Connecticut Tango Festival, in Its 8Th Year!

Connecticut Tango Festival, in its 8th year!

Friday July 10, through Sunday July 19
Milford, Norwalk, Stamford, Danbury, Middletown

A Festival Celebrating Argentine Tango with Argentine Dancers visiting from Argentina

Analía Carreño and Luís Ramirez

and

Raul Jaurena, bandoneonist, Latin Grammy Winner
Emilio Solla, pianist, Grammy Nominee, Marga Mitchell, Singer

Dancers/Instructors: Dale Ellison and Gem Duras, Grupo Folklorico Rio de la Plata, Michele Evans

Program Summary:

Friday, July 17: Tango Passion Show (Milford), 8:00 pm, Tickets $38/$42
Presented by the Milford Arts Council and the CT Tango Fest

Musicians:
Raul Jaurena, bandoneon, Emilio Solla, piano, Marga Mitchell, voice
Dancers:
Analía Carreño and Luís Remirez,
Grupo Folklorico Rio de la Plata, Tango Sueño Performance Group

Tickets/Info: (203) 584-4480,

Milford Center for the Arts, 40 Railroad Avenue South, Milford

Friday, July 10: Opening Tango Social “Milonga” with guest Dale Ellison (Middletown), 7:30 pm – 11:00 pm, $15 Social, $25 with class 7:30 – 8:30 pm.

First Church of Christ, 190 Court Street, Middletown

Saturday, July 11: Tango Boot Camp with Dale and Gem (Milford), 2:30 pm – 5:30 pm, $50

Milford Center for the Arts, 40 Railroad Avenue South, Milford

Saturday, July 11: Tango Workshops with Dale and Gem (Danbury), 11:00 am – 1:00 pm, $40

Vitti's Dance Studio, 10 Precision Road, Danbury

Sunday, July 12: Intensive Tango Workshops Gem and Dale (Norwalk), 1:00 pm – 5:30 pm, $75

Dance Dimensions, 15 Cross Street, Norwalk

Saturday, July 18: Workshops with Analía and Luís, (Milford), 1:00 pm – 5:30 pm, $75

Milford Center for the Arts, 40 Railroad Avenue South, Milford

Sunday, July 19: Workshops with Analía and Luís (Norwalk), 11:00 am – 3:30 pm, $75

Dance Dimensions, 15 Cross Street, Norwalk

Tango Sueño and the Milford Arts Council (MAC) present the eighth Connecticut Tango Festival with Argentine Tango Masters Analía Carreño and Luís Ramirez, visiting from Buenos Aires. Their activities will include tango workshops on July 18 and 19 as well as a performance at the Tango Passion Show –presented by the MAC- on Friday July 17 at the Milford Center for the Arts. The other activities will include tango intensive days with Dale Ellison from Charleston SC and Gem Duras from Connecticut’s own Tango Sueño as well as a boot camp for beginners and tango socials at the Milford’s Center for the Arts. The Festival will open with a tango social in Middletown, First Church on July 10. The other locations include the Palms in Stamford, Vitti’s Dance Studio in Danbury and the Dance Dimensions Studio in Norwalk. For detailed schedule please visit

Artist Biographies

Analía Carreño and Luís Ramirez, master dancers and choreographers, have been dancing together for ten years incorporating their elegant, dynamic and passionate style, into their performances in stages and dance halls throughout the world. Analía and Luís have performed regularly in major tango shows such as Esquina Carlos Gardel, Tanguera, Tango Emotion and Señor Tango. With their own company ConjuroTango they have toured, in Argentina and seven cities in China with culminating performances at the Shanghai Opera House.

Since 2009, they have been invited to teach and perform at numerous important tango festivals in major world cities such as Moscow, Berlin, Hamburg, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne, Bali, Brunei, Kuala Lumpur and Manila. Aside from their guest appearance at the CT Tango Fest, their 2015 program includes the Sakura Tango Festival in Japan, as well as the Tango Blitz, Manila and Kuala Lumpur Festivals.

Dale Ellison, known in Buenos Aires as Delia, has been dancing Argentine tango for more than 17 years, and teaching for more than 10. She has developed a reputation as a dynamic Argentine Tango teacher and performer in salon, milonguero, nuevo and performance styles of tango. Originally a San Francisco resident, Dale received her tango training from the stars of the famous show “Forever Tango” most notably Carlos Gavito and Marcela Duran. Initially a salsa dancer and club style salsa instructor, Dale was drawn to tango for its sensuality and passion, later winning the first prize in the first San Francisco Tango Competition in 1998. She has traveled to Buenos Aires numerous times to study with Gustavo Naveira, Osvaldo Zotto, Oscar Mandagaran, Chicho Frumboli, Geraldine Rojas, Graciela Gonzales, Marcela Duran, and women's technique with Lorena Ermocida. After teaching in CT for five years with Gem Duras, Dale Ellison moved to Charleston SC, where she teaches and runs tango activities as the director of Tango Rojo.

Gem Duras started his tango training in 1995 initially with the original cast members of the famous show Forever Tango in particular the legendary Carlos Gavito. After incorporating his technique, elegance and musicality into his own dancing and teaching, he visited Buenos Aires numerous times to study ballet as well as advanced technique and stage tango with younger Forever Tango stars Jesus Velazquez and Francisco Forquera becoming a certified tango instructor and dancer. During his partnership with Dale Ellison, they founded Tango Sueño and traveled to Buenos Aires numerous times to perfect their technique by studying with Gustavo Naveira, Juan Carlos Copes, Osvaldo Zotto, Oscar Mandagaran, Chicho Frumboli, Geraldine Rojas and Susana Miller among others. Gem recently performed and taught at the Stardust weekend upstate New York, and participated as a performer in the New Year’s Celebration event organized by Akademi Tango, in Ankara-Turkey. He runs Tango Sueño in Connecticut and holds regular classes throughout CT as well as Westchester, NY.

Raul Jaurena - the man that Astor Piazzolla once called one of the greatest bandoneon players ever - is among today’s most caught after bandoneon players. His music plays a very personal tribute to the influences of his native South America and his adopted hometown of New York. It combines the traditional roots of the tango and the new tango styles influenced by jazz.

Jaurena was raised in Uruguay and his father taught him how to play the bandoneon - joining a tango orchestra at the age of eight. After playing as a member of various tango orchestras in Uruguay, Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela, Raul Jaurena performed with Astor Piazzolla at the Montreal Jazz Festival after which the conservation of the musical spirit of Astor Piazzolla became his personal vocation: Jaurena’s tango interpretations which are enriched by influences of jazz, his own arrangements and spontaneous improvisations inspire a new generation of listeners and dancers.

Raul Jaurena performed with Cuban Jazz saxophone player Paquito D'Rivera, cellist Yo Yo Ma, Giora Feidman and Tango Five among others. As a soloist he regularly performs as soloist with prominent ensembles and orchestras throughout Europe and the US. He was recently invited as a special guest to the International Accordeon Festival in San Antonio, Texas and his show Tango & Tango had great success at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. The ballet suite that he composed in 1995 for the Irene Hultman Dance Company in New York was awarded the “Bessie”. During the same year he was invited to the White House and in 2007 he won a Latin Grammy for best Tango Album "Te amo Tango".

Marga Mitchell was born in Caracas, Venezuela. After moving to the US, she participated in the Midnight Summer Night at Lincoln Center New York, in 1992-1994, Tango Fest-Broadway at Town Hall, the Ravinia Festival in Chicago 1997-1998, the 10th & 11th International Tango Festival in Montevideo, Uruguay. In 1999, she performed at The White House with the group Quintango along with movie star Robert Duval. She was invited as a special guest in the Latin American Concert with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Official Radio in Vienna, Austria and performed in the San Martin Theater for the first International Festival of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

She has been a soloist with different orchestras around the world, including the Pan-American Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC, the Symphony Orchestra of Richmond, Virginia, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Stuttgart, Germany, and has been a special guest of the group Tango Five, in Germany. Other performances include; All That tango winner of the 2002 ACE Award as Best Musical Production, Life’s tango, Tangomania, & I Love Tango. She has released four CDs: “Marga canta tangos”, arranged and produced by Raul Jaurena in Canada; a live concert with the Philharmonic of Stuttgart, produced by Bauer Studios along with Tango Five in Germany, “Marga Sings to the World” in 2005 and Latin Grammy winner album “I love Tango” in 2007.

Emilio Solla, Grammy Nominated Argentinian pianist and composer, received his degree in Classical Piano at the National Conservatory of Music in Buenos Aires and his MA in Jazz Composition at Queens College in New York. His first band, Apertura, was praised by Astor Piazzolla as one of the most interesting new sounds in the Buenos Aires scene in the 1980’s. After appearing in more than forty CD’s, he is considered by critics to be one of the most outstanding voices in the fusion of modern Argentine tango with jazz and other contemporary musical styles, commonly called the “Tango-Jazz.” Solla moved to Barcelona in 1996 to advance his musical activities, later settling in New York City to perform with such luminaries as Paquito D’Rivera, Arturo O’Farrill, Edmar Castañeda, Pablo Aslan, Cristina Pato in addition to performing with his quintet Bien Sur.

He continues to tour Europe with Emilio Solla & Afines, his Barcelona’s based quintet, while working as a free-lance arranger and pianist in different projects in NY. In November 2014 Solla’s first symphonic work had its World Premiere at the Palau de la Musica during the Barcelona Jazz Festival, with subsequent concerts at the Chicago Symphony Hall and Rutgers University. In 2016 he will be back to Buenos Aires for the premiere of the orchestral version of his new work Suite Piazzollana. The first CD of Emilio Solla’s new nine piece orchestra, La Inestable de Brooklyn, has just been nominated for a 2015 Grammy Award as Best Latin Jazz Album.

Grupo Folklorico Rio de la Plata was created in 2009 by Adrian and Silvana Correa, with a mission to keep Argentine and Uruguayan dance traditions alive through performances and educational activities. Adrian Correa, the director of the group, first started dancing in 1994 in his native country Uruguay, becoming an expert in folk styles such as Zamba and Chacarera. With Silvana, his wife, they have taken their Folklore to NY, NJ, CT and PA, dancing at numerous festivals. They are based in Danbury, CT performing Uruguayan and Argentinean folk dancing exclusively.

Artist Photos
(High Resoultion versions at

Marga Mitchell

Dale and Gem

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