Collaborative pianist and private studio teacher Belle Toh doesn’t seem to know how to leave well-enough alone. No performance artist should.
In 2018, when I last saw Toh, then known as Belle James, she and her Kibeka Trio played Astor Piazzola’s Oblivion, along with demanding music by Frank Martin and Aaron Copland.
With her new KnoxTrio, Toh, along with violinist Joshua Ulrich and cellist Sarah Senn, again played Oblivion, perhaps Piazzola’s best-known piece, recently at Fourth United Presbyterian Church on Broadway, in a program that was entirely Piazzola’s “nuevo tango” music, with some of the music accompanying live tango dances.
It may have been Knoxville’s first chamber music concert with dancers.
The program began with two of the movements from Piazzola’s 1985 Histoire du Tango, in piano trio arrangements by Dimitriy Valelas. The second movement, Café, written in 1930, was played by Toh and Ulrich. The third movement, Nightclub, written in 1960, was played by Toh and Senn.
Next came Escualo, played by Toh and cellist Senn, with its tempo and rhythm changes. It was the first to feature dancers.
The heart and soul of tango is its sensuality. But, danced by Kris Hazard, who choreographed it, and his partner, Natalie Thompson, this version had all the heat and steaminess of folding laundry, although with style. That’s probably just as well since more than half the audience was families and their children who study with Toh.
Then came Oblivion, with its white-hot passion, superbly played by the entire KnoxTrio. Danced by a couple from the Knoxville Argentine Tango Society, from their waists up, the pair was tightly bonded in true tango fashion. But from their waists down, bystanders could have harmlessly passed lit cigarettes between them.
Playing Ikumi Nakayama’s piano trio arrangement, KnoxTrio next played 1974’s Libertango. Its excellent execution successfully masked the trio’s limited number of pre-concert rehearsals.
So did the centerpiece of the concert, with which the trio’s part of the program ended, Jose Bragato’s arrangement of another of Piazzola’s masterpieces, Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires), written over a span of seven years from 1964-1970.
After a short break, the dancing continued to recorded music. International tango style, danced to music from Game of Thrones, was demonstrated by professional ballroom dancers Johnny and Jun Tang.
That was followed with American-style tango, set to Sin Rumbo danced by Johnny Tang and Belle Toh, herself.
What will Toh do next?
Harold Duckett holds degrees in both art history and architecture. He wrote about performing and visual art for 36 years.