QUEST FOR THE PERFECT TANGO.Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer Luis Bravo knows there are many other tango shows out there. Too many? ``To be honest, I didn't see the other ones,'' replies the ever-diplomatic musician and impresario. As for judging the relative merits of these fast-spawning tango tributes, Bravo demurs, ``I leave that for the people.'' For the past eight years, the people have been voting with their feet by the tens of thousands for Bravo's ``Forever Tango.'' After opening at UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX in 1990, where it played nine weeks, ``Forever Tango'' has toured in Argentina, London and New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . It returned to Los Angeles in 1994 for an engagement at the Wiltern Theatre and later spent a phenomenal 92 weeks in San Francisco, where it was voted Best Touring Musical of 1996 by the Bay Area Theatre Critics. Such success would seem to certify ``Forever Tango'' as a genuine cult article. But then tango's darkly eroticized nature has always inspired a furtive following. Bravo, however, insists that despite its clenched clench tr.v. clenched, clench·ing, clench·es 1. To close tightly: clench one's teeth; clenched my fists in anger. 2. couplings and its origins in Buenos Aires brothels BROTHELS, crim. law. Bawdy-houses, the common habitations of prostitutes; such places have always been deemed common nuisances in the United States, and the keepers of them may be fined and imprisoned. 2. , tango is not primarily about sex. On the contrary, he says, tango speaks to the loneliness of the sailors and cowboys who landed in Buenos Aires after leaving their families behind in Europe. Tango's melancholy, nostalgic sound externalizes the pain of the immigrant's isolation, he says, and its stylized styl·ize tr.v. styl·ized, styl·iz·ing, styl·iz·es 1. To restrict or make conform to a particular style. 2. To represent conventionally; conventionalize. aggression suggests a subliminal subliminal /sub·lim·i·nal/ (-lim´i-n'l) below the threshold of sensation or conscious awareness. sub·lim·i·nal adj. 1. Below the threshold of conscious perception. Used of stimuli. death wish more than sexual passion. ``You dance it by yourself, with your own history,'' he observes. ``You dance it with somebody, but you're by yourself.'' Bravo finds a similar quality of painful yearning in African-American spirituals, although tango reverberates with something closer to fatalistic fa·tal·ism n. 1. The doctrine that all events are predetermined by fate and are therefore unalterable. 2. Acceptance of the belief that all events are predetermined and inevitable. despair than hope. ``It has to do with the Argentinian psychology. Argentinians are very unstable people because of our heritage and our history,'' says Bravo, who has made his home in the Los Angeles area since the early 1980s. ``Our history changes every 30 years with the economy, in cycles. Argentinian people never know about their future. ``It makes us a very fatalstiic people. That's why everything in Argentina is a Greek tragedy. It comes from the Italians, you know. We're Latins.'' Well, so much for subtext sub·text n. 1. The implicit meaning or theme of a literary text. 2. The underlying personality of a dramatic character as implied or indicated by a script or text and interpreted by an actor in performance. . What really sets his show apart from its imitators, Bravo believes, is its emphasis on music. A cellist himself for many years, Bravo gave his last concert in 1993 with the National Symphony of Argentina. He calls ``Forever Tango'' a very simple show and particularly loves one critic's description of it as an ``illustrated concert.'' In performance, he wants audiences to experience the passion of the music - as well as the passion of the dance. ``You have to have a big passion and conviction of what you're doing. It's an obsession of perfection. And being a musician, it's your destiny to have that obsession for perfection.'' THE FACTS What: ``Luis Bravo's Forever Tango.'' Where: Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. When: Opens Tuesday. Performances 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays; through July 12. Tickets: $25 to $50. Call (310) 825-2101. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Nora Robles Robles is a common surname in the Spanish language meaning oaks, and may refer to:
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