INTERVIEW: Carolina Zokalski celebrates Argentine tango with Tanghetto concert
Photo: Carolina Zokalski and Diego Di Falco lead the Authentic Argentine Tango School in New Jersey, which is set to host a special concert with Tanghetto. Photo courtesy of Carolina Zokalski / Provided with permission.
Tanghetto, the celebrated electronic tango group from Argentina, will play a special concert Wednesday, July 11 at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City, New Jersey. The evening promises to be a celebration of not only the group’s music but also the artistic contributions of Authentic Argentine Tango School in Summit, New Jersey.
“It’s going to be a concert, but also because I’m promoting mostly [among] the tango community, people will come and dance during the concert,” said Carolina Zokalski, who founded the tango school with Diego Di Falco. “We call it milonga, [or] social dancing, so I’m advertising the night as a mega milonga night. So people can come and listen to the music if they want but also dance during the concert. We also have a tango class before at 7:30.”
Tanghetto has received international acclaim for their unique blend of electronic instruments with the traditional sounds of tango. Their latest album is an unplugged compilation called Desenchufado.
“They do electronic tango, so they use some of the traditional instruments,” Zokalski said. “It’s not traditional tango. It’s more modern, and it’s electronic.”
Because tango continues to grow in popularity around the world, there’s enough room to cater to many different interesting — for the purists who prefer traditional tango music and dancing, and those who like the nuevo groups like Tanghetto.
“There’s enough audience for everybody,” Zokalski said. “They’re very famous in Argentina and Europe as well. They’re coming here to play at the Lincoln Center, and that’s because they’re good enough to do that. It’s a very well-known group.”
That Lincoln Center concert was July 5 at Damrosch Park in New York City. Now, on July 11, Zokalski and her team get to celebrate the band’s music, along with the dancing excellence she has instilled in many students at the tango school.
“My husband and I are dancers,” she said. “We traveled the world for many, many years. We were on Broadway [in Forever Tango], and then we opened our school here to promote Argentine tango. … We are very traditional, our style of dancing, but I think this band is good enough even though it’s not traditional, good enough for people here to know them and enjoy their music.”
Zokalski and Di Falco moved to New Jersey in 2001, and they have been leading the school for more than 15 years. They regularly bring performers from Argentina to teach their students, either at their New Jersey headquarters or their professional studio in New York City.
“Most of our professional students are in New York,” she said. “Here in New Jersey, most of them come for fun. Argentine tango is like a lifestyle. It’s a social thing, so they come for the classes, for the dancing, but they also come because they need friends. It becomes part of their life. It’s like a big family. It’s a community.”
Zokalski said she is amazed at how tango has blossomed in the tri-state area. When she came to New York and performed in Forever Tango in the late 1990s, the art form was still catching on. Now, in 2018, tango music and dancing are a large part of the local artistic landscape.
“When we came to New York, people didn’t know exactly what Argentine tango was,” she said. “They thought tango was something else, what they see on TV. … But Argentine tango is about connection. It’s a simplicity. It’s a true way of communicating and moving together, and the music is very particular. And now people know a lot more internationally, but especially in the United States, which was a little bit behind compared to Europe and Asia. But in New Jersey, it was totally new when we moved. It took us like 15 years or so to promote and to educate the audience about it.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Carolina Zokalski, Diego Di Falco and the Authentic Argentine Tango School present a special concert with Tanghetto Wednesday, July 11 at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City, New Jersey. Click here for more information and tickets.
