Gisela Galeassi and Gaspar Godoy are from Cordoba, and won the Campeonato Mundial when they were only 18 and 19 years old.
Since then they've toured the world dancing and teaching and are working on their second instructional DVD.
Now I ask you, how can any teenager
1) Be a world champion of a dance that takes years to perfect and understand;
2) Teach it to normal people who want to dance socially?
Am I missing something here?
Winning the Campeonato Mundial in Buenos Aires in 2003 jump-started their career and suddenly they were all over the international tango festival map. They've made eight teaching tours to Japan alone. They are also the "official image" and tango teachers of the Abasto Plaza Hotel, which is marketing itself to tourists as "The Tango Experience."
You can read all about it in the August issue of La Milonga Argentina magazine.
They are beautiful and young and in love (they married last year). It's a great story. But what does it say about the future of tango? about the international tango present when people want to learn to dance like they do? Will these folks go to Maipu and Gricel expecting to dance like that?
Ruben and I have a private Argentine student (middle-aged) who came to us after taking a class at a large Buenos Aires tango school. Alberto has danced in the milongas for many years but the time had come when he wanted to improve his tango and make it more satisfying and interesting to himself and his partners. So he went to this big group class, and he walked out afterwards, frustrated and angry, never to return. Still in shock about how the class was taught, he told us, "What can a 20 year old kid possibly have to teach me?"
With the whole world dreaming to be stage dancers, what will happen to the embrace? And what will happen to the music? --the soul of tango.
P.S. Nancy just commented that she thought from my post that they won the Salon division. No, that might be even worse; yet though they won the Stage division, they are teaching salon!!! So I'm not sure which is worse, actually. What do you think?
4 comments:
They won the SALON championship, not the performance category??!! Hmm....maybe DL was correct about it all being fixed by the sponsor.
Tsk tsking,
Nancy
Nancy, according to the magazine article,
"At just 18 and 19 years of age, they won the first World Tango Championship in Buenos Aires in the Stage category."
Oh, now I realize, Nancy, you thought by reading my post that they won in salon? Sorry, I better clear that up. I guess my point was that they won in stage, and are teaching salon!!
Sorry, I'm a bit slow this morning.
OK - better. Who won the salon category? Doesn't that come later in August?
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