Chicho’s seminar in Buenos

Aires, February 2020

The seminar becomes traditional. As far as I know, there was a similar one last year.

The seminar took place in

La Viruta from Feb 10 to
Feb 22, with the weekend
skipped, so all together 11
days. Every day it was two
hours for so called
“intermediate” and two
hours for the “advanced”.
Many people were staying
for both classes, facing
more or less the same
challenges at both. And
enjoying and having AHA-
effects at both.
The number of participants
was btw 50 and 100 or
more per workshop. There
was a quite high
participants’ level of
dancing. Many of them are
performers, tango teachers
or very experienced aficionados. Majority came with their partners, but some were singles.
Sometimes there were more women, sometimes more men.
A specific flavour of the seminar was that Chicho invited several maestros to hold master classes
together, i.e., they would start a sequence with explanations, then Chicho was continuing, or just
adding comments and sometimes add some elements to the sequence. It was a successful way to
revive the Cochabamba Group’s analytical method, the so-to-say improvisational, interactive
analysis of movements and options. The cooperation was respectful and inspirational and we all
benefitted not only interesting sequences and biomechanics and technical solutions to various
positions but also the idea and importance of cooperation and collective creative power. The guest
maestros were Los Totis, Federico Naveira y Sabrina Masso; also with presence of Mariela
Sametband y Guillermo Peque (for several days), Guillermina Quiroga y Mariano Logiudice and
numerous local as well as international teachers.
Chicho also made us ourselves practice our collective creative powers, and possibly improve them:
at the end of the first week and the second week, we were tasked to: 1. Interactively develop
sequences in the couple, 2. Do it with another partner, 3. Do it with another couple, 4. Do it with
other two couples.
During the seminar, Chicho was typically starting the class with few simple steps that many were
not able to perform properly (finding them “too simple” at the first glance, and not paying attention
to important technical details). Then he points to the shortcomings and continues developing the
sequence, analysing and synthesising it, starting from the tiniest movements and tango vocabulary
lexemes, often showing typical, “natural” solutions and then proposing creative ones. At one
moment, he was showing many options of how to continue from a specific position, more or less
interesting ones, while we were simply nodding with approval and understanding. Then he showed
one really unexpected and a WOW-sigh filled the big La Viruta room. This is one of the moments
that pay off all your investments. The artistic moment when you are awaken from your routinised
imagination. That great excitement is not without some frustration — when you realised how often
you are close to a robot. - It is like inventing the wheel - you think you could have had invented it,
but you were simply too late, you just did not have enough time before the one who did.
We tend to surrender to our current level and way of dancing, current sequences and movements,
moreover, we tend to not only bodily but also mentally surrender to what we usually do, the ways
we usually dance. On some days, I remember the second day of the seminar, Chicho was
intensely breaking our bodily and mental limits, developed over years of routine, and so liberating
us to use some more bits of the vast tango potentials that we routinely neglect.
Besides the technical, creative and interactive aspects of tango, we were also made think of our
emotional involvement, so to say emotional attitude while dancing: what we feel and how we
emotionally treat our partner! After the exercise, some people were crying. Nothing more to say on
that.
The seminar was held in Spanish. Very exceptionally, Chicho was making some comments in
English. He said it was his rare opportunity to speak his mother tongue in his motherland. Was that
being-at-home the reason that he was in such a good mood all the time, smiling and joking with
people — or it is something else remains to be guessed?