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Seduced by tango

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
October 17th, 2007 issue

Tango Seducción, the show that bills itself as the “Dance Sensation from Buenos Aires,” came through Prague last week, playing to a less-than-capacity crowd at Theatre Hybernia. The troupe left Prague for Poland after a scheduled performance in Brno was cancelled.

No surprise there; ticket prices were around 1,000 Kč, and Argentine tango is new to the Czech Republic.
By all accounts, the style was introduced to Prague in the late 1990s by Marek Štefan and Radka Šulcová, who teach Argentine tango in a studio near náměstí Republiky. Before then, Šulcová says, Praguers were mostly familiar with European tango, a style that emphasizes technique and is often danced by professional dancers in competitions. Argentine tango, on the other hand, is a social, improvisational dance.
The Tango Seducción dancers didn’t disappoint. Known as being among the best in their form, the troupe dazzled the audience with intricate footwork, complex figures, unrelenting energy and more than a single helping of sensuality. Gustavo Russo — director, choreographer and lead dancer — was a pleasure to watch with his partner, Samantha Garcia. Although Russo’s tango seemed a little delicate compared with the other male dancers onstage, he still infused the performance with passion, and choreographed a few downright sexy numbers, with both him and Garcia being topless in the last.
Their style was a bit showy for the Argentine form, but it was meant for the stage. Typically, Argentine tango is danced in milongas, or informal tango gatherings, and is meant not for the pleasure of an audience, but for the dancers.
“[Argentine] tango is much more about the internal feelings and emotions you express to each other,” Šulcová says.
At one of these milongas held Oct. 11 at Jam Café, at Národní třída, the floor was comfortably occupied by several couples slowly moving to the music of the bandoneon, an accordion-like instrument common to tango music. One of the organizers, Jan Chrostek, talked about how long it takes to become a good dancer. He started seven years ago and teaches lessons, but still only considers himself intermediate — though watching him on the dance floor, the inexperienced eye wouldn’t know it.
Chrostek considers Štefan and Šulcová to be two of the best dancers in Prague. And it’s clear that the Argentine tango scene here owes much to the couple. “When I see the people [at milongas], we know 70 percent of them from our classes,” Šulcová says. According to Štefan, the regular Tuesday and Thursday evening dances typically attract 30 to 70 people.
The classes are 2,500 Kč [$130] per 12-session course. This semester they’re full and there’s a waiting list to get in. The 90-minute sessions are relaxed and casual, attended by a good-natured bunch that earnestly tries to get as close to matching the elegance of Štefan and Šulcová as possible.
Štefan says that the growing popularity of Argentine tango in Prague mirrors a similar trend worldwide. “It’s becoming a fashion here, I think,” he says, adding that the dance is particularly popular with foreigners who may have been exposed to the tango scene in their own countries before moving to Prague. While only about 20 percent of his students are foreigners, he estimates that about 90 of the foreigners are tango devotees. Indeed, Šulcová and Štefan offer instruction in both Czech and English.
At Jam Café, Americans danced with former Yugoslavians, Romanians with Czechs and people of all ages milled about.  All that really seemed to matter was that they were enjoying themselves as much as they were moving with grace.
Kimberly Ashton can be reached at
kashton@praguepost.com

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@praguepost.com


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