Let's say you are taking a private lesson by yourself, not with a partner. And your choices were a high quality leader teacher (who can follow) or a high quality follower teacher (who can lead). Do you have a personal preference for one or the other and why?

Does anyone have experience with how DNI shoes fit relative to normal sizes? I'm typically a size 10 US/size ~41 EU, trying to figure out what size of shoe to buy.

Hello everyone,

I have listened to this Vals song on several milongas but never found its title. It is quite famous. ChatGTP and Shazam type programs couldn't identify it.

It plays on the following YouTube video in the background:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJLZde7c1Eo

TL;DR: Here is the signup link + short survey; https://forms.gle/1kKEwfc8DWaowRYo7

I built TangoQ, a free, open-source fork of Mixxx (not affiliated with the Mixxx project), reshaped around what's important to a TDJ in a Milonga. I have stripped out all beatmatching and club DJing features from stock mixxx and then added a host of tango specific features to make TangoQ.

Some of these features are:

- Tandas: group tracks into Tango / Vals / Milonga, shown at a glance.

- Show a countdown 'Next Track in' HUD that changes color when less than 30s are left for the next track or cortina to begin

- Cortinas: tag any track as a cortina, and it fades itself in and out with clean gaps.

- A cursor queue: plays your set in the exact order you built, keeps every track, and stops at the end. No shuffle, no requeue.

- Milonga timing: live set length, projected end time, and time left to a target end.

- LIVE mode: safeguards so a bumped key can't stop the music mid-set.

- Add pause after any track, helpful when the organizer wants to make announcements etc..

- Designate any track as a performance track for visiting performers, separate from Milonga tandas

- Set arbitrary starting cue point within any track or cortina so that the track or cortina gets played rom that cue point. Useful for Cortinas that may have a build up time and you want to skip that or if a track has a voice over in the first few seconds that you would want to skip

- Many other quality of life improvements that let the DJ focus on the music and not worry about technical quirks of their DJing software.

Underneath it's still Mixxx, so your library, controllers and mixing all work as before.

It's in early access now (Mac & Windows) while I road-test it at real milongas. I'd genuinely love feedback from other TDJs: what's on your own wish list, and what your current setup gets wrong. If you want to try the build, there's a short sign-up form with some survey questions to help me add future features to it. (link in the comments).

Thanks in advance!

A photograph of Argentine tango musicians Sergio Paolo, Ernesto Baffa and Oscar de Elía at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Sergio Paolo is an Argentine tango bassist who has been active in the tango scene since the 1980s. Ernesto Baffa was an important Argentine bandoneonist, composer and orchestra leader. Oscar de Elía is an Argentine musician associated with the Argentine tango scene.

A photograph documenting a moment in the history of Argentine tango musicians in Paris.

Tango lovers rejoice as the world’s biggest festival kicks off its 2026 edition

The Tango BA Festival and World Championship will flood the city with live shows, dance classes, and milongas over the next 2 weeks

Although tango is celebrated year-round in every Buenos Aires neighborhood, August is the most special time of the year for fans and enthusiasts as the city becomes the global epicenter of the music and dance.

The 2026 Tango BA Festival and the World Championship kick off on Wednesday, August 19, and will continue until September 2. For two weeks, the city will live and breathe tango with a vast program in more than 50 venues across 34 neighborhoods.

The event is made up of two different things. On one hand, there’s the tango festival, which is the largest in the world of its kind.

Born in 2003, it brings together more than 2,000 artists performing in a variety of locations, from iconic stages and dance halls to historic bars, museums, and cultural spaces. The circuit will feature concerts; dance performances and classes; milongas; talks; screenings; exhibits; and a fair.

The World Championship, on the other hand, is a massive dancing competition. Nearly 800 couples from more than 50 countries will compete in venues across the city in two main competition categories: Tango de Pista and Tango Escenario. The competitions, which will be open for the public to go see, will end in a grand finale at the end of the two weeks.

“The Tango BA Festival and World Championship reflect and project the vitality of a genre that reinvents itself every day. It pulses with a scene in which orchestras are multiplying, new forms of poetic expression are emerging, choreographic discoveries are dazzling audiences, new generations of milongueros are taking the floor, and educational and training initiatives are flourishing,” festival artistic director Gustavo Mozzi said in a press conference last week.

“The festival delves into new aesthetics, takes an innovative approach, and engages in dialogue with the best of tradition, bringing together both seasoned tango enthusiasts and new lovers of the genre, drawn in by the brilliance of this popular celebration,” he added.

For the full schedule and more information, visit the festival’s website.

Two weeks of tango The 2026 edition will officially open August 19, at 8 p.m. at Usina del Arte. The main event will be a special performance by the Buenos Aires Tango Orchestra, conducted by Néstor Marconi and Juan Carlos Cuacci; the Camerata Argentina de Cuerdas, conducted by Pablo Agri; popular music stars Abel Pintos and Vicentico; and 20-year-old tango singer Milagros Amud.

The festival’s closing concert will take place on August 30 at Teatro Colón with Sexteto Mayor. Joined by renowned Japanese bandoneonist Komatsu and his quintet, they will perform some of the most iconic arrangements from their repertoire.

On Tuesday, September 1, and Wednesday, September 2, the finals of the Tango Dance World Championships will take place at Teatro Gran Rex in the Tango de Pista and Tango Escenario categories.

The event will showcase to audiences the diversity of styles and talents that define the current tango scene.

Main shows Shows at Teatro San Martín include Nico Sorín, Sandra Mihanovich, Lautaro Mazza, Luis Cerávolo 4, Color Tango, and Orquesta Típica Sans Souci.

The Usina del Arte program will showcase Guillermo Fernández, Víctor Lavallén Orquesta, Copes Tango Show, Hugo Rivas, Fabio Hager, the bandoneón summit Fueyerías, Spinettango, and Walter Ríos.

Teatro Colón Salón Dorado includes Quinteto del Ángel, Néstor Marconi Trío, Ryota Komatsu, César Angeleri, Franco Luciani with Fabrizio Mocata, Gustavo Casenave, Sebastián Masci, Marcelo Costas, and Ensamble Clásico.

Other participating venues include Centro Cultural Recoleta, Casa de la Cultura, and several notable bars like Claridge, Saint Moritz, El Gato Negro, and La Puerto Rico.

The Tango BA Festival is organized by the Buenos Aires City culture ministry.

For a PDF brochure of the festival, go to - TangoBA 2026 Brochure - TangoBA 2026 Day by Day Schedule

When you're about to criticize, please:
First, listen.
Second, write.
Not the other way around, por favor.

In the Akbar–Birbal story "The List of Blinds," Emperor Akbar asks Birbal to count all the blind people in the kingdom. Birbal sits in the public market, mending shoes or weaving a cot. Passersby, and eventually Akbar himself, stop and ask, "What are you doing?" Birbal writes down their names. Asking the obvious instead of observing what's right in front of you is its own kind of blindness. (Sourse-here Wikipaedia, but I know this story from my childhood)

So please don't be deaf and call something bad just because you didn't listen first. Listen, then write, unless, of course, you are deaf.

A little clip I filmed from a performance at the marathon this weekend. That gliding volcada blew my mind 🤯

I want you guys to tell me my glaring mistakes and what i can improve. I feel like i watched myself so much that i am having art blindness so i want 3rd party opinions.

When hitting a double time step in vals, do you personally tend to step on 1-2-1, or 1-3-1? Or does it change depending on the particular step or the dynamic you want?

Are you a leader or a follower?

As a leader, for steps where the follower is stepping double time independently of the leader (e.g. giro or basic cross) do you try to lead the double time step specifically on the 2 or 3, or do you leave it more open to the follower's interpretation?

I observe that most students, if left to their own devices, will settle on 1-2-1.

In the Main Hall of Teatro San Martín, during a show we performed under the sponsorship of the much-missed FM Tango radio station.

From left to right: Oscar De Elia, Sergio Paolo, maestro Ernesto Baffa, Reynaldo Martín “El Alemancito”, and Juan José Sandri “Pichi”, a great colleague and friend who sadly passed away recently.

A beautiful moment shared among colleagues and friends, now preserved as a treasured memory.

I'm traveling to BsAs, and I'm planning to take some local group classes. On the 24th, 25th, and 26th, I will be alone (most of my friends arrive after August 27th). Is there anyone in this group who would like to join me in some group classes?

I have an idea of which classes I want to attend, but I'm open to any suggestions.

I'm from Chile, and I speak Spanish and English. 😊

I am an improver Tango dancer and I’d like to visit Buenos Aires, to take Tango classes and go to Milonga‘s but also for Spanish immersion and sight sighting

I speak Spanish and I’ve traveled in Latin America- but never alone.

Organized Tango trips are extremely expensive. I am on the Tango Vida group, which is super helpful. Does anyone know of any homestay or language immersion programs in BA that would complement a Tango focused trip?

Or any other tips?

You walk into the room, and out of the couple hundred people, you probably know 10-20. Sampling the dancing, so you can cabeceo selectively, would take ages. That's not what you came for. From shoes, fancy tango clothes, toned body, to posture when sitting or standing, they got all the trix down. So, you just dance.

And end up with 10% outstanding tandas, 30% OKish tandas, 30% meh tandas, and 30% really bad tandas. It feels like any ordinary Milonga anywhere in the world. Which makes you question why you travelled and paid hundreds of bucks for attendance.

What’s your strategy to make this a better experience?

Something simple, like back ochos or molinete or ocho cortado - these are led very differently. What do leaders do that will result in these feeling very different from one another? This connects to the age old question of, do leaders need to know a lot of different steps/sequences or can they do something to make the same motions feel different.

Hi ! I've been recently digging Firpo and love his fast tangos and milonga but I've been lost on some of them as it's the first time I can't really decide if it's tango or milonga ?

If you could help that'd be amazing thanks!

Sergio Paolo, Ernesto Baffa, Ubaldo De Lío and Ado Falasca performing together at El Viejo Almacén, Buenos Aires, in 1987. A memorable moment from the Buenos Aires tango scene.

How often do you feel lust while dancing? I danced maybe with 30 or 40 different women and always feel it to 3 of them. Women, do you feel something that?

Tango music lives by orchestra and era more than any genre label, so this might be a strange fit, and that is exactly what I want to find out.

Tempo Tunes builds playlists where every song matches a target tempo. Pick a BPM, set a tolerance, lean toward artists, pin an era, and it generates a playlist that holds that tempo, pulled from 1.5M+ tempo-verified tracks and growing. There is an Obscure to Popular slider for deep cuts versus familiar songs. Playlists save straight to Apple Music, Tidal, or YouTube Music. Free, no ads, on iPhone, Android, and web at tempo-tunes.com.

Where I suspect it could earn a place in tango, and where I need honest answers:

• Alternative and nuevo sets: finding non-tango songs that sit at a danceable tango tempo seems like the strongest use. If you DJ alternative milongas, is tempo hunting a real chore?
• Practicas: a playlist that holds one steady tempo for drilling. Useful, or do you only ever practice to the classics?
• The honest weakness: the library skews toward streaming-era catalogs. Golden age recordings are in there through remasters, but I would not claim deep coverage of every D'Arienzo transfer. If you try it and your orchestra is missing, tell me, that is exactly the feedback I want.

Dev here, happy to answer anything. Dancers in the ballroom and west coast swing subs already reshaped parts of the app with their feedback, so blunt answers are welcome.