24.5.11

Tango Tiger Tuesday: a review of Luiza and Osky at the International Tango Festival in Warsaw

Guest blogger Damian Thompson is back, with a review of Luiza Pasierowska and Osky Casas. Enjoy!



What I love about this performance firstly is that they are not rushing into anything. This is how many of us aspire to dance when dancing socially! Not crazy, continuing the line of dance and not knocking into anyone whilst dancing.

Osky is one of the more popular dancers when social dancing in BsAs – never short of a partner to dance with and here you can see why – great fluidity and an elegant walk with great technique.

Luiza is a smooth controlled dancer with an excellent axis! Moving cleanly and not missing the lead, they combine to give a great vals cruzada performance!

Firstly, notice the ease with which Osky leads Luiza to the back boleo at 0:17 – using the most common contra lead with the side open around Luiza, this gives her unimpeded balance for the contra back boleo. The variation here though is that Osky leads her side open (0:18) and back cross afterward, quite unusual and well executed!

This vals is mostly a 1,2 vals – watch the stepping from Osky, and you will notice that mostly, he is either stepping with the 1 beat, or, if moving a bit quicker – 1,2. But at the end of the phrasing, usually with the 1,2,3,1. Having said that – Luiza is the first to accent the 1,2,3,1 with 2 golpecitos between 0:23 – 0:24. Beautiful following and active following to the music Luiza!

The nice walking from 0:31 shows a very distinct use of the 1,2,1 stepping before the change direction at the end of that walk. The next time that the 1,2,3,1 us used effectively is at 1:06 and they continue with 1,2 accents due to the music and the build up within the music! The end of this phrase being a 16 bars before the next 1,2,3,1 at 1:19. Great dancing Oky and Luiza!

Moving off with the 1 accent and beautiful changes of direction – but have a look now at the rise and fall that is in their dancing, going with the flow of the music. This has been obvious from way back at the start, but very obvious at 0:26, the feel of floating in vals comes from this rise and fall. Very obvious and beautifully executed in the tight giro at 1:27!

Now, here is the fun! From 1:41, watch how Osky is leading 2 for 1 movements for Luiza so that she is changing into and out of cross system and parallel system and then he changes at 1:46 – notice, it's also to the music! :-) This finally gets an applause from the audience!

From 1:49 starts the giros with sacadas. Changing of direction at 1:56 and walking out at 1:58 with another change of direction and giro at 1:59! Nice combinations, Osky. The americana at 2:02 with his foot change again lets him sacada with the side open and the quick change of direction at 2:06! Cute!!

The forward open at 2:19 from Osky who effectively does a split weight pivot then allows the smooth change of direction for Luiza to his left! The sacada at 2:21 again changes his direction and leads a smooth back boleo (2:22) for Luiza and she beautifully adorns whilst Osky continues around her.

At 2:28, notice they are in cross system, they will pivot around their central legs (his left, her right) for a clean reversal! Very nicely done and continuing until Luiza has done the forward open sacada (2:30) on Osky who does a very quick weight change and uses an open side sacada to the same leg that Luiza just used on him!

Listening to the music here, you will hear some urgency, so their feet 'appear' to move faster, but it's the same tempo!

They finish casually and with elegance!

Great performance Osky and Luiza!

Damian
www.tangoreviews.com