was a dancer in 1999 "Tango Argentino" show tour to the US. By pure chance, I saw the show on Broadway, and it ignited my interest in Argentine Tango. Now I feel like it's a strange Karmic connection.
While his friends George and Jairelbhi are off to China for their Tango show tour until February, Hugo and his partner Celina are temporarily taking over teaching for George's students in Dallas area. And they made an weekend tour for Oklahoma for teaching.
I've liked his professionalism in his work greatly. It was apparent through my previous interactions with him.
Taking the opportunity, today I was asking an interview with Hugo as a part of my research for Stage Tango. The central question was, "how they do it".
As expected, it was quite different standard and practice from local studios and college club-level productions. After all, it was from a top-level Professional. It was a perspective from an extreme end of spectrum of all Stage Tangos.
For an example,... for local productions, we teach and grow students from scratch. At the Professional level, they can choose only "good" ones with audition. One of my questions was what he looks for for his dancers.
Abbreviated answers were like these; "Responsibility (this one came first), ..how they look,..personality (important),..will to constantly improve,..have a special presence,.. shows connection to the music..."
Well, people who wish to be Stage performers. Do you have these?
Since there was so much information, I'm going to take time to organize the message to do justice for what he said. It was definitely an interesting interview. Thanks, Hugo.
(with Hugo and the Oklahoma tour host David)
