The reviews are in for Germán Cornejo's Tango After Dark, which opened at Sadler's Wells on 5 November for a five-day run ending on Monday 9 November. The world tango champion's show puts five couples, two singers and a five-piece band playing the music of Astor Piazzolla on the main stage, a London revival that had to move from the Peacock Theatre after its closure earlier this year. Nobody disputes the technique: every critic credits the dancers' skill, and almost all of them the live music too. Where they part company is on whether that skill adds up to an evening, with one critic finding endless invention in Cornejo's choreography and another finding precious little feeling behind the acrobatics.
3.5 / 5 from 4 criticsThe verdict: five reviews in so far, from the specialist dance press, independent sites and London Box Office, with no national notice yet. Four of them give a star rating, and those run the full width from five stars to two, an average of 3.5 out of 5; Seeing Dance, which does not score, is among the warmest. What unites them is the music: the band and the singers Vanina Tagini and Jesús Hidalgo are praised in four of the five notices, even the coolest, and Noelia Pizzo, Cornejo's partner, is singled out more than once.
What are critics saying about Tango After Dark?
Theatre and Tonic
Reviewer: Cathie
Cathie finds the evening warm, intimate and a great night out, and rates the band and the two singers as highly as the ten dancers, whose chemistry with one another she admires throughout.
"Tango After Dark is a wonderful example of the dance style in its purest and most daring form."
She pitches it at Strictly Come Dancing fans and dance novices alike, and has no complaints about the pacing of its two acts.
London Box Office
Reviewer: Stuart King
King, a former performer himself, expects the show to appeal mainly to people who already love tango or ballroom television, but finds plenty to admire. He rates the newly crowned world champions Nicolás Schell and Nair Schinca highly, yet thinks Cornejo and his partner Noelia Pizzo edge them on fluidity and poise.
"With her sultry beauty, precision and flawless line, she literally takes your breath away."
He sums it up as an entertaining night out, if one that leaves him in no hurry to see more tango for a while.
Gramilano
"Virtuosity without variety"
Reviewer: Graham Watts
Watts, who counted an earlier visit of the show among his performances of the year, never doubts the skill of the dancers or the musicians, but finds this edition a procession of very similar duets that wore thin after the interval.
"Despite the excellence of technique on show, this was more cabaret than theatre."
He picks out Schell and Schinca as the standout pair, and wonders whether some same-sex partnering, part of the dance's history, might have supplied the variety the programme lacks.
London Unattached
"Where the Soul of the Tango Went to Die"
Reviewer: Teresa Guerreiro
Guerreiro, who remembers the long tango seasons Sadler's Wells used to host, finds the dancers technically proficient but the performances mechanical and short on chemistry, with the solo numbers blurring into the ensemble ones.
"Acrobatics rule; subtlety not so much, and as for soul, well, that’s surely too much to ask for."
Her praise goes to the band and to the singer Vanina Tagini, who in her view supplies the emotion the dancing does not.
Seeing Dance
"A dazzling celebration of Argentine tango"
Reviewer: Nicola Claire
Claire is the most enthusiastic of the critics, and her particular admiration is for Cornejo as a choreographer, who in her account keeps finding fresh combinations within tango's limited vocabulary of steps.
"The needle-sharp precision, particularly of the female dancers, was awe-inspiring, while the intricate partnering and astonishing lifts frequently defied belief."
She also praises the pacing and the singers, Jesús Hidalgo above all; her one real complaint is Charlie Morgan Jones's lighting, which she finds too dark and short of ideas.
For more dance at Sadler's Wells, see our roundups of Emanuel Gat Dance's Five Days in the Sun and of Lost Dog's The Last Hamlet at Sadler's Wells East, and our guide to everything you need to know about Tango After Dark.
Tango After Dark is booking at Sadler's Wells until 9 November.
