Tango Finds Its Theatre at RSA House
By Will McGregor — David Chartoriski and Yelena Odintsova navigate tango's essential paradox: a dance born in intimate embrace that becomes magnetic when performed. At Sofar Sounds' RSA House, they made the case for both.
by Will McGregor
There's something wonderfully contradictory about Argentine tango. It's both the most private and the most public of dances - born in the close embrace of social dancing, yet utterly magnetic to watch. David Chartoriski and Yelena Odintsova, world-class tangueros with the technique to prove it, spent an evening at RSA House exploring precisely this contradiction. Across three pieces in the venue's handsome Georgian rooms, they took us from improvised social tango through full theatrical choreography to something approaching dance-as-theatre.
About performance
David Chartoriski carries Buenos Aires in his bones—you can tell he's spent real time in the city's serious tango houses. You can tell that he's spent real time in the city's serious tango houses. His lead has clarity without stiffness, and he phrases music the way good musicians do, in full sentences rather than isolated words. Odintsova, in her turn, who is the current UK Stage Tango Champion, matches him completely. Their connection transcends technical coordination—that rarer thing where two people seem to be listening to the same internal conversation.
They opened with improvisation to D'Arienzo's "Ríe Payaso," and watching them move through social tango's vocabulary felt like seeing a private language made visible. Those tiny weight shifts, the elastic tension in their embrace, a boleo emerging from the music's pulse, were as natural as breath. Odintsova's footwork especially caught my eye throughout the evening. Clean, musical and expressive.
The middle piece, "Zona de Riesgo," set to Fabio Hager's contemporary composition, opened up into full theatrical mode. Its complex ganchos, sweeping boleos, and sustained extensions were pure tango at full scale. It demonstrated what this dance can do when it stops whispering and starts projecting. Chartoriski approached the choreography smartly. He layered repetition and variation until tension had somewhere to go. He captured that sophisticated athleticism you'd see in a professional stage show, occasionally tipping into pure virtuosity for its own sake, but mostly landing right where it aimed.
The final piece, which was set to Lidia Borda's haunting "Nada Más," became dance as storytelling, where silence carried as much weight as movement. The dancers' bodies shifted from vulnerable openness to fierce resilience. They were tracking the song's emotional arc with complete commitment. The choreography itself wisely gave Borda's voice room to breathe, and those moments of stillness spoke volumes.
The setting and sound
Performing in Sofar Sounds' intimate format at RSA House worked beautifully. The wood-panelled Georgian elegance provided visual richness without competing with the dancers, and the concentrated attention these concerts fostered let tango's subtleties register. The use of recorded music rather than live orchestra meant missing some of the dynamic conversation that happens when dancers respond to living musicians, but the recordings themselves were well chosen. D'Arienzo crackled with Golden Age energy. Hager's electronic textures supported the theatrical ambition of "Zona de Riesgo." And Borda's voice, her recording, carried such an intimate presence that it nearly transformed the room into a Buenos Aires cabaret.
The lighting stayed understated and effective, using the room's natural atmosphere with occasional focused spots. Costumes traced the evening's journey, balancing traditional tango elegance with contemporary movement freedom.
One element didn't quite convince: framing the opening improvisation as 'the soul of social tango. Not because of any failure on the dancers' part, they’re superb, but because true milonga improvisation thrives on invisibility, on dancers forgetting they're observed. The very act of performing changes it into something else. When they shifted into explicit choreography for "Zona de Riesgo," everything clicked into place. This was tango owning its theatrical nature rather than trying to recreate milonga intimacy in a different container.
The evening found its strongest voice in "Nada Más," where the theatrical framing was complete and unapologetic. Here, Odintsova's interpretation felt fully realised, embodying the song's narrative without the burden of also representing "authenticity." It was confidence in theatricality itself, and compelling.
The Takeaway
This is an evening worth experiencing if you want to see past tango's tourist clichés, because all three parts of the performance offer real insight into tango's range, from social conversation to lyrical theatre.
I mostly appreciated the details, which are Odintsova's axis remaining centred through the most complex sequences, the musicality in Chartoriski's pauses, and the actual tenderness in their embrace during the quieter passages. These are dancers who understand that tango, in any form, lives in connection to your partner, to the music, to whatever emotional truth you're chasing.
It was a clearly technically accomplished and emotionally engaging Tango performance that demonstrates the full range of what contemporary tango can be. The dancers' skill and genuine artistry make this well worth seeing for anyone curious about tango beyond the clichés.
