I was born in Argentina. Through my family and the community that saw my upbringing, I have been intimately involved with the culture of Tango all my life, and have been an Argentine Tango dance performer, choreographer and instructor for over 30 years. I profoundly love Tango dancing, music, and culture, particularly that of the Golden Era. I am a milonguero.
Poet and lyricist
(November 1, 1907 – May 3, 1951)
Manzi has given, like no one else, poetry to tango lyrics. However, he was a poet who never published a book of poems.
His poetry was evidenced only through songs, from country themes to urban music, the latter where he would be at his best. In this way he became immensely popular without giving up his poet feelings.
He resorted to metaphors, even surrealist, but never so much as to prevent ordinary people from fully understanding his message. Continue reading at www.todotango.com.
Listen to “Gricel” by Anibal Troilo y su Orquesta Típica with Francisco Fiorentino (1942):
José María Contursi
A lyricist essentially poetic, sensitive and prolific, José María Contursi created a great number of hits. His huge work reveals a creator of even inspiration, careful and experienced though somewhat reiterative in his themes and only exceptionally original and truly daring. This prevents him from being among the supreme authors although some of his lyrics deserve to be within the most consummated of the genre. In fact, he aided, as few did, with his refined language to raise the average quality of the tango canción ( tango with lyrics to be sung ). He conceived numerous celebrated pieces in collaboration with various of the best composers, who saw in him a crafted lyricist, whose verses always produced the appropriate mood. His first known work, the waltz “Tu nombre”, dates from 1933, almost 20 years after his father Pascual Contursi, gave birth to the tango canción on some little Montevideo nights. Continue reading at www.todotango.com...
Ricardo Viqueira & Maria Plazaola dancing at Cachirulo milonga, 2014.
Ricardo Viqueira
Is a “milonguero porteño” and his connection to tango has deep roots. In his teaching Ricardo emphasizes the close embrace style and the roles of the axis and connection. He teaches his students how to recognize opportunities to change direction, develop the ability to dance in small or crowded spaces, and to create their own personal dance.
He is one of the most respected and sought-after teachers in Buenos Aires where he regularly teaches and in the rest of the world is well known exponent of the “milonguero” culture.
Ricardo is renowned for dancing Milonga with Traspié and Canyengue. He was the man behind the revival of the historic and well known Club Sin Rumbo in the neighborhood of Villa Urquiza. He also organized the Cristal Tango in Avenida San Martin in Buenos Aires.
Maria Plazaola
Started to dance with Gloria and Rodolfo Dinzel in 1993. She later taught at the Universidad del Tango de Buenos Aires and since March 2001 she has shared the directorship of La Academia at de Tango Milonguero with Susana Miller, where she gives lessons and seminars throughout the year.From March 2002 she danced professionally with Carlos Gavito, with whom she performed and taught workshops in Buenos Aires, as well as on tours and in festivals in Europe, Japan and Russia. With Gavito she performed innumerable times, including at the Palais de Glace in Buenos Aires, and the closing nights of the International Tango Festival organized by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires and the Congreso Internacional de Tango Argentino (C.I.T.A.) in 2003 and 2004. She continues to tour internationally, and has participated in festivals throughout Europe, Asia, the Pacific and the USA.Maria studied anthropology and her work in tango is characterized by research and teaching of the milonguero language, which she learned and still learns dancing in the best milongas in Buenos Aires, although these days she is also happily dedicated to being a mother.
Muma is a master of dancing tango in the intimate “close embrace” of the milongas and dance floors of Buenos Aires, where she grew up and still lives today. The daughter of a well-established tango family, the likes of Alberto Castillo and Ricardo Tanturi were frequent visitors to her childhood home, and her mother was a singer with the orchestra of Francisco Lomuto.
In her own time, Muma has been a cherished dance partner of several of the most renowned + influential social dancers of her generation — among them, Osvaldo Natucci, Fernando Hector Iturrieta, and Dani “El Flaco” García — and with these and others, Muma has helped create a vital “living bridge” between the Golden Age of tango’s storied past, and the dance we continue to explore, create and enjoy together today.
In this regard, , Muma is perhaps most widely known for her many years of dancing and teaching with the legendary milonguero Ricardo Vidort, who began as a teenager in Buenos Aires in the 1940s, and passed away in 2006, after more than 60 years in tango.
I came to know El Flaco Dany when the documentary Leyendas del tango danza was premiered, at the Marabú, not long ago, and his looks, the friendliness of his gestures and his charm attracted my attention: he seemed to be what in our neighborhood we would call a player. He is one of the dancers who are starred in a movie shot to pay homage to the great milongueros, produced by The Argentine Tango Society and made by Daniel Tonelli and Marcelo Turrisi.
His real name is Daniel García, but we all know him as El Flaco Dany, an icon of the milonga con traspié throughout the world. A prototypical porteño, he was born in the neighborhood of La Paternal; today he splits his time between Europe and Argentina, more precisely, between Bucharest and Buenos Aires. Continue reading.
Homero Manzi
