‘ Shall we try dancing tango? Yes, I’d been thinking about it! Why not taking a class in …’ They do not remember who said what, but that conversation actually took place in the summer of 1994/1995. At that time they were both students of Profesorado de Inglés at Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. They had met at university and had begun dating. Dancing tango would be an activity to share and something, they did not know it at the time, that would bring them close together for many years to come.

Anastasia had danced all her life. She’d tried folk dances, Italian dances, Spanish dances, gymnastics and even some classical dancing. Nicolás had only danced reggae and electronic music at local discos, but he had recently begun listening to Astor Piazzolla’s music and his grand father had recommended listening to Carlos Gardel. That was their background at the moment of their first lesson and it worked!

They began taking classes in Mar del Plata with Mr Dardo Cabrera Reissing in 1995 and by the end of that year they had done their first exhibitions with his group. They felt there would be a long way to go and decided to do some research in BA. They began travelling  regularly to study with Rodolfo Dinzel, one of the dancers of the original cast of “Tango Argentino”, the musical produced by Segovia and Orezzoli in Broadway in the mid ‘80s which was responsible for the renewal of the tango fever in the world. It was there, at a small studio located in the middle of the legendary neighbourhood of Villa Crespo (today sadly baptized “Palermo Queens”) that they got deeply and forever in love with the dance.

They studied with Rodolfo Dinzel for two years and became representatives of his school in Mar del Plata in 1998. It was in that year when they began performing professionally at Hotel Costa Galana in their traditional Saturday Tango Show which lasts to these days, and began making a career out of dancing tango.

In those first trips to BA they also discovered the tango night and its Milongas, the tango “temples”, in fact clubs, where people gather exclusively to dance tango, meet their friends and have a drink till dawn. It was there where Anastasia & Nicolás found out about that part of the tango culture you can not learn from classes or books.

Their eagerness to improve increased and they went on taking classes with Juan Carlos Copes, Gustavo Naveira, Julio Balamaceda & Corina de la Rosa, Ernesto Balmaceda & Stella Báez, Graciela González, Fernando Galera & Vilma Vega, and Cristina Cortés, among others. Many names which mean a lot of classes, a lot of research and thousands of rehearsal hours. There is no formal institution run or acknowledged by the state where to learn tango, so the education of the dancer derives mainly from a self-directed course of studies and the classes he/she takes with individual masters or dancers considered important. In fact, their research did not stop and they continue taking classes to these days with some of those masters.

In 1999 they take part in the first big show at the theatre in the production “Viva Tango”, directed by pianist Leonard Baccardi. In the following years they participate in several productions and dance with the Orquesta Municipal de Tango (Mar del Plata Tango Orchestra). They share the stage with big names such us  dancer Juan Carlos Copes, bandoneon player Daniel Binelli, tango historian and academic Ben Molar, composer and bandoneon player Julián Plaza, bandoneon player Osvaldo “Marinero” Montes, singer Ricardo “Chiqui” Pereira, and singer Hugo Marcel among others. In 2003 they take part in “Vamos al Tango”, the successful show produced by Fundación Konex, and stage their first self-produced and directed musical “Estampas de Tango” whose premiere takes place in the city of Luzern, Switzerland.

By that year Anastasia & Nicolás had already toured Europe three times. They had taught and performed for three years mainly in Italy and Switzerland. And as with many other artists, especially tango dancers, they were much better considered abroad than in their homeland. They had been appointed Cultural and Tourist Representatives of MDQ  to the World (Embajadores Turísticos y Culturales de la ciudad de Mar del Plata) by the local city council but could not find a place to stage their musical in their country until Willy Wüllich, Director of Teatro Colón de la ciudad de Mar del Plata made room for “Estampas de Tango” in 2004’s calendar of  the most charming theatre house in the city.   

“Estampas de Tango” was first put on stage in the summer of 2004 and gave rise to the project of creating a tango company which is four years old by now. The show has been on stage ever since with

growing success. More than 15,000 people have seen it in our country and Anastasia & Nicolás are expecting to take it abroad again soon. This is its fifth season on stage and it has been nominated for the third year consecutively for the Estrella de Mar Award, the prize the city of Mar del Plata gives annually to the most relevant shows on stage in the summer season.

dating: salir de novios
dawn: amanecer
rehearsal: ensayo
stage: ponen en escena
gave rise: dio origen