Tango with Different Effects

Tango is a dance style which we cannot think independent from the word passion. Last night, I attend a concert which justified the relationship between tango and passion. I flied away from the concert hall and found myself between the clouds with my darling who I imagined (!) Although this impact arouses on me, there are a lot of opinions on my head about the performers and content of the concert.

It was a special event which includes Tangos throughout the history in Turkey. The orchestra was Band-O-Neon, “Orchestraz Tipica de Tango. The concert began with the song El Once, which was composed for a graduate day of a medical faculty. Then Ertuğrul Sevsay who is the chairman of Viana Music University Orchestration Department, make a speech and mentioned about the Tango. He said Tangos have various themes such as love, nature, poverty and so on and then, he explained the program of the concert. Throughout the concert, in some breaks, he also shortly narrated the stories of each song. As an instance of these stories the following can be given; one night, E. Saborido plans composing something and he says no to his wife who wants to go outside with him. After that, the wife gets angry and the following day she does not even prepare the breakfast for her husband. But E. Saborido softens her heart by composing the Fellici for her. There is other interesting stories about each performed song and during the concert I paid attention to note them not to forget and so the songs seem more meaningful for me. I listened to them in a different manner.

In concert, there were songs which are performed by the soloist Bağdasar Bayvertyan. They were Tangos which has Turkish lyrics. Although the performance of Bayvertyan was great, some questions were aroused in my head. In my opinion, much Western music which is performed in Turkish lyrics, there are some incompatibilities between lyrics and the orchestra, they are heard artificially and in some parts they may be disturbing the ear. Of course, this point which I thought is argumentative and may be another essay subject.

The questions which arouse in my head did not end up during the concert. In the songs which are performed by the dancer made confused me by new things. In the concert, there are two couples which are well-known and successful all around the world and their dances are exactly compatible with the music and although Tango dance movements are quite hard to perform, they did it successfully. But, my confusion is about the content of the dance. What is the dramaturgy of Tango? There is a man a woman in all Tangos and the performances have specific beginnings and endings (for example, men always makes way for the women after performance) or there are movements which requires the ‘’power” of men and they never performed by a women (for example, lifting the women performer by embracing.) Namely, in fact, I want to questionnaire, what the relationship between gender roles and Tango is but this may be another essay subject (!)

As a result, however the fascinating atmosphere of Tango, I leave from the concert hall with all of my questions, and that made me happy, because I found new questions to answer. Shortly, the concert affected both my head and my heart, but affected them differently.