“To me, Astor Piazzolla means expansion…

He coaxes your bond with music to grow and change with you. Growing up in the city where he was born leaves you with no choice but to love tango, to love the comfort of the classic 2 x 4 rhythm to transform it into a way of life. That’s what Astor Piazzolla means to me: learning to love music, knowing how to love tango music even more, and generating in one a particular, personal, unique, and indelible mark.”

—Natalia Barrios, native Argentinian and lifelong student of Piazzolla’s music

The umbrella of tango music reaches far and wide, from the mid-19th century influences of African community rhythms and European instruments and techniques, all the way to the electronic-fueled “Neotango” of current times. But when tango comes to figure skating, all roads lead to one iconic place– and person– on the map: Argentina and Astor Piazzolla.  

Piazzolla’s stamp on tango is more like a gently broken mold in that he deftly folded elements of jazz and classical music and instrumentation into his compositions, helping create an evolution that came to be known as Nuevo Tango. From the 1950s to his passing in 1992– and all the decades onward– Piazzolla has gone from a controversial figure, to a progressive one, to perhaps one of the most beloved Argentinians in the world. 

My friend Natalia Barrios (quoted above, and throughout this article) knows his music and his history better than most. As a lifelong Argentinian whose memories of Piazzolla’s music date all the way back to age 4, the “magical” atmosphere perpetuated by his melodies and tempos have infused her life with profound joy and pride.

“I clearly remember (hearing ‘Liebertango’), those bandoneon blows, that classic cry, that bizarre sound, and my grandfather who took me in his arms, sat me on his lap and tickled my belly to the dizzying rhythm with which Piazzolla played the bandoneon (an instrument in the concertina family that resembles a small accordion). He would ask "Where is my bandoneon? I have to play the bandoneon, I have to accompany Piazzolla!" I would scream from those tickles, and he would come running and lift me up in the air and squeeze me and cover me with kisses and we would laugh and dance to the rhythm of that music…

“It's inevitable for me to travel back in time to that moment every time I hear that song. My grandfather passed away suddenly on January 6, 1993, just six months after Astor Piazzolla, and my love for tango is the best legacy that both have left me.”

When his father died in a bicycle accident in 1959, he poured his grief into the first of his most famous tangos, “Adios Nonino.” (You can see Piazzolla performing it here. )

It also happens to be one of his first compositions to find its way to figure skating.

For example— Usova/Zhulin of the Soviet Union used it as part of a Piazzolla medley in their World Bronze-winning free dance for the 1989-90 season…

Nine years later, China’s Chen Lu used it for her final amateur free program and won the second of her two Olympic Bronze Medals in Nagano…

And more recently, Yuna Kim brought “Adios Nonino” to the ice in her final competitive season, winning Olympic Silver in Sochi in 2014.

It was over a decade later, in 1974, that Piazzolla composed and recorded “Liebertango” while residing in Italy. The title, a merging of libertad (Spanish for “liberty”) and tango, symbolized his departure from classical tango in favor of tango nuevo. And for Barrios, the significance of “Liebertango” goes far beyond the childhood memories described earlier. 

“It is a song without time for me, a song that changes as I grow older.  It's the same song that sounds different from when I was 10, 15, 20 or 30 years old, and there are so many versions performed by him that he takes the best from every corner of the world that every time I listen to it, it sounds different. You can add more bass emulating the best of New York bar jazz, or you can add more violin or flute as if you would feel listening to it at the Opera Garnier. It's the same song that changes through time and grows with you without you realizing it.” 

With a description like that, it’s no surprise that “Liebertango” has become a staple in figure skating’s music catalog:

Russia’s Grishuk/Platov used it for their Original Dance in the 1996-7 season, winning the last of four World titles.

Five years later, Navka/Kostamarov (also of Russia) used it in combination with The Mask of Zorro for their Flamengo/Tango Original Dance.

It’s also been used by singles skaters in more recent years; in the past decade, at least four of the top women skaters in Japan alone have chosen it (most commonly for Short Programs). Here’s Mai Mihara at 2018’s 4 Continents Championships, where she took silver:

A third Piazzolla composition, 1982’s “Oblivion,” served as the foundation of programs for athletes such as Kanako Murakami (JPN), Evgenia Medevedeva (RUS), and Olympic Gold Medalists Papadakis/Cizeron (FRA), seen here in their Rhythm Dance for the 2018-19 season.

What’s especially fascinating about the skating world’s embrace of Piazzolla’s work is the idea that his work is not very danceable; that his introduction of other musical elements and instruments took the element of movement away rather than expanded it. This is one of the very reasons that Barrios loves to watch figure skating.

“If I could, from my total lack of neutrality, I would give them all the gold, first of all for audacity.

For all the programs already mentioned and admired here, there is one other that Barrios is especially fond of– Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje’s Free Dance to “Maria de Buenos Aires,” which earned them World Silver in the 2013-14 season.

“I never thought I would see a song like ‘Maria de Buenos Aires’ performed in that such an incredible way.  It is an opera in two parts; they executed the first one. María is Buenos Aires, and Astor turned his beautiful city into a woman. Elegant, daring, passionate, somewhat crazy, nostalgic, sensitive, in need of affection, sensual, sexual, and inexplicable, that's María, and that's Buenos Aires. Then there is a man walking through Maria, he approaches her, he distances himself from her, he enjoys her, sometimes he lets her go because he doesn't understand her, he loves her, hates her and venerates her, but he is totally addicted to her.

Kaitlyn and Andrew told me exactly the story I wanted to hear.”

The 2022-23 figure skating season is keeping Piazolla’s work alive and well, with “new” compositions finding their way to the ice as well as the works mentioned here. Watch this space as it gets built out to see if your favorite program gets a mention– or feel free to give it a shoutout in the comments!

From USA:

• Audrey Shin, “Yo Soy Maria” (SP)

• Andrew Torgashev, “Oblivion” (SP)

• Camden Pulkinen, “Invierno Porteno” (FS)