Meet Ney Melo

We have recently had the pleasure of interviewing Ney Melo to find out more about the Villa Urquiza style that Ney and Jennifer will be bringing to Malmö for LMDC 4. Thank you Ney (and Skype) for giving us this opportunity.

SIMON: How did you start learning Villa Urquiza style?

NEY: When I started dancing in NYC, there were only 2 styles that the young people were dancing at the milongas: the Susanna Miller "milonguero style" and Tango Nuevo. Tango Salon was taught in the dance studios and it resembled and was associated with tango for the stage. If you were studying tango salon, it was because you were aspiring to get into Forever Tango or something like that. Furthermore, if one took a step back and looked at the US as whole, Americans would further classify Tango as either "open embrace" or "close embrace". You basically had to choose one or the other. Although the nuevo dancers would talk about a flexible embrace, when they actually danced "close", it didn't look right, it didn't look "tango". I chose to dance close-embrace.

Dancing milonguero style was great at first but eventually I felt that there was something missing in my musicality, in my movement, and even in my embrace. Then I went to Buenos Aires in 2003. I took classes with everyone: Chicho, DNI, Julio y Corina, Tete, and Mingo Pugliese among others. They were all excellent teachers and I learned a lot but it still wasn't complete for me.

One Tuesday night, I saw Javier Rodriguez at Porteno y Bailarin and I was blown away. He wasn't teaching in Buenos Aires at that time, so I asked friends about where to learn to dance like that. Someone told me that Javier is "muy Villa Urquiza" and that I should go to Sunderland if I want to see more. When I went to Sunderland that Saturday night, it was like all the pieces fell into place. I saw the role models of how I wanted to dance when I grew up: I saw El Chino Perico, Carlitos y Rosa Perez, and many others. In addition to the Saturday night milonga, I started going to the Sunderland practica on Monday and Wednesday nights. This practica was great: for the first hour, all everyone did was practice their walk, afterwards everyone would just dance and Carlos Perez would come over and correct you.

Then I saw Jorge Dispari and Marita's ad for "Tango de Salon al Estilo de Villa Urquiza" in El Tangauta. Jorge and Marita are the parents of Geraldine Rojas and Samantha Dispari, and they also taught Javier Rodriguez. I started going to those classes as well. From the Sunderland practica, from Jorge and Marita's classes, and especially from Javier Rodriguez's guidance, my tango started taking shape.

SIMON: So what is the Villa Urquiza style of tango? Isn't it just tango salon?

NEY: Yes, "Villa Urquiza style" is tango salon. Specifically, it is the tango salon taught to us by Javier Rodriguez, los Disparis, Carlos Perez, and influenced by El Chino Perico and the past milongueros of Sunderland and Sin Rumbo. Their style of tango, their "Villa Urquiza style" has a noticeable aesthetic and musicality. Jennifer and I are constantly investigating the qualities that make their style of dance so special and we are always incorporating and developing it in our dance.

The fact is that anyone who dances socially can call their tango a "tango salon". The term "Tango salon" is derived from "Tango de Salon" which means an improvised tango for the dance hall instead of a choreographed tango for the stage. Mingo Pugliese calls his style a tango de salon, Tete called his style a tango de salon, and so on. But you will notice that they all dance differently.

We hope that, after our classes, our student leaders will dance in an elegant way that gives the woman a voice in the dance. We hope that they will not think of the woman as just a body that they throw around to complete their steps or as a body that just hangs on him while he shuffles along. We want them to realize that she is a living, breathing, moving, and embracing human that is adding to their dance.

We also hope that our students will incorporate the soulful musicality of the Villa Urquiza style, that they will value the parts of the music that they DON'T dance as, well as the parts that they DO dance.


JOHANNA: What defines your particular style of dance?

NEY: A smooth and graceful walk, subtle steps entwined with intricate embellishments, an intimate embrace, and our love of traditional tango music is what defines our particular style of tango. I hope you will see that we love to go out dancing. We love the milonga. The milonga is what got us hooked on tango. Therefore, the music we choose to perform to is always something heard at the milonga (D'Arienzo, Canaro, Tipica Victor, etc.). (You can always tell which tango teachers actually go out to "milonguear" by the songs they choose for their performance.) The energy we bring into our performances is that of someone who is dancing with their favorite partner to their favorite song. We don't try to deconstruct, reconstruct, or do any type of construction to tango . We try to show the world the sheer bliss that comes from hearing that perfect tango, that "tangazo", blast on the speakers and having the perfect partner in front of you to dance it with. I give credit to dancers who pick obscure tangos or non-tango songs to perform to, that is a skill. But traditional tango has guts, it has feeling, it has love, hate, violence and redemption all wrapped up in one exciting 3 minute opera.

What more do you need?