Aromas de Tango

Created a superimposed atmosphere of imagery and locales to highlight a very stylized tango dance and the accompanying music. All photos and imagery are from Buenos Aires and Montevideo and many represent traditional tango bars.

The group Bajofondo represents a new modality of music called neotango or electrotango. Some of their music is outstanding.

Music: Perfume – Bajofondo :: Remixed by Leo Bar

Special thanks to Paul Holman for the use of portions of his video Milonga de Milongas. See more of his videos at youtube.com/user/paulrholman

Las Llamadas Parade- Desfile de las llamadas 2013

“The Llamadas Parade” is a festival that takes place every year in Montevideo in February, during the carnival season in Uruguay. It is part of the official competition of carnival groups of the Uruguayan capital. For two nights around 40 black and lubolos ensembles (known as “extras”) parade through the Southern (Barrio Sur) and (Barrio Palermo) Palermo neighborhood streets. It is one of the purest expressions of Afro-Uruguayan culture.
Carnival Week is considered the annual national festival of Uruguay. While Carnaval is celebrated throughout the country with parades and events in major cities of the interior, the main activities are featured in the capital of Montevideo.
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El desfile de llamadas es una fiesta popular que se realiza todos los años en Montevideo en el mes de febrero, durante la época de carnaval en Uruguay. Forma parte del concurso oficial de agrupaciones carnavalescas de la capital uruguaya. Durante dos noches desfilan unas 40 sociedades de negros y lubolos (conocidas como “comparsas”) por calles de los barrios Sur y Palermo. Constituye una de las más puras manifestaciones de la cultura afro-uruguaya.

 

Pianoforte

The art of piano making and art paintings  Music: Dexter Britain :: http://www.dexterbritain.co.uk

Tango Euro Klez

Music: Tango Bar & Kiev Swing by Garry B :: https://vimeo.com/garryb; listen to his music :: http://soundcloud.com/garry-b
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– The migration of tango from Argentina and Uruguay to Western and Eastern Europe -
1900 – 1920 : Tangos were mainly sung and played by small instrumental bands (fundamentally trios and quartets), until “La Orquesta Tipica” arrives on the scene, with the incorporation of the bandoneo’n. In 1907, one of the very first genuine Argentine Tangueros to visit Paris (France) was composer Angel Villoldo, who wanted to do some recording. (At the time, Paris had the best recording facilities and techniques.) In 1918, writing lyrics for the tango became all the rage with singers such as the tragic Carlos Gardel and celebrated salon orchestras like Francisco Canaro‘s giving the music a new legitimacy and acceptance. Carlos Gardel is still revered today, many decades after his death.
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By 1912, dancers and musicians from Buenos Aires, traveled to Europe and the first European tango craze took place in Paris, soon followed by London, Berlin, and other capitals. Towards the end of 1913 it hit New York in the USA, and Finland.
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One of the most popular ballroom dances in Europe during the 1920′s and 30′s was unquestionably the tango. This explains why this music appeared later in ghettos and concentration camps. Following a boom in Western Europe, the tango reached the east by the late 1910′s. However, as opposed to countries like France and Germany, frequently visited by Argentine Orquestas Típicas, most Eastern European countries became acquainted with the tango only through records, the radio and journals. This indirect connection may explain the character that this music developed in such regions. With increasing popularity and a new stream of local tangos, the style’s re-embodiment gradually drifted away from the South American model. Poland, which had regained its independence after the Warsaw treaty of 1919, quickly became one of the capitals of European tango at a time when most of its musicians, both in the classical and the popular scenes, were Jewish.
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Enjoy the show,
Leo

Hanukkah – Festival of Lights

As a way to celebrate the upcoming festivals and holidays, I decided to construct a video about Hanukkah. The holiday is a celebration of  lights and the miracle of renewal. As such I chose to go backward and show candelabra (hanukkiah – hanukkiot pl.) dating all the way back to the 15th. century, working my way up to the modern era. Some of the oldest lamps can be found at the Museo Sefardi - Sephardi Museum in Toledo,  Spain dating to the era preceding the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian peninsula by the Spanish Inquisition.  Many others come from humble beginnings in the 17th. and 18th. centuries from little villages of Eastern Europe and the Near East. The modern pieces are displayed at The Israel Museum together with many older from around the world.

Eventually, I had to forgo many beautiful examples due to the time constraints, so it’ll be for another time… Together with the imagery, I created an oil painting and used different digital compositions to enhance the feeling of light, miracle of fire and sequence of nights.

The intention was to combine the traditional with the modern and thereby reflect the many changes this holiday went through the centuries. The music was my remix using portions of a flute solo;  Desert Sunset by Saregama – Jamendo CC BY NC and a calabash drumming recording from Africa, (author unknown.)

Hope you enjoy the show and that the Holiday Season is a bright one for you and your family and friends,

Leo

~ ~ Special thanks to:
The Israel Museum – Jerusalem, Israel
Museo Sefardi – Toledo, Spain (also inside scenes)

Tango Sureño

This dance is a Milonga danced to milonga music – a cousin of the Tango. Enjoy the sow!
“In a book published in 1883 Ventura Lynch, a noted contemporary student of the dances and folklore of Buenos Aires Province, noted the influence the Afro-Argentine dancers had on the “compadritos”, who apparently frequented the Afro-Argentine dance venues, “the milonga is danced only by the compadritos of the city, who have created it as a mockery of the dances the blacks hold in their own places”.
Milonga uses the same basic elements as Tango and requires a greater relaxation of legs and body. Movement is normally faster, and pauses are not made. It is rather a kind of rhythmic walking without complicated figures, with a much more “rustic” style than Tango”. {Source: Wikipedia}
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Photography:
CB1985IFY – Palermo; Omar Guebel – Photos of La Boca :: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohgg/collections/72157600270319242

Leo Bar :: http://www.flickr.com/photos/leobar-pixinmotion/ 
Music: Reliquias porteñas – Francisco Canaro – - (November 26, 1888 – December 14, 1964) Uruguayan violinist and tango orchestra leader.

 

 

DNA dance

The essence of life DNA and its twisted dance (double helix)

 

Fascinating science behind the essence of life. Decided to construct this production from the inspiration while reading and watching how symmetrically and delicately is the DNA double helix held together. It felt like a dance, especially when it came to see animations of its replication. I have used these animations as backgrounds or foregrounds to the human body in motion to accentuate the dance aspect of this vision. The mathematics and architecture behind this complex structure are gigantic. It’s an amazing  realization that this complicated stream of chemicals are organized in such lockstep and are part of all living beings. A real miracle!!

Enjoy the dance of life,

Leo

Related articles

• Pioneer DNA Researcher Dies (the-scientist.com)
• Biologists Describe Details of New Mechanism for Molecular Interactions (bnl.gov)
• Dna (iaspreparationonline.com)
• DNA with a Twist (the-scientist.com)
• DNA dance performed at Science Museum (telegraph.co.uk)

Kol Nidre – All Vows

Kol Nidrei (all the vows) is an Aramaic legal declaration recited in the synagogue at the evening service on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  This legal formula and its melodic accompaniment has been part of the services since the 6th. century.

Music: Kol Nidrei – Composer Max Bruch – Played by Pablo Casals (Remix – Remastered by Leo Bar)

Painting: Yoram Raanan
Photography & Digital Art: Leo Bar

Graphics – Fonts: From a 19th. century Jewish holiday prayer book (machzor)

Tango Poetico

This work is dedicated to all great Argentinian and Uruguayan writers and poets.

Music: Confianzas by Gotan Project Edited and remixed by Leo Bar
Subtitles and Translation: Leo Bar
Contains 2012 newsreel clips of protests in Buenos Aires
Photography: A Cabrera Esteve – http://www.flickr.com/photos/cabrera-esteve/; Fotografovolante – http://www.flickr.com/photos/ruggeroarena/; http://www.flickr.com/photos/simba_tango/; Leo Bar
Mario Benedetti Oil Sketch: Andre’ Cortellini
Digital Art and Paintings Leo Bar
Dancers: Sebastian Achaval and Roxana Suarez

Ponkapoag Native Dreams

A tribute to the Neponset and Ponkapoag nation, native Amerindians of Massachusetts.

In this production I concentrated on creating a multilayered look that was achieved by using textures and compositing. In addition, a heavy dose of color grading and antique-like look was used to give the feel of a bygone idyllic era. The scenes were created using recent, as well as antique photographs and artifacts of native tribes of Southeastern Massachusetts. What captivated my imagination were the twisted branches of ancient maples and oak trees growing in the lands where the natives of Ponkapoag Pond once walked.
Nowadays, the original Ponkapoag Plantation is contained partly within the boundaries of the Blue Hills Reservation and further into the town of Canton, MA.

I hope you enjoy a serene dreamlike presentation,
Leo
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Filmed at Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, MA and Ponkapoag Pond at Blue Hills Reservation near Boston, MA.
Music: The enchanted valley – Ah Nee Mah
Textures courtesy of: Pink Sherbert and Skeletal Mess @ http://www.Flickr.com

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The Massachusetts Indians who had settled near the mouth of the Neponset River were known as the Neponset Indians; and Chicataubut, their sachem, was styled the “Sagamore of the Neponsetts.” It was here in a grove now known as Vose’s Grove that John Eliot, on the 14th of September, 1646 , first preached the gospel to the Indians in the wigwam of Kitchamakin, the successor of Chicataubut. Eliot continued to take a deep interest in their welfare; and it was owing to his advice that when for a trifling considera­tion they sold their lands at Neponset, they decided to move to Ponkapoag.

The aboriginal name of the territory lying beyond the Blue Hills, known to the inhabitants as the “New Grant,” was Ponkapoag. The territory derived its name from the pond, which formed one of the principal features in the landscape; and the name in the middle of the seventeenth century applied to a more extended territory than that which subsequently was included in the Ponkapoag Reservation. While the Indians sojourned at Neponset, they were known as the Neponset tribe; and when they removed to Ponkapoag, they received the name of the place of their new location. It is an error to suppose that the place took its name from the residence of the tribe within its borders-; the reverse is true. Excerpt from THE PONKAPOAG PLANTATION – Daniel Thomas Vose Huntoon (Cambridge, Mass., J. Wilson & Son, 1893)

For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponkapoag .
Also see http://www.stoughtonhistory.com/huntoon-punkapoag.htm