Dancer recognized since many years, THIERRY LE COCQ generally shares its knowledge in the form of workshops abroad. He however resides and teaches in Paris. Burning defender of the tango known as milonguero, we met him.

PTG: Since how long signs you?

Speaking about dance, since you ask me, it’s been now 10 years this month that I took my first class and 8 years that I teach with conviction what I believe in. This edition thus sounds like a birthday Rendez-Vous to me !

PTG: Do You have a method, several methods of teaching, do they evolve with time?

I believe in major values, social and moral behaviors, in the integration in gesture of what all those values have of more tangible, a refined invitation, a welcoming abrazo, safe and comfortable, unconstrained, transparent and clear proposals, soft gestures.

My teaching is based on this philosophy, and i do not have of cease to transmit put aside the technical aspects, all the human experiment I have in this field.

These values like the body technique evolve with time, integrating experiment resulting from practice and research, but also daily lived life. Then yes the method of teaching vary with the passing of years, function of the mechanical equations solved by a rough analytical research on body mobility processes, perverted sometimes by the traumatism of years, and psychological transformations, which permanently “enrich us” by new values and beliefs.

PTG: Do you work rather with the inspiration or do you follow a very strict diagram? Very personal method or very inspired of a well known Master? (and which one ?)

My pedagogy is built on an very personal experiment coming from observation and basic research on body move. I flatter myself not to have had any Master if not spiritual.

I tried throughout my course to develop a technique which I believe universal being able to be applied in its mechanical and energy spectrum to all styles of tango, from traditional to nuevo that I will qualify more Danse Fusion but also to other dances such as Jazz and Caribbeans coming from like tango itsel, “Habanera” by interbreeding and mixing of cultures and rhythms.

PTG: Is there any order in which one should learn figures (colgadas... After a certain number of year) ?

There is a logical scheduling in the intellectual and body acceptance of the movement. It is this scheduling which I endeavour year after year to polish. It is fundamental to make it possible for the pupils to touch all body sensations. Walk, directions, axes and pivots, balances and imbalances are things which are necessary to touch, to understand and acquire as soon as possible at an acceptable speed . The important thing when dancing is the knowledge of the body, not steps, and capacity for one to feel free in his mobility. Then yes after 5 to 6 months of training it is completely possible to make feel the subtleties of the management of the weights and counterweights differently called in colgados, volcadas and elasticos for example without returning in indigestible complexity.

PTG: You teach open tango as well as closed embrace tango, do you believe that one can learn only one style without knowing the other? Or that one has to learn open tango before closed or live and poured? That at the bottom it is the same thing, the same technique but with light variations?

In the training of the tango, walk is fundamental.

It is well known that talking about tango milonguero and tango nuevo, techniques are identical and applies according to a controlled continuity of the different options of distance, management of weight and energy.

By learning walk, its variations and their effects in his broadest spectrum, the pupil then gives himself naturally access to all the forms of tango which he chooses then to apply, according to the partner, space available and music, the technique and the suitable style if there is!

It thus appears essential to me to learn the walking and balancing functions from the very start of the training, then the various existing systems of imbalancing that we evoked before choosing then to dance in this particular system that represents tango milonguero "apilado".

PTG: Is a this problem of being young or old ?

The shock of the generations always existed, it is undoubtedly a part of the explanation, ignorance and distrust. One did not intend all to say one day: "if youth knew and if old age could!". Has been Tangracism and badly by the way.

Observe the fundamental differences in behaviors between a young dancer and a mature senior in the dance and conclude . Do the same exercise between a senior recently arrived and a dancer much younger but having 15 to 20 years of experiment behind him.

Age in life and dance are two distinct variables which plays a double role sometimes favours sometimes disadvantage.

The beautiful arrives when one needs no more to exhibe and concentrates on essence, sometimes minimalism, the beauty of the rare gesture, but carrying a major direction... et this quality does not have no age!

PTG: Will the tango T-it continue to evolve/move like the music? To what it evolves?

The tango has evolved for more than 140 years in its musical and danced forms thanks to the interbreeding cultural and rhythmic. The essential interbreeding, force for an alive entity like dance or music, grows louder and louder.

We attend a mixing of rhythms and musical styles, electronic tango in the Latin-American category "music" is as far away from "traditional" tango as Jimmy Hendrix rock’n’roll was to Bill Haley’s one in the Jazz category.

The danced tango follows the same way. There always had been a tango nuevo resulting from a permanent and inherent technical research in each generation, generally in phase with a stage of musical evolution. It is more exacerbated today with the rising generation which takes a weighed risk of total rupture with the previous one .

Today more than a tango "nuevo" it is a fusion of dances learnedly orchestrated that one in addition finds in many other groups of popular dances where one can find figures among others coming from... tango. We do not speak here about tango but about Dance-Fusion with the interest which this innovation causes on the intellectual and cultural level and cultural.

There does not remain about it less than the universality of this dance and the constraints of size of the places where tangueros practise being what they are, the tango "milonguero" will still continue very a long time to make adeptes.

PTG: Since when you did create Abaneraz? Explains us why, with a which aim? The interêt?

Abaneraz was created in October 2006. It is the decision of an emancipation, the result of a long process of reflexion on a personal project of life, the passage from a statute of employee to the one of company creator, then contractor, a new challenge !

Who did not dream to live from his talents, from what he likes the most. Madness or vision, I chose to earn my living going to the end of what I liked putting all the gained experience in company at the service of a passion for which many recognized me a competence and a know-how with convincing results.

I thus created AbaneraZ, in which I express today all my personality and my tastes.

Being a multi cultural project, multi support, all the forms of art are welcome in this structure-club of which you will find a beautiful sample on the site http://www.abaneraz.com.

PTG: Is the style "milonguero", always your preferred style, how to define the dance that you like to dance? towards which perfect tango seeks you to go?

I am a milonguero.

The close embrace argentine tango, apilado or not, has and gives a major direction of the life in society. It is because of that that it keeps my favours, that I teach it and that I exhibe it .

On the technical and personal level, I seek to permanently enrich it by all my driving and spiritual sensitivity for, while preserving its intrinsic characteristics, to make it light, fluid still more dynamic, and to insufflate to it a contemporary modernism and even in "extravagance" to allow it to keep this harmonious, tender and tasty elegance that only a perfect abrazo can generate.

PTG: Your milongas want to be in pure BsAs style, music from the Forties, milonguero dancers... which environment do you seek to create? do you believe that there is always a public (in increase? In reduction?) for this kind or rising generation rejects this style and it will end up disappearing?

The Forties always had my preference for the Latin, Jazz, or Caribbean musics.

Cabaret Tango is a privileged place, reflection of the spirit of this great time of musical and artistic creation when having fun meant something. Those whom are present appreciate there the style, the friendly environment, the music, the exhibitions, the champagne which runs with flood, small attentions...

Accustomed are numerous and the new coming ones are under the charm whom come more and more from far away on the Europe chart.

They are all milongueros in their soul.

They come to find an atmosphere which resembles to them. They like to live, eat, drink, speak and on the occasion walk the time of a tango.

Tango milonguero is the tango of ball, it is danced small at the rhythm of the heart! Its future is very traced...

It is the nature of Man to seek with the time which passes the tenderness of a closed embrace.

Tango milonguero is not an effect of mode, it is a result.

PTG: Tell us your projects for the future...

In the immediate future to organize the arrival of a small human being, a scoop, at the end of July!

Then with Alessia, with whom I share from now on my life and my dance to sit work achieved up to now.

To continue to teach in France but also abroad on new destinations like Russia, Crimea but more in the south Australia...

To set up of the regular seasonal appointments winter, spring, summer, autumn like Jerba this winter and Paris this summer or Madeira this autumn.

Very soon, there will be the acquisition of a place on Paris to teach.

Perhaps the creation of a shoe line and CD/DVD in close connection with partners under the Abaneraz mark.

In short, projects which some will be born, others not... but chance smiles to the daring one.

So, so far, an enthralling life of contractor who builds himself in the joy and good mood!

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The VIP ABANERAZ GOLD CARD is available....1 YEAR services DATE to DATE. Benefit from an exceptional statute and privileges for 49 euros/year with VIP ABANERAZ GOLD CARD. With the menu, privileged tariffs , reduced entrance (5 euros) at CABARET TANGO, until 5% of reduction on classes, (...)

With a traditional, original, and dynamic style, Thierry and Veronique acquired a very strong popularity, not only in Europe, where they travel and teach regularly, but also in Argentina. From Paris, they conquered the hearts and the dance floors of Buenos Aires. They were the youngest and (...)