I went from Costa Mesa to Buenos Aires to Santa Ana in the span of a few hours the other day.
Let’s start in Costa Mesa, home of the recently renamed Segerstrom Center for the Arts.
That’s where I visited Argentina, courtesy of “Tango Buenos Aires,” a boldly artistic show of national pride writ large through dance.
The performance transported me, achieving the crucial moments of suspended reality that are required of a successful stage production. “Tango Buenos Aires” managed the feat with a mix of elegance and moxie that defines the style of dance.
The Show
The success of the show started with its costumes. Men wore sharps suits, presenting a black-and-white palette with an occasional shade of gray. Their female counterparts added splash with gorgeous evening wear and jewel-toned accessories.
The music made the show stronger. So much came from five pieces—piano, upright bass, guitar, accordion and violin. The sound was just as bold as a big band at times, just as sweet as a symphony at others. In between were numbers that infused the wordless performance with pace and emotion.
Less also proved to be more on set design. Simple pieces of furniture effectively outlined the notion of the dance hall at the heart of the story. Pastel backdrops, projected on a screen behind the players, suggested a curious mix of gaiety and mayhem that, like the costumes, fit the mood of the tango.
Then came the tango itself, with all its passion. Each dancer displayed aggression and yielded to passivity by turns. They alternated between athleticism, showmanship, innuendo and outright art. They did the tango, in other words. They did it about as well as it can be done.
The show’s program provided a primer on the tango, which brings me to Santa Ana.
The short history of the tango is this: It was born of urban tensions in old Buenos Aires, allowing dancers and audiences to cut loose, forget and poke fun at social convention.
You still can see all of that through the fine steps and stylized presentations of the present-day tango. It’s actually a naughty romp—sometimes plain nasty by suggestion. A first-class troupe—such as the one that graced the stage at the Segerstrom—can pull it off with enough graceful cheek and chic to put a banner of art over the whole show and sell it to the swells.
I was feeling pretty swell myself after the show as I stopped at a market in Santa Ana, just a few miles from Segerstrom Center. The aisles were crowded when a Latino fellow asked me a question about oranges. He told me he figured he’d ask me because I’m a gringo, and the gringos own all the citrus groves around here.
I didn’t take offense. Nor did I point out that his point of reference was a bit dated—the name of this county notwithstanding.
I couldn’t help him with any insights on oranges, either.
My fellow shopper asked me if I could take some more kidding. I said I could. He went on to tell me that—as much as it pains him—he has to plead guilty to having a gringo in his family since his daughter’s recent marriage.
I asked him if his new son-in-law is a good man.
Yes, he told me, adding another ribbing: “One in a thousand gringos are OK.”
I can take it, indeed.
I also can see urban tension when it greets me: The crowded store, the emphasis on ethnic differences, the jabbing humor.
It reminded me that art is often born of tension—or pain, or loneliness, or despair—rather than cheery emotions.
I thought about that on the way home from the market, with the images of the tango dancers and the words of my fellow shopper flashing through my mind.
Right Mix
It struck me that Orange County has the societal mix to produce some new movement or style in the world of art. Yes, there’s a big difference between Segerstrom Center and the scene on Fourth Street in Santa Ana. That’s precisely where the potential resides.
How to realize such potential?
I thought about the county’s impressive roster of high-powered, well-heeled folks who make a point of backing the arts through donations and volunteerism.
Plenty of those efforts go into arts of many kinds.
Yet I wonder how much goes toward fostering art that’s born of local conditions. I’m talking about the sort of movement or school or style of art that can define a place. I’m thinking of a sort of art that might do for OC what the tango has done for Buenos Aires.
Where to find that sort of defining artistic effort?
Maybe at Segerstom Center, where officials say they’re planning to commission new works as part of a “constant state of reinvention” they hope will broaden the appeal of the place.
Here’s a suggestion for them: Make an occasional shopping trip out in the neighborhoods before you get too far down the road on shaping new art. It can get tense out there at times, but that’s how you do the tango.
Sullivan is the Business Journal’s managing editor.
