Sin Salida, 2018
A unique collaboration between choreographer Kate Weare, artistic director of Kate Weare Company (USA), and Esteban Moreno and Claudia Codega, co-artistic directors of Union Tanguera (FRANCE), this project brings together artists from Argentinian tango and contemporary dance for a unique cross-pollination of disciplines, cultures and values.
Sin Salida re-examines the fundamental connection point of tango, the frame or "abrazo" (embrace); a choreographic structure designed to connect people to each other. Tango as a form suggests the extent to which we must rely on others to perceive ourselves, exploring individual freedom only through continuous connection between partners. In tango, a "solo" refers to a dancing couple taking a turn on the floor, never to a solo dancer. In stark contrast, modern and contemporary dance have always exalted the individual as both locus of meaning and generator of content, putting forward a long and rebellious (ie: feminist) tradition of the individual's unique consciousness made visible through form.
How might these two disciplines - each a little over a century old - speak to each other, wrestle with and embrace each other? As Jean Paul Sartre suggests, seeing ourselves through the eyes of another remains our only existential option.
