July 16, 2006

'Tango' revisits Argentina coup

BY LINDA SHAPIRO, Special to the Pioneer Press

In the intimate, barely air-conditioned theater, dancers sweat gallantly as they hurtle through scenes of violence and terror. They are re-animating scenes from the 1976 military coup in Argentina when thousands of people were kidnapped, tortured and murdered by the military junta.

Choreographers Gerry Girouard, Jennifer Isle and Florencia Taccetti re-envision the coup and its aftermath with mixed results.

Interfacing Girouard's trademark style of gymnastic moves with Argentine tango and traditional modern dance, "Crimes and Whispers: a Tango of Despair and Defiance" makes some bold, experimental forays into depicting physical terror and psychological despair. But too often, the depiction of these harrowing events slips into histrionics or acrobatic stunts.

Co-presented by Gerry Girouard and Off Leash Area theater, the 75-minute piece begins with a casual performance of the Argentine tango, a dance of languid seduction, in a decadent dance hall in Buenos Aires. The scene switches to the Plaza de Mayo, the main square where the mothers and grandmothers of those kidnapped by the junta marched in silent protest for many years.

"Les Madres," as they were called, express their grief in melodramatic and rather hackneyed modern dance moves. Then they inexplicitly face off with the junta in a series of aggressive actions that mix defiant tango and martial arts gestures with thrilling rebounds off of the walls. It's exciting dance, but dramatically skewed: Why would these Madres, famous for their passive resistance, start throwing karate kicks?

More effective is a later scene in which the Madres, cradling white shawls as surrogate babies and crooning to them, are interrupted by a sinister character (played to creepy perfection by Paul Herwig) who stuffs their "shawls" into a laundry bag and then proceeds to hang bloody pieces of clothing on a clothesline. Taccetti, Denise Armstead and Chouette Evers beautifully convey the quiet grit and iron resolve of the Madres.

The most effective scene employs Girouard's acrobatic choreography to show the sense of disorientation and fear among prisoners. In a duet between a junta interrogator and his victim, Girouard oozes menace playing cat-and-mouse with the blindfolded Isle, biding his time, then springing to trap her against the wall like a malevolent spider web. What's brilliant is the way in which the two incorporate the aggression of tango moves and rhythms into this sadistic confrontation.

Other highlights include a sinister sound score by Neverwas and a marvelous set by Herwig — an abstract representation of the Plaza that gets torn apart to reveal the bloodstained photos of actual Argentine citizens who disappeared.