12th Philadelphia Tango Festival – La Poesia del Abrazo
May 24 - May 25
The Philadelphia Argentine Tango School will present our 12th tango festival. As always, it will include a dizzying area of milongas, practicas, workshops, lectures, gatherings (mate hour!), and more.
Like all of our festivals since 2022, this festival will be organized around a central theme:
“La Poesia del Abrazo” (the poetry of the embrace). The festival will allow all attendees, whether you speak Spanish or not, to explore how a deeper knowledge of tango lyrics and poetry can inform and enrich our dancing. We are bringing renowned Tango Poet Matias Mauricio to the United States for the first time to give lectures and workshops at our festival. We will offer our usual range of activities, including tango dance workshops, practicas, milongas, concerts and lectures. Each activity will in some way interweave with or shine light on the festival theme. In addition, attendees will have the chance to study the history of tango poetry and tango poetry as it is being written today. Those who wish will be able to take a workshop to practice writing their own tango poetry. A parallel track will offer musicians the chance to practice writing their own tango compositions. At least one collaboratively written tango will emerge from the four days of our festival.
The festival will produce a new album of tango music for dancing by the ground-breaking Buenos Aires-based group, Sexteto Fantasma. We are continuing our commitment this year to produce new tango music for tango dancing. We began this initiative in 2023 with “Psicoporteño” by Tipica Messiez, and we couldn’t possibly be prouder of the result. Sexteto Fantasma will present the album on the first night of the festival through a live streaming from Buenos Aires, which we will dance to in the festival venue itself.
As in all of our previous iterations, the festival will present world-renowned dancers who are particularly known for their teaching ability and their commitment to their students. The 2024 festival will feature:
* Bruno Tombari & Rocio Lequio (for the first time in the United States!)
* Los Totis (Christian Marquez & Virginia Gomez)
* Felipe Martinez & Ayano Yoneda
As has become our signature, the festival will include LIVE MUSIC EVERY NIGHT, including both seated concerts and extremely danceable live music during the milongas. We are incredibly honored to be able to present some of the best tango musicians and bands currently performing, many of whom are traveling from Buenos Aires to be part of the festival:
* Sexteto Fantasma (by livestream)
* The Tipica Messiez Tango Orchestra, directed by Emiliano Messiez (playing on TWO nights)
* Juan Villarreal & Patricio Crom
* Vocalist Eleonora Barletta
* The Horacio Romo – Pablo Agri – Emiliano Messiez trio
The festival will include a rich variety of offerings for tango lovers of all ages and abilities, including dancers at all levels, musicians at all levels, and the general public.