Tango in Mexico City
Argentine Tango is a fairly new concept here in
Mexico, and even in Mexico City has only been recently developed.
Currently there are events in Mexico city Fridays Saturdays and
Sundays..
See Practicas & Milongas in Mexico
City
I have only been to Mexico City for tango purposes twice, and so I am not exactly an expert on the subject. I went tangoing once on a Sunday and again on a Friday. The Sunday event seemed to have a higher level of tango and there was definately a friendly atmosphere. There were, I would guess, some 20 people present. Jimena and I arrived at five, but nobody else showed up until between 5:30 and 6 including the teacher who was in charge of the music.
Friday nights are milongas in the Arrabelero. The place itself is quite interesting, there are lots of Argentine knick knacks downstairs and the dancing area has a very elegant feel to it. It's not an especially large dance floor but it wasn't very crowded either the night that we were there. There are tables to sit at and you can order drinks. I didn't notice many people interacting with other tables or inviting people they didn't know to dance but I didn't have a problem inviting several people to dance. The social interaction was limited compared to the more informal Sunday practice. Nobody that I danced with that night was an exceptionally good dancer though I noticed a younger couple who seemed to be pretty good. They came in, danced two songs and then left, leaving me a bit dissapointed.
I actually met the founders of the Arrablelero, Jorge Bartolucci and Sonia Aguilera several months ago when they came to Queretaro to perform. They seem like very nice people. They were performing in several places with a guy who sang and played the guitar and a gal who sang while he played. The musicians would play a few tangos and then Jorge and Sonia would dance.
Other than Mexico DF
Apart from Mexico city, there have been few cities with tango in Mexico. The fact that there has been little true tango activity in the country does not mean that there is no interest in tango however. The main problem is that there have been few instructors in Mexico.
Another problem is the presence of "tango instructors" who teach coreographed tango sequences, mainly in dance schools, with little base in actually argentine tango. There are several dance schools in Querétaro that mainly teach Ballet, but also include social dancing, the problem being that the owners of these dance institutes usually don't know the social dances they offer to teach and in the absence of a qualified social dancer they will teach tango choreography.
Tango in Querétaro - July 1st 2004
The tango scene here is very new, most of the people at the practica have been tangoing for about 2 months. There are also a couple couples with previous experience who will come to the practica from time to time and then there is Jimena and me and a good friend of ours who was tangoing with us a since a couple years ago. Currently, if you plan on tangoing here I would recommend doing it as part of a general trip to Querétaro and not as the main event.
Tango in motion
Despite the small number of instructors, I would say that tango is on the rise in the Mexican Republic.
This web page is mainly concerned with promoting tango in Querétaro, but it also intends to support tango in the whole republic. Please contact me if you are teaching tango or know of tango events in any part of Mexico so that I can include information for that region here.
-La Asociación de Tango de México
This page is mantained by Graeme Clark: Information and correspondence at .