Following hot on the heels of the Irish "River Dance"comes "Tanguera", Argentina's latest dance extravaganza to the Beijing Stage.

"Tanguera" will appear with all its exoticism between November 27 and 30 at Beijing Tianqiao Theatre.

In spite of having received unprecedented acclaim from audiences and critics in Europe and South America, "Tanguera" has not performed in the East until now.

"Tanguera" is produced and performed by the Alejandro Romay Theatrics Company. It combines the excitement of tango with a story straight out of Hollywood - the tragic tale of a French woman trapped in the middle of a war.

World War I forced a great number of Europeans to leave their homeland for Argentina. The star of the tango, Giselle is one of them. Upon arriving in Buenos Aires, from France, she meets and falls in love with Lorenzo, a dock worker.

Giselle, though, gets kidnapped by local gangsters, and is made to become a nightclub show girl.

Lorenzo rescues Giselle by defeating the head of the gang in a tango duel. But Lorenzo is shot dead as the couple flee Argentina.

"This is the first tango performance to centre around a heroine," says Omar Pacheco, the show's director.

"People tell me that the tango is a very masculine dance, and I always respond with an immediate, loud 'No'," he says.

"This tango is very feminine. It shows the passion and emotions of a couple deeply in love.

"The ability of tango to express such love so subtlety is the dance's most fascinating feature. And I think that makes it very feminine."

The dances in the show - each under 10 minutes - are woven together to tell Giselle's story.

Pacheco asked Mora Godoy, the "Queen of Tango", to play the lead because "she is able to achieve the perfect combination of dazzling movement and high emotion."

Godoy herself choreographed the dances and managed to incorporate classical ballet and jazz into them.

"My chief concern was to use movement to express the sweet yet bitter love between Giselle and Lorenzo. Whether the technique is 100-per cent tango is irrelevant," Godoy said. Enditem

(21st Century November 24, 2003)