Juan Carlos Copes died: the man who created steps on the sidewalk to take them to the best stages and who made Troilo angry

Laura falcoff

01/16/2021 3:48 PM

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Updated 01/16/2021 3:48 PM

In an interview many years ago, María Nieves, the legendary partner of Juan Carlos Copes, told me this little story: “The two of us were going back in a group at night, late, from some milonga in Villa Urquiza.

Suddenly, before reaching the neighborhood, he

asked me to quickly go down to the sidewalk

.

He wanted to practice a new step he had just invented, and he needed to try it before he forgot it. "

The anecdote, although minuscule, perfectly sums up

what Juan Carlos Copes represented on the stage of tango

.

But even much more, it tells us about

the very nature of tango dance

, whose two manifestations have coexisted since practically the birth of the genre: on the one hand, as a

popular dance

, that is, as a ballroom dance practiced by amateurs - by very fervent fans. that they can be-, and on the other, as a

stage dance with choreographies

previously elaborated for a stage.

In this sense

Copes is a cleavage point

.

The invention of new steps –that the story that María Nieves told illustrates, giving it that touch of urgency that makes it more vivid- is part of the vital journey of this dance.

The repertoire of steps of the genre was created over time thanks to the imagination of popular dancers like Copes, who

frequented the neighborhood milongas since adolescence

.

María Nieves and Juan Carlos Copes, a "team" who polished the genre.

/ Gerardo Otino

Not just any milonguero has the ability to invent new figures or steps, because these steps and figures must meet certain requirements to be included in the dance course on the floor of a ballroom, since

the dancer improvises while navigating

the tango he listens to. .

Juan Carlos Copes brought that possibility of inventiveness

–and here is the cleavage point- to a scenic plane

as it had never happened before

;

that is to say, to choreographic forms designed for the stage, nourished by tango and plot situations, but also by Hollywood musical comedies, and particularly by the figure of the great Gene Kelly whom he admired so much.

I interviewed Juan Carlos Copes in 2015, in a bar in Callao and Corrientes.

He was waiting for me sitting at a table, with

that elegance of the traditional milonguero dancer

, surely innate elegance and undoubtedly also jealously cultivated.

From that long conversation I extract two moments.

One is when he spoke of the style they had cultivated with María Nieves: “At that time, in the milongas, some people danced orillero tango and others,

'salon tango'

.

I thought,

'Why not put the two together?'

.

So

with my Stradivarius, which was María Nieves

, we began to mix her way of dancing, fast, with mine, slow and long steps.

We were very successful among the milongueros and they began to copy us ”.

Another sample of the multiple intersections between the track tango and the stage tango.

In Copes the milonguero spirit was synthesized with the demands of the show.

Photo Télam

The other moment is related to Aníbal Troilo: "

The first meeting with him was terrible

: for a carnival party at Luna Park there were two orchestras, one of them was Troilo's. They hired about a hundred dancers of all genres. They asked me to That he danced on a platform and I chose to do

Bandoneon Complaints

with María Nieves. On the day of the debut Troilo appears and says

' Who is this guy, who is this son of p ... who is going to dance Bandoneon Complaints before I touch it? '

. It was their strong letter.

I wanted to die.

I thought about leaving, they convinced me to stay and I used another song. Some time later I made my

debut at the Marabú

, and a few days later Troilo was playing there with (Roberto) Goyeneche. I stayed afterwards. of the show watching how they disarmed the stage, how things moved ... I wanted to learn everything. Suddenly a guy turned around and it was Troilo. He approached me, and I

thought it was to slap me

. No,

he hugged me crying and apologizing

. Imagine. From that moment,

I was his favorite dancer

. "

IS