Famous tango dancers you must see

When someone tells you to imagine famous tango dancers, first thing that comes to mind are usually famous performers. But, there is a huge difference between performing and dancing tango.

I will try to give a broad description about what is the difference – although, I am sure that many will have different views on this definition. Especially because today the difference between the two is blurred.

Performing is usually a profession and it is connected to the stage and more physical dancing – it is intended to entertain the audience.

On the other hand, dancing is usually activity of non-professionals and it is connected to milongas as a social venues. It is intended to entertain the partner.

Because their dancing is tightly connected to milongas, social dancers are usually called milongueros.

Many of you probably heard a lot about famous tango performers, but your knowledge of tango is not complete if you don’t know about milongueros. Some of them have over 50 years of dancing experience and they are the true carriers of the tango traditions from the Golden Age.

Here is a list of the most notable milongueros I believe you should know about. This list has no intention to represent them according to their historical contribution – it is just my subjective view.

The videos are taken when they perform, but their style is basically developed in milongas – not for stage dancing. Even untrained eye can easily notice the difference between professional performers and milongueros: it is rough, natural and highly personalized.

1. Carlos Gavito – Gavito was known as a performer and a teacher. He was most recognizable by his apilado style: in fact I’ve heard many dancers call apilado “gavito style dancing”. What many don’t know is that he was also a respected milognuero.

2. Ricardo Vidort – Rick McGarry from “Tango and Chaos in Bs As” calls him “The Last Compadrito”. He had elegance and musicality unmatched by any other milonguero. Long time he was No1 on my list of the best dancers ever.

3. Pedro “Tete” Rusconi – He was THE milonguero for many generations of social dancers. With his charisma and specific way of dancing, even without elegance of many others – he conquered hearts of his students. As he said in this video the vals music “made him drunk”!

His unfortunate death happened not long after I started intensively watching his videos and discovering his views on tango.

4. Roberto Pocho Carreras – I can’t tell you how surprised I was when I first saw his elegance on the dancefloor (watching those few videos of him available on internet), despite his age and shape. What he does is really magical.

He was also widely recognized and respected. You can see his face on the big photo illustrating this article – thanks to the magnificent photo by Adriana Groisman.

It is 100% certain that I didn’t mentioned other important dancers, but my intention was not to give a complete list.

At the end let me mention few others and I leave you to make your own research. Pay attention to milongueros like Alito, Osvaldo Centeno, Jorge Garcia, Cacho Dante, Beto Ayala, Blas Catrenau, Chiche Ruberto, Raul Capelli, Ricardo Franquello, Ruben Harymbat… Enjoy!

Please be sure to share this article with your tango friends and help them discover a tango that they never did before.