El Farolito (France)

Luis Bruni, Ariel Prat, Juan Carlos
Caceres & Pascale Coquigny.
Photo ASK / El Farolito.

What a surprise to see the tangueros drop their often serious disposition and launch into a frenetic dance to enter a kind of trance : la murga. A workshop organized by Luis Bruni and Pascale Coquigny with the participation of Ariel Prat and JC Caceres, brought the murga porteña to a tango milieux in Paris for the first time. This popular dance, originally from the carnival, is imbued with a subversive spirit expressed in the wild movements of the murguero - jumps, kicks, leg hooks. Despite being ignored in France or scorned by tangueros, the murga is at tango’s source. The workshop allowed for the discovery and better understanding of these ties through three perspectives, three experiences.

Ariel Prat, murga artist, delivered the first keys to enter this universe. With a sentiment of rage and pride transported by the rhythm of percussion, the murguero looks for force and echo in his steps and vibrates to the point of leaving his own skin. Energy in the legs, the beauty of gesture and the sense of the figures are in the upward reaching arms "as if grabbing the moon." The murguero is in search of change, of an ideal. This breath of protest, this conquering energy can nourish the tango. The murga belongs to history and passing into now can make its future. This is the experience Luis Bruni looks to transmit. Wild shadow, double infernal of tango, the murga allows the tanguero liberation to attain a certain truth and to create. Living memory of black tango, JC Caceres accompanied the workshop with his percussion rhythms, illustrating with music the creative vitality of this encounter.