By Victoria Looseleaf
Having traveled to Buenos Aires to cover dancer Julio Bocca’s farewell performance for the Los Angeles Times (he was a superstar with American Ballet Theatre for two decades as well as having founded his own troupe, Ballet Argentino – a fusion of ballet, contemporary and tango), The Leaf knows her way around a milonga. Too bad, then, that Argentine-based Tango Buenos Aires, a company founded in the 80’s and currently in the midst of a two month American/Canadian tour, was lacking in, well, performance cred.
Sweeping the floor with a fishnetted femme fatale.
I go to the theater for both art and entertainment, and I attend each concert wanting to love it…madly. Tango Buenos Aires, which played Orange County recently, was no exception. Unfortunately, the evening fell flat, big-time. I mean, there was nary a fishnet in sight. (For that, we’ve got Bajofondo, a fabulous electronica tango band co-founded by double-Oscar winner, Gustavo Santaolalla, whom I had the pleasure of interviewing for KUSC-FM and whose delicious CD, Tango Club I bought in Buenos Aires my first day there.) I’m also a huge Astor Piazzolla fan and wrote a story about his only opera, Maria de Buenos Aires for…the LAT. But this post is about the OC performance of TBA, so check out my L.A. Times review here and let the ochos begin. Abrazos!
