GUEST DJ’s 2022
Mark Sakowski – Baltimore/Washington DC, USA
For the last 17 years he has DJ’ed predominantly but not exclusively Argentine tango and specializes in playing an inspiring mix of traditional tango, vals & milonga in a similar style as the best milongas in Buenos Aires. A few of the venues Mark has DJ’ed at are: Eastern Market Milonga – DC, ESL Milonga – DC, El Besito Milonga – NJ, Milonga de Luz – DC, Milonga Portená – DC, Domingo Tango Club – NYC, La Nacional Milonga – NYC, Fandango De Tango 2014 – Texas, The All Night Milonga – NYC, Boston Tango Festival 2015, 2016 & 2017, One City Tango Marathon 2015 – VA, Milonga la clasica – Philadelphia and the Official USA Argentine Tango Championships in San Francisco in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 & 2019, the 2016 Providence New Year’s Eve Tango Marathon and the International Tango Maya Tango Festival in Cancun, Mexico 2017 & 2018, Chicago Mini Tango Festival 2019, En tus abrazos encuentro 2019. Mark was the DJ at Midsummer Night Swing “Hardcore Tango Night” with the Aces of Rhythm Sextet at Lincoln Center in New York City in 2017.
Mark also won the “1st Annual Tango DJ Competition” in Somerville, Massachusetts in September of 2013, is a guest DJ regularly at the prestigious Astoria Tango Club Milonga on Sundays in New York City and was the organizer, host and DJ of the longest running weekday milonga in the Washington DC area; Milonga Diversité in Coco Cabana Grill in Hyattsville, MD every Monday night for over 10 years.
Mark has DJ’ed over 1200 milongas and is very excited to be DJing in April 2020 for the seventh consecutive year at the ATUSA Tango Championships in San Francisco! He is also looking forward to DJing again the “Silver Ball” NYE celebration at the All Night Milonga in NYC and the Astoria Tango Club’s NYE celebration with two live orchestras!
Mark and his life partner Hitomi Hayashi have organized & hosted the very successful 4th Saturday “Milonga Uno” in Washington, DC for the past three years.
Mark will play on Sunday July 10 from 9.00 to 3.00am
Ashvin Iyer – San Francisco Bay area, California
Ashvin Iyer is a 10-year experienced tango DJ based in the San Francisco Bay area, Californa, and he has been dacing tango for 13 years.
On his last trip to Buenos Aires, Ashvin gave an impromptu DJ tour, invited to play at the world’s most iconic venues including Gricel, Salon Canning (Parakultural), El Beso and Villa Malcolm. Ashvin deejays primarily in the rhythmic style of Golden Age tango music. He believes in keeping the mood generally happy, and that tango flow for dancers happens from song to song as much as over periods of time. For this reason, his tandas are considered unpredictable. He is as adept at following the crowd as he is leading it. What makes his work stand out is the depth of emotion he manages to evoke from his dancers.
Ashvin is also invited at tango festivals worldwide to give seminars on the art of DJ-ing
Ashvin will play on Thursday July 7, from 9.00 to 3,00am
Marcelo Rosensaft, Montevideo, Uruguay/ Tel Aviv, Israel
Marcelo grew up in Montevideo, Uruguay, in a family where tango was played and danced daily. Going out to dance tango was Marcelo’s parents leisure activity and his young uncle Jorge played piano in a band, mainly tango and bolero music. Of course, tango was for the oldies so Marcelo just accepted it as part of the culture, without much enthusiasm. Once he got to his 50’s, and very far from his home town, he met tango again and fell in love hopelessly.
Marcelo started started his carear as a DJ after studying the tango music for several years when a new friend, Daniel, organizer, teacher and performer – needed help at his milonga and Marcelo became the house DJ of Daniel’s El Milongón, a bi-weekly milonga on Saturday evenings in Tel Aviv, After that he was invited to DJ in most of the milongas of that time in Tel Aviv. And also in special weekend gatherings from the tango old timers of Israel. Today Marcelo is the house DJ of La Milonguita and plays intermittently in Anka Kuhnel’s milonga and practica Alpha and at Tanya and Ilya Shwartz’s milonga Negra.
Between November 2013 and February 2015 Marcelo was spent all the time between in Buenos Aires and New York where Marcelo was “discovered” as a DJ and started his international DJ career. He played in some of the NYC milongas and started developing an informal fans club.
Since 2015 until today Marcelo visits New York 3-4 times a year and is invited in repeated occasions to play in most of New York milongas such as all Triangulo’s milongas – Carina Moeller’s La Sala, Maura Hays and Richard Ariza’s Friday Afternoon Milonga, Maura’s Twilight (Saturday) Milonga and Eddie Sanabria’s Domingo Tango Club, Lucille Krasne’s Esmeralda, Maria Jose Sosa’s Tango y Te practica, Alicia Cruzado’s Pasion Milonguera, Renee Rouger’s Milonga Falucho, Jon Tariq’s Mi Barrio and Paciencia milongas, Dragan Ranitovic Milonga Loca, Adam and Ciko Tango Café milonga, Yamila Viana’s Milonga Ferrari, Sarah La Rocca All Night Milonga, Juan Vicente and Coco’s La Nacional and Héctor Pulpo Pereira’s Astoria Tango Club milonga.
Besides his “home tango towns:” Tel Aviv and New York, in the last years Marcelo has played all over North America and lately also in Europe: Boston, Philadelphia, Denver, Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco, Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Phoenix (AZ), Albuquerque (NM), Santa Fe (NM), Saarbrucken (Germany), Den Haag, Culemborg and Bussum (The Netherlands)
In 2018 Marcelo started DJing at encuentros milongueros, marathons and festivals such as Andy Stein’s Newport News encuentro, Amy Allison’s Seattle encuentro, Melina Sedo and Detlef Engel’s FCA, Yemiko Yagui and Jae Young’s Utopia encuentro (Charleston, SC), Ray Barbosa’s Chicago tango festival, Alla Lakov’s Boston marathon among others. Several events have already booked Marcelo’s schedule for 2020, including several milongas in Buenos Aires.
Marcelo is devoted to danceable music and is an intuitive DJ. More than feeling the energy of the dance-floor – like one usually hears in the DJs’ jargon – Marcelo sets the energy at every moment. He always arrives at the milonga with a pre-arranged full playlist and here and there makes surgical adaptations according to his feeling of the atmosphere. Of course, he’s musicalized a full milonga creating the playlist on-the-fly but he likes more to prepare his list in advance.
Marcelo has developed his own unique program which displays information about the music to the dance-floor. Written in C#, Marcelo’s program “talks” dynamically with the music system and displays information to a wall, using a compact projector that he carries with him. In addition to a title with the name of the milonga, the organizer and the DJ, the system displays the actual tanda – orchestra and vocals/instrumental, the actual song with the time elapsed, and the next tanda.
Marcelo will play on Saturday July 9 from 9.00 pm to 3.00 am
Marcelo will also be the Official Competition DJ
DJ Fer – Fernando Robles, Perú /Washinton, DC /Santa Fe, NM
Tango music touches your heart and soul in many ways. When you hear the music, your brain generates emotions and reactions that make your body move and dance. Dancers focus sometimes on the melody or rhythm or perhaps the lyrics or the bandoneon solo as cues to expression in the dance. My intent as a DJ is to create a stream of emotions that range from joy to passion through my music selections. I pay attention to how dancers embrace, look at each other, their posture and harmonious moves to the tango being played to find the music that keeps that energy alive. It is a wonderful experience to watch this energy play out in milongas. It is a conversation between the dancers and me. I invited them to dance with my opening song in a tanda and build the momentum with the following song to reach a crescendo with the next song and closing music that makes them remember their dance experience. With so much wonderful tango music from the golden period, the variations of such experience are endless.
I learned to appreciate tango dance and music under the late master teacher Pablo Fontana in Washington, D.C starting in 2006. He inspired me to develop an appreciation of the music and gave me my first serious collection of Argentine tango music. I have DJed in Washington, DC, Mexico City, Lima, Peru. I am now based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I DJ mostly in the Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico milongas and also in major tango festivals in the US including Valentango, Burning Tango, and the San Miguel de Allende Tango Festival, Mexico.
Fernando will play on Friday July 8 from 9.00 pm to 3.00 am
Special DJ Workshop by MARK SAKOWSKI
The DJ workshop will give you insights into the aspects of the DJ’s role in playing music for Argentine tango dancers in a traditional music milonga from a veteran DJ with over 20 years experience playing for partner dancers, 17 years experience playing for tango dancers and a graduate of the Broadcasting Institute of Maryland. Topics discussed will include sound quality and equipment needed for a milonga, DJ software, DAC sound cards, “golden age” orchestras and top music for social dancing, crafting coherent tandas for social dance, tanda selection for keeping the dance floor full and energized, DJ’ing “in the moment” versus using a playlist, cortinas & timing and ending the milonga. Questions will be encouraged throughout.
More experience Djs do come and be part of the conversation!
Day & Time: Saturday July 9 at 12.45 to 2.15 pm
Cost: $40 per person if check is sent by June 20, 2022.
$45 cash at door
Registration for the DJ Workshop
Claudio took his first steps at an early age. His roots come from his grandfather, Hector Contreras, who was his mentor in the early stages of his Tango training. He then followed teachings by Juan Aurelio, Juan Carlos Copes, Virulazo, Antonio Todaro, Pepito Avellaneda, Gloria and Eduardo, Dinzel, N. Guichanduc,- world-famous recognized “Maestros “ who contributed extensively to his training.