Mauro Caiazza, you started to dance back in 1996 with argentine folklore and tango. With the age of 16 you first felt the essence of tango. Professionally teaching at Mora Godoy Studio, your were dancing “stage – escenario” , later you came to like “Nuevo” a lot. Today, with quite lots of traveling and other impressing experiences, you are involved in a new project, Tango Freestyle .
In 2011 I invited Mauro Caiazza to my festival in Bali, which was his first visit to Indonesia. Working individually, not attached to a company , he was given different opportunities and experiences. He could meet and talk to people, who had different cultural and social backgrounds but still share tango passion. On his visits to other Asian cities Mauro Caiazza also taught argentine Folklore.
Once we were talking and Mauro told me about his preference to be in Asia.
Mauro Caiazza, what did you find fascinating in teaching tango in Asia ?
I was very young and had not that much experiences in teaching. The small communities in Asia were very friendly and people liked what i was teaching. They gave me a lot of confidence. Nobody actually teach you here how to teach tango. I had to create my own techniques and I put together all I knew and which I found important for my students to know. Asia gave me a lot of positive feedback. I was very happy with it.
He has danced every style of tango, Escenario, Salon , Nuevo. During his artistic life he has gone through many experiences and changes.
How do you best discribe your personal style of today?
I think the best I could do is to bring everything what I know, together.
I have danced in Arabal, with Bajofondo music and I danced in Forever tango, very stage and old style, and strong from the personality. At Mora Godoy, tango was very acrobatic, it was more commercial, for export. I also worked last year in a TV show, which was a very different experience.
All these influences are in my dance now and therefore I create something very personal. I don’t know if you can say it is a style. It is a mix of improvisation to electronic music with acrobatic parts as well. It is something very new, but it still has the sense of tango.
I do not grow up in milonga places, tango for me is not about the music. Of course music is important but for me tango is the language of the body in connection with another person. That, for me is Tango. We dance to other style of music but we have this connection of tango. You can dance tango to any kind of music, it does not necessarily have to be tango music.
In the last couple of years he decided not to work to much with companies where artists have to follow the company’s the style and choreographies. Now his focus is on what he likes most and he is able to express himself as an artist better. The value of this freedom is for Mauro Caiazza most important.
What is your present or future project you are working on?
The project I am working on is a company ” Tango Freestyle “. We are doing many shows here in Buenos Aires. The core group are 3 persons dancing together, me with my partner and another person who dances break dance and tango in a very personal way.
Sometimes we dance with more dancers, sometimes with different musicians. Sometimes we do just improvisations , sometimes we have some choreo included.
My idea is to bring our Tango freestyle abroad, in the same way I was traveling before to other countries to teach , I would like to bring the company to other places. I did my career with teaching, now I want to continue my career with this artistic project. I give 100% faith in it, because I really think that it is good. It is good because it is fresh, new and different. And the most important, it is something what we love to do.
Our concept with Tango Freestyle is that we can connect with many people not only with one dancer, with 2 , 3 or more.
If we can be sucessful abroad that would be very nice, if not we keep here in Buensos Aires with our dream and continue with what we love.
What is your suggestion to us foreign tango dancers when we come to Buenos Aires?
I suggest to people who come to Argentina to try out everything. Try out different Milongas, different styles, different teachers, see different shows.
Try to see many of the couples, every couple has different magic. The value is that every body has different talents, try to appreciate and see every corner of Buenos Aires because Tango is also in many different places , in any bar or just in people.
The people breathe tango. Buenos Aires is Tango. Even when I take classes for theatre or contemporary dance, I still feel tango. It is so strong here in Buenos Aires, where the city has this fast rhythm with lots of information everywhere. This magic feeling is very easy to find here.
People sometimes ask me, if I feel the difference between a foreign dancer or an argentine dancer? For me this is not important, you see the difference in dancers who have been in Buenos Aires or not. When I dance with a person I can feel if she has been in Buenos Aires before or not.
That is amazing about Buenos Aires.
Mauro Caiazza , thank you very much for the interview and I wish you best luck with your Tango Freestyle project.
more from my Tango Talks interviews: Milena Plebs, Anibal Montenegro, Gonzalo Robinson
