More than 200 tango enthusiasts from all over Qatar turned up on the weekend to be wowed and wooed by the choicest of world-class dancers at the fine visual spectacle that the Fourth International Tango Festival Doha was.
Anil Kumar, who organises the festival, told Community, “This edition was bigger than expected, which came as a surprise because the third tango festival last year had already met with tremendous success and positive feedback. The good thing in this year’s festival was that we had many artistes from other countries such as Germany, Turkey, Bahrain, UAE, Japan, and Lebanon, among others. Several families and expats, including Qataris, attended the festival, which was held at the InterContinental Doha-The City. This only points to the rising popularity of tango in Qatar.”
The event certainly has been gaining ground with each passing year — the first edition having drawn only 135 participants. The star attractions of the evening were the top tango dancers — Sercan Yugit & Zeynep Aktar (Turkey), Facundo Gil Jauregui & Maya Saliba (Argentina and Dubai), Gustavo Guarnieri & Gabriela Perea Demichellis (Argentina), and Ozgur Arin & Sonja Schussler (Germany). Also on offer was some popular tango music courtesy DJ Luca Lamberti from Italy.
After delivering a fabulous show complete with the most masterly moves and stretches, the dancers took a bow and looked seemingly pleased with the hearty applause that greeted them. Ozgur Arin said, “For us, it’s the first time in Qatar and we are very amazed, especially with the people here. It was an honour for us to perform with such dancers.”
Rossana Cecilia Surballe, the ambassador of Argentina to Qatar, said, “The embassy is proud of giving institutional support to this event, which continues to grow every year. And not only in (terms of) the people who follow these workshops but also the quality of the shows. We are really pleased to be here and we will continue supporting Anil. It’s very amazing for us to see that so far away from our homeland, there are so many people who like tango as much or perhaps more than we do. This really touched our hearts. All the artistes gave beautiful performances and we are very happy to have this opportunity to see and be here.”
Kumar started Tango Club Qatar with just three other friends and have found themselves a regular venue at the InterContinental Doha–The City, their usual haunt for meets and tango classes. On Facebook, Tango Club Qatar @TangoinQatar has 2,686 followers.
However, Kumar still finds organising such an event daunting. “The big challenge is putting a big event featuring four well-known artistes and a guest DJ from Italy together on one platform without sponsors and only with the support of friends and the tango community. We ensure that this festival remains within our budgets, and thanks to the support of the collective tango community, we have been able to get this festival on the floor,” he said.
The Qatar tango community’s increasingly busier weekly/monthly social gatherings point to a rise in people’s interest in tango. “I feel that the tango scene in Qatar has witnessed a healthy rise as we have many expats who used to dance tango back in their countries. We also have several short-time visitors to Doha attending our events, which makes us feel proud to be behind this effort to create happy and memorable tango moments within the community. To make things more interesting, we have a tango teacher whose dedication and hard work has ensured that more people are getting introduced to tango and are excited about it,” Kumar said. “Lastly, of course, tango is an excellent excuse for a variety of people from across the world to meet, greet, dance and share their cultures.”