Argentina: Buenos Aires Tango & Dance Festival

A tango festival and world dance competition is now underway in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Here you’ll not only find some of the best tango dancers around, but some of the best tango musicians. Among them Julio Pane who plays an instrument called the bandoneon, which is a special kind of accordion.

[Julio Pane, Bandoneon Virtuoso]:
“It’s been eleven years that this festival has been going on and it’s always been very successful. There are boys eager to express their art, and they study and really commit themselves to it. I think that giving opportunities to new talent are one of the things lacking – and so, this kind of festival helps make it happen.”

Julio Pane was lucky to live, learn from and play with the creators of the tango, such as Horacio Salgan who is one of the most prestigious Tango musicians and composers in history, as well as Astor Piazzola who is not only the most celebrated tango musician in the world, but a composer who was brought up by some of the world’s top international symphony orchestras.

[Julio Pane, Bandoneon Virtuoso]:
“I was lucky enough to be Salgan’s first bandoneonist for five years and to be with Astor Piazzola in the United States and Canada. So I had the pleasure to participate in all those things, that as a teenager I experienced from the outside and as well as from within.”

Pane brings a lot of heart to this art form.

[Julio Pane, Bandoneon Virtuoso]:
“Tango is everything. It has all the musical colors and complexities. And of course, through the great lyricists that you can imagine, it touches all of man’s sensitive points in life, from birth till death.”

Julio has stayed true to his roots in tango, preserving its noble tradition, despite

[Julio Pane, Bandoneon Virtuoso]:
“We were the black sheep playing bandoneon in the sixties, the days of rock!”

But with people like Julio Pane, the tradition will live on.

[Julio Pane, Bandoneon Virtuoso]:
“Our culture is folklore and is tango.”

NTD, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

(NTDTV)