Maria Plazaola
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Maria started to dance with Gloria and Rodolfo Dinzel in 1993. She later taught at the Universidad del Tango de Buenos Aires and since March 2001 she has shared the directorship of La Academia at de Tango Milonguero with Susana Miller, where she gives lessons and seminars throughout the year.From March 2002 she danced professionally with Carlos Gavito, with whom she performed and taught workshops in Buenos Aires, as well as on tours and in festivals in Europe, Japan and Russia. With Gavito she performed innumerable times, including at the Palais de Glace in Buenos Aires, and the closing nights of the International Tango Festival organized by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires and the Congreso Internacional de Tango Argentino (C.I.T.A.) in 2003 and 2004. She continues to tour internationally, and has participated in festivals throughout Europe, Asia, the Pacific and the USA.Maria studied anthropology and her work in tango is characterized by research and teaching of the milonguero language, which she learned and still learns dancing in the best milongas in Buenos Aires, although these days she is also happily dedicated to being a mother.
Homage to Carlos Gavito In his last years Gavito was anxious – almost desperately so – to pass on all of his knowledge of dance and above all his philosophy of tango. Even though I cannot come close to this the way he would have, I believe he had a purpose in teaching me. If any one thing characterised him it was his generosity, in a broad sense, and I don’t wish to keep for myself everything he taught me. I’d like to pass it on to those who are interested and sometimes I feel the weight of this responsibility. The purpose behind these classes is to pay homage, since in 2010 it will be 5 years since he went. To this end the idea is to develop a program based on his technique, which is useful for correcting any style of tango because it focuses on balance, line and posture. To work on his more typical sequences, which help us to listen to the music, and to later dance and interpret it, from a different perspective, and to immerse ourselves in the ‘universe’ of the pause. And lastly, to be able to appreciate his personal philosophy about tango beyond that of the dance, which allows us to think about tango in a different way. The idea is also to work with the support of audiovisual material from classes and exhibitions that I did with him, along with his comments brought together in the book Yo quería bailar (I wanted to dance) by Ricardo Plazaola. All this in the hope that he, in some place, is happy with the result and that a little bit of his spirit gets into the body of each one of us! Maria Plazaola and Carlos Gavito dancing, see links below: |