4 years ago, Tanguito opened its doors, and we haven’t stopped loving what we do since then. So, what happened in the last four years (compressed in one minute)? [scroll down to photos]
We truly fell in love with tango when we went to live in Buenos Aires – the atmosphere, the music, the dancing, the culture… We soon decided we had to bring this feeling back with us and share it. When we opened the academy in 2011, our idea was to develop a methodology to make it easy for people to learn tango. We were, right from the first year, blessed with incredible students, which generosity and support never failed to amaze us.
Later on, during our second year – as Nati always dreamed of making her own clothes – we had the mad idea to launch a tango fashion range, not for performers but for social dancers: more elegant and less flamboyant, clothes that would embellish the dance itself. So we went hunting for fabrics, and worked on our very first skirts and dresses. We were both happy and astonished to receive our first orders: not only from the UK, but also the US, Italy, Norway, Australia and even Japan. The first time we saw one of our dresses being worn in a milonga, our hearts skipped a beat.
Designing evening dresses was quite exciting, but dancing in Buenos Aires was still in our blood, so we organised our first students trip to the capital of tango during the world championship. Before it even ended, some participants said they would come back the following year, so we decided to make it a yearly affair – this August, in its third edition!
Back in London, our students were asking for more dancing, so we opened LOS ANGELITOS, a milonga running twice a week (Wednesday and Sunday). Soon after it kicked off, we were blessed to have the tango world champions Daniel & Cristina join us us at the milonga :).
And, finally, this year (call us mad), we thought a four-day festival would be a lot of fun, so we launched CHE LONDON festival in May, with 4 milongas, 30 workshops and 9 amazing teaching couples. We had no idea if there would be any interest in a festival in London so we could not believe our eyes when nearly 400 dancers from more than 20 countries registered – travelling from as far as New Zealand, Norway and the US!
Four years on, we know, deep inside, that none of this would have happened without you. So a heartfelt thank you to all of you: thanks to all of you who join our weekly classes, or milongas, or festival, or our trip to Buenos Aires, or who wear Tanguito clothes.
We already loved tango but you made us love it even more.
Nati and Bruno
