Their Classes

Mariana and Sebastian are not only good in performance (especially improvisation), their classes are excellent! Very structured, detail, clear, their explanation are so analytical and clear that i believe they have really been thinking about the movements million times ... and they are very attentive, they'll run to you from another side of the room if they spot anything wrong with your movement, ... and more importantly, they are demanding! they require you to do it well, even if your reaction is just 1/2 second slower or faster than it should be, they'll ask you to try again and again ... and even more, they are not just teaching movement as many other nuevo teachers do, they teach you to express, to feel, and to care about your partner ... to enjoy the feelings inbetween the movements. I think that's why, they are so different ... they dance to nuevo music with so much feelings.

Their Practicas

In this tango workshop, there's something we've not come across before, that is, they've practica everyday after the 4 classes, the practicas are required by the teachers actually. (And it's so scheduled that we actually don't have time to have diner!) But, i really appreciate this arrangement. As i believe that's how the 2 couples (Sebastian-Mariana and Chicho-Juana) come up with innovative movements and refine their dance by practicing together.  Actually, these practicas are the time to put what you learnt in the classes that day together, and the teachers will incidentally, demonstrate some variation of them if they saw you can handle them. But, most of the time, the teachers were practicing amongst themselves also, and we can see how they try things out ... very interesting, sometimes, we all stop to watch them making it looked like the practica for them, instead of for us ... and then, we'll be shouted by them to keep practicing ... I believe such practicas are what serious dancers need, and what we need here in Hong Kong ... and I hope we can organize such a practica sometimes later ...

Their Performances

I love all their performances in Korea, those choreographed and those improvised. I have been impressed by their performances 3 years before and i watch every video clips of them on Youtube. All, i can say is ... they are just SOOOOOOOOOO good! Their life performances are even better than their clips in Youtube ... The thing that i like them is that, they are definitely nuevo dancers if you have to define them, but they have very strong classical background (with more than 15 years of classical training), their dance style can range from very classical to very nuevo, and they dance nuevo music with lots of feelings, nuevo tango is not just movements and movements, they dance nuevo which move your heart as much as classical tango.

Personally ...

I don't expect them to be nice and friendly before i go to the trip, but ... it turns out Mariana is very nice, she deliberately stayed behind with Chicho to dance with the people in the last milonga, and Raymond is very lucky that he danced nearly 2 tandas with her ... i'm still too timid to ask Chicho to dance ... but it's already very unexpected that we receive kind words of encouragement from Mariana after our casual performance there in one of the milongas ...

... They are excellent dancers, nice people ... we hope sometimes later, we can have them in Hong Kong soon ! ...

More about them in our website www.otro-tango.com with precious video clips of their performances in our Video-of-the-month page at http://www.otro-tango.com/videos_of_the_month.html

Last update: 13-01-2008 14:33

Published in : Blogs, Dancing