Tango Buenos Aires heats up the Quick Center for the Arts on February 19 | Press Releases

"...repeatedly crafted swirling, fast-paced tapestries of movement, laced with proud postures and sensual couplings."
The Washington Post

Image: Tango Buenos Aires Forget the chocolates. Continue your Valentine's Day celebration on Saturday, Feb. 19 with the sensual, passionate and electrifying Tango Buenos Aires as they perform "Fire and Passion of Tango" with a live orchestra at Fairfield University's Quick Center for the Arts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $40, $35, $30. Tango Buenos Aires is an Arts & Minds presentation and is part of the University's focus on Global Citizenship.

Tango Buenos Aires has become one of Argentina's great cultural exports, known throughout the Americas, Europe and the Far East as the most authentic and uncompromising representative of the Tango. The company of perfectly matched dancers has captured the imagination of audiences from Washington D.C. to Sacramento and beyond.

In Mary Nares' Sacramento Press review she wrote, "... the most startling feature of the dance is the lightning-fast footwork by both partners. Dazzling intertwining lifts and kicks send shiny shoes around and behind and between the flying feet of the dancers, in split-second timing...choreography by Susana Rojo is stunning ... The music was also phenomenal ... The musicians evoked the authentic spirit of Tango music, rendering tunes both haunting and exciting."

The Argentine tango has a mixture of African and Spanish antecedents, and also a strong influence from the Argentine milonga (also known as the meeting place for dancing), which is sung by Gauchos, the Argentine "cowboys." The tango evolved through the river settlements, halfway houses, brothels, and dancing pubs, in a rapid metamorphosis from the habanera to milonga , and finally the tango.

The primitive tangos were improvised and the feelings conjured by the spontaneous and evocative movements were transmitted among the musical interpreters through the exclusive use of their instruments. The accompanying dance was in a state of creation. First there were only male dancers, and later female dancers saw that the sinuous body language was the perfect expression of the feline grace of the woman. With the inclusion of the female sensibility, the true tango was born as the complete and functional tango seen today.

The tango's constant companion is the piano, although it has been accompanied by the violin, guitar and flute. Nowadays, the most typical instrument is the bandoneón, which is an accordion similar to the concertina. Pablo Mainetti, the world's greatest bandoneón player, joined the orchestra in 1999 and Julian Vat, Argentina's most prolific composer and leading musician, is the music director.

Tickets are available at fairfield.edu/quick or by calling the Box Office at (203) 254-4010. The toll free number is 1-877-ARTS-396. Special offers and discounts are available through the Quick Center's e-mail list. Join, by contacting boxoffice@quickcenter.com . Become a fan of the Quick Center for the Arts on Facebook and keep up-to-date with the latest performance news, plus special offers and discounts. Find the Quick Center at www.facebook.com/FairfieldQuickCenter.

Directions: Fairfield University is located off I-95, exit 22 at 1073 North Benson Road, Fairfield, CT 06824. Access to the Quick Center for the Arts is through the Barlow Road gate at 200 Barlow Road. Special note: From Oct. 4, 2010 through June 30, 2012, the southern end of North Benson Road (Rt. 135) will be closed to traffic on nights and weekends. Round Hill Road intersects with Barlow and provides access to the Quick Center for the Arts.