The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
    • Shows & On demand
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureTheatre

Milonga at Sadler’s Wells

Milonga at Sadler’s Wells | Theatre review
9 November 2013
Stephen Powell
Avatar
Stephen Powell
9 November 2013

Milonga is not merely a dance or a style of music, but a place and event – a dancehall where the form’s traditions, originating in the 1870s, are performed.  This is the real subject for milonga, conceived by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (to date the only non-Argentine artist to have directed such a production) who opens his show with a film of the Milonga itself.  We get not only the svelte and spicy dancers of cliché, but older and dowdier couples, bathed in an orange glow that only just covers the merciless tungsten of an improvised space.  Such is the outsider’s perspective: one wonders what an Argentine view of our own native folk artists, the Morris dancers, would look like.

As the curtain comes up, we are presented with two milongueros, moving with slow and elegant grace about the stage.  Each is shy, tentative, watchful of the other.  There is nothing of the mash of lacquer and sequins that constitutes Northern impressions of the dance.  Cherkaoui likes to play with his audience; the milongueros are replicated as they dance at ten times their size across the back of the stage.  One tries one’s best to stay focused. 

The show has a narrative – or rather, several, some more successful than others. The bereaved dancer who wanders the streets is a dud, while the story of the young woman, who is sure Milonga can’t be as hard as all that, is one of the evening’s highlights.  There is the obligatory spitting tryst, and a deliciously sexy dance between three male dancers, which ends with the youngest of them seducing a young woman as an afterthought.  The male dancer seems to be a centre in milonga, about which the female is whirled; one can from the outset see the potential for a whiplash Sapphic energy, but the male dancer seems too heavy to be so treated.   The inclusion of a third man gives back the centripetal dynamic, adding power and harmony.  Cherkaoui taps into the Milonga’s history here – not only its man-on-man origins, but also its recent queer reclamations.  milonga is an excellent show, where grace and beauty are  filled with emotional power.

Stephen Powell

Milonga is at Sadler’s Wells until 6th November 2013. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here. 

Watch a trailer for Milonga here:

Related Itemsreview

More in Theatre

Unlimited Festival at the Southbank Centre: Centre stage for diversity

★★★★★
James Humphrey
Read More

RSC Next Generation: Young Bloods proves Shakespeare is timeless

Brooke Snowe
Read More

An interview with Ifrah Ismael: Tales from the Front Line and other stories

Selina Begum
Read More

A Livestream with David Bedella at Crazy Coqs Online

★★★★★
Regan Harle
Read More

Undercover at Morpheus Show Online

★★★★★
Michael Higgs
Read More

Playing ON: An interview with Jim Pope on life-changing theatre

Georgia Howlett
Read More

Sunset Boulevard at Curve Theatre Online

★★★★★
Selina Begum
Read More

Hip Hop Cinderella

★★★★★
Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

Theatre in 2020: a recap (and an outlook for 2021)

Michael Higgs
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap
  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • An interview with Ifrah Ismael: Tales from the Front Line and other stories
    Theatre
  • Female filmmakers lead nominees for the London Critics’ Circle Film Awards
    Cinema
  • The Queen’s Gambit: A chess story that’s not about the moves but the motives
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Sleaford Mods – Spare Ribs
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Jeremiah Fraites: Piano Piano
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Win a copy of Link on Blu-ray
    Competitions
  • Unlimited Festival at the Southbank Centre: Centre stage for diversity
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • RSC Next Generation: Young Bloods proves Shakespeare is timeless
    Theatre
  • The White Tiger
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • The different types of Covid testing explained
    Tech & Sport
  • WandaVision: Marvel’s charming sitcom proves an astounding success
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • The Queen’s Gambit: A chess story that’s not about the moves but the motives
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Undercover at Morpheus Show Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Ten short literary collections to get you back into reading
    Literature
  • Mayor
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Love Tomorrow | Movie review
Kurobuta in Chelsea | Restaurant review