Julio Bocca’s Valentine— “Boccatango”
From being Argentina's national hero, Julio Bocca became an international symbol of virtuosity, sexuality and a magnetic draw for American Ballet Theatre. The Washington DC metropolitan area had a Valentine's Day treat at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland: Ballet Argentino and its founder and star Julio Bocca presented "Boccatango." Argentinean Ana María Stekelman, who studied in her country and at the Martha Graham School in New York City, fused ballet and tango to create memorable choreography.
The accompaniment included music by Astor Piazzolla, Osvaldo Pugliese and Enrique Santos Discépolo. Award-winning Argentine vocalists Noelia Mancada and Esteban Riera joined the Octango musical group under the direction of Julian Vat.
The program left me breathless from the fast pace, much like a Las Vegas cabaret. Dance numbers were interspersed with singers and musicians performing solos.
It's hard to believe that the Strathmore performance might be the last for many audience members to see Bocca dance, because he is retiring at the end of the year. Still performing, seemingly at the peak of his powers at age 39, he can look back at a phenomenal career.
Born in 1967 in the town of Munro, just across the Del Tejar Bridge from Buenos Aires, Bocca's mother, a dance teacher, introduced him to the art form. At the age of four he showed his sense of daring to try difficult steps and to triumph in dance. When his mother traveled to teach and study dance, his grandmother lovingly cared for him and became an ardent devotee of his professional growth. When eight years old, he was accepted at the school of the Teatro Colón and could do what his peers could not: double sauts de basque and perfect tours à la second interspersed with fouettés. Merely fifteen years old, he left home to dance in Caracas as a Principal Dancer with the Fundación Teresa Carreño de Venezuela. In the next two years Teatro Colón accepted him into the company, and he was dancing in Rio at the Teatro Municipal.
In 1985, Bocca and his family scraped together enough money so he could compete in the Fifth International Ballet Competition in Moscow. A Gold Medal winner, Bocca returned home to a welcome by an impassioned gathering of 5,000 Argentineans. He became a symbol of his county's nascent democracy after years of oppressive militarism. A poor boy had achieved recognition through the opportunity to realize his potential -- being a member of the social and political elite was no longer the only avenue to success.
Bocca loves his country as much as dancing, so he set out to popularize ballet by performing in outdoor concerts and in city streets. The following year, Bocca took a hiatus from this effort.
Eighteen years old, speaking no English, accompanied by his other grandmother and stepfather, he went to New York City to be engaged as a Principal Dancer with the American Ballet Theatre at the invitation of artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov. A technical virtuoso, with whip-lash turns and soaring leaps, Bocca energetically and passionately responds to the music with body and soul. Not surprisingly, he evokes audience adulation.
In 1990, Bocca founded Ballet Argentino, whose mission is to showcase the talent of young Argentine dancers and choreographers. He assumed the role of artistic director seven years later. Bocca has also appeared as a guest artist with companies worldwide. In 2000 he starred in Broadway's Fosse and danced in the closing performance of the First International Ballet Festival in China.
Bocca not only has interest in popularizing ballet in Argentina, but also popularizing Argentina's national dance -- the tango -- worldwide. Originating at the end of the nineteenth century in Argentina, the tango was performed by marginalized, displaced people in slums and brothels. Passion, aggression, betrayal and desire shape the tango. Women were in short supply, so men often danced together. In its early history, the tango was rejected by respectable people as being scandalously immoral. The public display of a couple in a passionate embrace performing suggestive intricate footwork with phallic-like leg gestures arouses sentiments of sexuality and power, as well as feelings about gender, class and religion.
For outsiders, the tango often prompts emotions of mystery, exoticism or desire. For Argentineans living abroad, the tango calls forth personal feelings, the sense of national identity and nostalgia for one's homeland. You could hear lots of Spanish being spoken at the Strathmore performance. The Argentine ambassador and a contingent of the local Argentine community came to celebrate their national hero's intoxicating "Boccatango."
True to the origins of the tango, "Boccatango" begins with a platonic male pair. Bocca and Lucas Oliver, both in formal white-tie regalia, perform cool, intricate and elegant darting footwork on quick light feet. Later "Boccatango" showcases the talents of 19-year-old Lucas Segovia, a quicksilver dancer with mischievous eyes.
The eight-member company, including Bocca, had six men and two women. The talent of the women more than made up for the unbalanced representation.
The male solo, duet and group dances contrast with the steamy heterosexual couples. Most erotic is Bocca's partnership with Cecilia Figaredo. Both topless, wearing only black briefs as golden hazy light tactfully bathed them, they engage in a sultry encounter of intense tango passion and presence.
Bocca performed two solos. In "Invierno Porteño" ("Buenos Aires Winter"), Bocca makes love to a wooden table, over and around which he sinuously moves with coiled sensuality, including feats of balance, including handstands on the table's edge, while also projecting an air of isolation and private fantasy. A woman appears and then disappears.
In "Años de Soledad" ("Years of Solitude"), Bocca dances on a tall ladder. He athletically attacks this prop from all angles and heights, in surreal abandon. This solo shows Bocca's acrobatic and quietly expressive range. He slithers between the rungs, suspends himself like Jesus on the cross and balances in a striking arabesque at the apex. This work arose, he said, from his love of playing on the monkey bars as a kid.
It's sad to be losing Julio Bocca from stage spotlight. However, his contribution to the art of dance has been substantial, and nothing goes on forever. Besides, Bocca has talked about how he loathes showing up for ballet class every day, hates having to keep himself in shape and has had enough of the cloistered life of an elite performer.