May 06 2010: Toilet Tango - flushing away your expectations!

IT takes a certain skill to perform a sizzling Tango while negotiating your way round a bath and toilet.
Rodrigo Pardo carries out the manoeuvre with such flair and style that you’d imagine he’d been dancing the Tango since his childhood in Argentina.
But, contrary to the legend that every Argentinean child learns the Tango almost before they can walk, Rodrigo was a latecomer to the nation’s most celebrated contribution to international culture.
In fact, he points out that he was actually in his 20s before he was introduced to what is usually billed as the most sensual, passionate and explosive dance in the world.
“I actually started in contemporary dance,” says the acclaimed choreographer and performer who is now based in Amsterdam. “But I started Tango in a moment when it became again something that was good to do, when a whole new generation started to look at it as something interesting to do.
“I was really into contemporary dance but wanted to do a kind of dance that was more about relationships, not just watching yourself in front of a mirror.”
It has to be said at this point that there’s probably nobody dances the Tango quite like Rodrigo.
And more to the point, there’s nobody dances the Tango in a setting quite like the one Rodrigo has chosen.
For in Toilet Tango – which comes to St Paul’s Place, next to Sheffield’s Winter Gardens, on May 14 and 15 - Rodrigo and partner Claudia Jakobsen, bring the passion and intimacy of dance to a bathroom display in a window!
It’s a stunning fusion of dance and functionality as Rodrigo and Claudia navigate their way between tightly packed toilet, bath and vanity unit – all provided by Bathstore of Archer Road - with an elegance that makes the mundane magical.
“It came about because I wanted to do a dance for a short film in my apartment in Buenos Aires,” Rodrigo explains.
“It was difficult to find a space to rehearse so the bathroom became the perfect place, a place where I could invite the people I wanted to work with to be with me.”
From his own bathroom, it was a short step to a bathroom showroom in London a couple of years ago – and now the piece comes to Sheffield, courtesy of Danceworks, the organisation that brings the best in contemporary dance to South.
“I have always been interested in the power of performance and how you transform a space through performance,” Rodrigo says, adding that the public’s expectations of what Tango is about simply adds to the charm of the work.
“It’s difficult in that sort of space but I like to work with these limitations,” he insists.
“Everybody has an image of what Tango is and I didn’t want to modify this – I wanted to use that image you have in your head and put it into another context.
“I’m playing with all those images, exporting them, taking what you have already and putting it somewhere else.
“And for me it was inspiring to find out how to solve the problems I was creating.
“I have to find ways to play with dance – and it is very difficult to play with Tango!”
www.danceworks.org.uk

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