A percussionist and dancer, Hugo has studied in Senegal, Cuba, Argentina and Italy. A member of La Academia de Susana Miller and Maria Plazaola since 2002, he has lived in Italy since 2004, where he undertakes an intensive teaching programme.

As a percussionist he specialises in the study of the African and Afroamerican musical culture, colaborating professionally with musicians of the grand tradition of Western Africa, such as Ady Thioune from Senegal, with whom he recorded the album “El arte del duo” for the italian music publisher Mimesis.

He has performed as a freelance musician in various productions and in addition has an extended history working in music therapy and dance therapy, paying particular attention to the study of the relation between music and dance, rhythm and movement.

His passion for dance has led him to research the origins of tango, the milonga rhythm, and the musical culture of the River Plate, in combination with, as a consequence, dance and percussion performed live in a new didactic focus.


CONTENTS OF CLASSES AND TALK

Four-clas mini-intensive in milonga rhythm
Special mini-intensive milonga course with live percussion. Maria Plazaola and Hugo Samek, on percussion, present an original work on the milonga rhythm and the history of the music of the River Plate.

In this class we propose to use percussion to highlight the rhythmic characteristics of the milonga, in order to enable dancers to understand and recognise them more easily.

Through this new didactic focus, participants will be able to dance the different sequences with the accompaniment of the live percussion, taking advantage of the natural contact of rhythm and movement, and rediscovering an ancestral link that is a potent catalyst of physical energy.

In addition to the course, Hugo Samek will give a special talk using musical examples and a specialised bibliography, in which we’ll also look at historical aspects linked with the origin of the milonga rhythm and the African influence in River Plate culture.

Talk on the origins of milonga
“This unprecedented and solitary Vicente Rossi will be discovered some day, to the discredit of his contemporaries and offering scandalous proof of our blindness.”

This prediction is so confidently made by Jorge Luis Borges and is in objection to the silent indifference that the first edition of Vicente Rossi’s book received. Cosas de negros: Los origenes del tango y otros aportes al folklore rioplatense. Rectificaciones historicas*, printed privately by the author in 1926, is an indispensable work about the origins and characteristics of black culture in the River Plate region. The role of candombe as precursor to milonga and the appraisal of tango as one of the fundamental expressions of the River Plate public and individual sensibility are amongst the themes of this unique book which, confirming borgesian intuition, continues to be relevant today.
(Publisher’s blurb)

* Were it published in English the title would be something like Black Issues: The origins of tango and other contributions to the folklore of the River Plate. Historical recitifications.

Taking as its point of reference the illuminating work of Vicente Rossi alongside foremost historical sources, this talk proposes to summarize a period commencing mid-nineteenth century through to the first years of the twentieth century. The elements that converge with the birth of milonga and tango, the principal influences to be found in their origins, from the point of view of the music as well as the dance, make up the main theme of this discussion. Various musical examples will accompany historical descriptions, highlighting aspects linked to the African cultural heritage of the River Plate region.
           
– This talk will be given by Hugo Samek, Wednesday 11 August, 4–5.30pm