Mora Godoy

“My brand of tango goes beyond the dance”

Her tango school has celebrated its tenth anniversary; she already has tours lined up around Argentina, and in Europe; and she is working on the agreement with the Buenos Aires Culture Minister, Hernán Lombardi, for the creation of the city’s future official Tango Ballet.

Non-stop performer and entrepreneur. These are two characteristics that distinguish her. Mora Godoy is always flat out with projects and activity. She welcomed us at her refurbished School at Pueyrredón and Paraguay streets, which she opened in 1998, and where, last October, the Buenos Aires Culture Minister himself, Hernán Lombardi, announced that the new talents for tango would be selected, with the aim of forming a tango ballet school, and the person entrusted with this will be Mora.

“This project is a great responsibility, and a colossal obligation for the Buenos Aires provincial governor to support all of us who are in tango doing things. I had a tango ballet school for three years which I subsidized, from which great dancers emerged who went as far as being world champions of stage tango. I undertook this project together with Nicolás Cobos and Paola Jean Jean. It starts with an open public audition and there is no need to attend as a couple,” Mora explains to us.        

- This tango dance group is what many have dreamed of for a long time, and the Culture Ministry’s initiative is a beginning which is sure to bring controversy… Might that be why we’re always divided?
- In tango everything is very divided, and it’s hard for us to group together because there is so much individualism. There are things that get done and so many others that don’t. For example, the musicians and singers have a very strong syndicate that defends them, whereas dancers have nothing, we’re complete orphans, we don’t even get together to make minimum tariffs for tango venues. There’s a lot of underhand dealing in this field, and the truth is that today’s star turn is the dance. Without the dancing, tango doesn’t function in almost any venue.

- When did you open your school?
- In 1998. I’ve had my own school for nearly 11 years with the corresponding municipal authorization and paying all the taxes. Who has their own official headquarters nowadays?  I have a great international trajectory and big enterprises functioning, and I’m maintaining them over time. I’ve had a tango ballet school for three years. It was a great effort to by this headquarters and I did it before having my own house.

- Did you rent?
- No, I lived with my grandmother Lía, on Viamonte and Paraná streets.
  
- What are your plans for this year?    
- I’m starting off on a cruise ship that goes from Buenos Aires to Punta del Este, where I go ashore and do a show at the Hotel Conrad, as every year. In addition, I’m going to do some cities on the Atlantic Coast, and in February I have the Baradero festival and I start with the rehearsals for the tour starting in April, in Finland, Netherlands and Germany. Then, as from 14 May I’m doing everything in Argentina in the provinces and in mid-June we’re off to Spain.

- Do you tour Argentina and abroad?
- Yes, because it’s very important not to loose the outside and the inside. The  international is like a big prize, a grand title; and the provinces are important. I think it’s very valuable to take the company to all the provinces. That’s where I forego a great deal economically, but it’s worth it.

- What’s your aim?
- My great aim was to get to Broadway and I think last year, with “Tanguera”, I succeeded. It was a great dream that I was able to fulfill. While I was putting together and creating “Tanguera” I was imagining that it was going to reach Broadway. It’s anecdotal that I don’t dance, but I did for four years and I feel that one has to distance oneself from the showbiz personality and I’m sure to get there with a new musical.
- Are you preparing a forthcoming musical?
- Yes. But it takes a lot of time to put together a musical like that. After “Tanguera” I did other things that I also needed to do, I went on tour with my company, I put together choreographies for Iñaki Urlezaga and Maximiliano Guerra, I became a mother… I had to make room for other projects and slow down that working maelstrom that I had.
Regarding the new musical, I’m thinking of putting it together along witht the great director of London musicals, Stephen, who helped me with Tanguera. I’m very keen to work one part with  new instrumental music and another with arrangements of traditional tangos, I love that combination.

- What advice would you give to new dancing couples that are up and coming at present?
- In the first place, that they study lots of different techniques with different teachers. But not one lesson with one and another with a different one. I was with Olga Ferri for 17 years and I was going to the Colón at the same time. With tango my maestros were: Todaro,  Pepito Avellaneda and Graciela González, for years. Graciela was my great teacher.

- Why?
- Because Graciela González was the one who got rid of the vices of ballet from me, she brought my knees together and made me caress the floor in a way that nobody had shown me. It’s very important to immerse yourself in the technique and for each one to find their own style.

- And your style, what’s it like?
- I studied a lot of pure tango. First I dug out the ballet stuff and then I incorporated it back in again. I’m a ballet and jazz-ballet dancer, and I can’t deny that because that’s not good either, I’d be denying something that’s mine that forms a part of me and my personality. I’ve found the way to blend everything together, what I do with my company has to do with all these mixes of dance, so that I’m now ready to do much more. I made a fusion of salsa, candombe and electronic tango, but within a style with a lot of technique and an aesthetic strength that has to do with bringing in things from ballet or jazz.

- Did you ever dance with your brother, Horacio Godoy?
- Yes, we’ve danced in displays, but not much. Between siblings it’s like father and daughter, it’s strange. My brother says “not with the sister”. He tells of his experience once when we danced together, that I gave him such a shaking he thought it was an earthquake passing. Horacio does take part in all my shows, whenever he can, because he does lots of tours and he also has La Viruta. He’s a great teacher and has developed his own style. He had a leading role in “Tanguera” which was unforgettable.

- How do you get on with the critics?
- At one point I like criticism, because when they’re talking about you it’s because you’re really doing things. “The dogs are barking, Sancho, it shows they’ve noticed we’re riding past,” [a popular saying in Spanish, attributed to Don Quixote] my grandmother Lía always used to say. On the other hand, I still can’t understand who gives bad criticism, because when the public come to see my shows they all go fascinated. It’s very easy to talk, but I think that those who vociferate are the ones that do nothing. They say that when a person “makes it” and is very successful, they have to have as many enemies as they have admirers. While that balance exists, I rest easy.

- What do you think about the crisis we went through in 2009? 
- The ‘flu “killed us” so-to-speak, and the world economic crisis has been there since October 2008. Foreigners take many precautions and Argentina is very expensive, added to the insecurity that we live with from day to day and that flights have gone up so much. Now that not so many tourists come, it’s up to us to carry on and keep maintaining tango. We have to work more, make more efforts, try to get more Argentines into the milongas, at the academies, and apply a pricing and offers policy.
Anyway, last year I did Madero Tango and I shared the billboard with Maximiliano Guerra, Patricia Sosa and Raúl Lavié.. From where I am, I fought and struggle a heck of a lot for my space and for my brand of tango, which goes beyond the dance, it has to do with creating, directing and teaching.

- What do you think of the young milongueros?
- I love them! In fact, I’m going to call Federico Naveira to have private lessons with him. I think it’s important to stay up-to-date with all that’s new.

Muriel Rébori y Silvia Rojas
Photos: Alejandra Marín