Leeds Grand Theatre – Until 14th April 2018. Reviewed By Dawn Smallwood
4****
Vincent Simone and Flavia Cacace, successful tango performers, are well known for their roles in the very popular BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing and also on the Strictly Come Dancing Live tour. Since then, for the past few years, they have been involved with three well received shows, nominated twice for national awards, Midnight Tango, Dance ‘Til Dawn and The Last Tango.
Vincent and Flavia are starring in and co-choreographing Tango Moderno, a new show which is doing a national tour this year with the last stop being made at the Leeds Grand Theatre. Tango Moderno, under the direction and choreography of Karen Bruce, is a production that explores deeply how tango has evolved and dance revolved since its creation in Buenos Aires in the 1930s. Tango certainly hasn’t looked back since.
The production opens up with the backdrop of the neighbourhood street and a nightly ambience with James Whiteside’s lighting ingenuity. It introduces the concept of the tango and how expression and passion can be expressed this way and how universal this dance is.
The pulsating energy from the dancing with Vincent and Flavia leading the company transfixes the audience from beginning to end. The synchronised dancing is choreographed harmoniously in a number of scenes. With Morgan Large’s innovative, creative and colourful stage set, each scene opens up either with a social or a personal theme and the dancing demonstrates how versatile and adaptive tango is. Each of the scenes shows how the social and technological landscape changes and how people’s life evolves and revolves around them. This is the same vein with the tango and how the times has kept the dance genre afresh today with added renaissance.
With an on live band on stage and talented singers, Tango Moderno, is sung and danced to a variety of musical hits ranging from classical to modern reflecting the versatility of the tango. The stand out performance must be the incredible passionate finale by Vincent and Flavia at the end of the show with Oliver Lewis’ live violin accompaniment of Vittorio Monti’s Czardes.
Tango Moderno is not just a handful of ballroom tango sequences but it explores broader and deeper. The production is a testimony to how tango has evolved from its origins back in the 19th Century and continues to revolve into the 21st Century. It is successfully delivered by a group of very talented dancers and singers and of course the main attraction is Vincent and Flavia. It is a very enjoyable and entertaining production which should embark on another tour.