The fantastic Sebastian Arce

Practice of Sebastian & Geraldine

Have you seen the video in which the young Sebastian Arce dances with Geraldine Rojas, from 1994? Arce was born in 1980 and Geraldine in 1981: therefore on this video, you can see them dance at the age of 14 and 13, respectively.

Can you see the mastery with which they execute the steps at such a young age already? No wonder they both conquered the tango-world! How old do you think Sebastian was when he started dancing tango? Only 8(!) as he admits in an interview!

Sebastian Arce & Mariana Montes

Sebastian Arce started dancing with his partner, Mariana Montes at the age of 17. To start, watch my favourite video of this wonderful couple:

Sebastian Arce & Mariana Montes – La Melodia del Corazon

A wonderful testimony of the importance of musicality! As always!

We could write books about their lives, so instead, I recommend here an interview with the couple from 2011. The entire interview is available to watch in two parts on youtube. In the second part (below) they talk about why they left Argentina at the beginning of their carreer. A must-see!

Sebastian speaks a number of languages, all of them fluently: english, french (he has lived in Paris for 6.5 years), italian, russian. Nothing to wonder here – his own tango academy is based in Moscow, which is also where he lives and teaches.

Arce and the tango trends

One of his most notable talents is his excellent sense of the directions global tango-trends are taking. He plays an important role in defining new trends and also has an incredible capacity to take on the novel in time. Where most artists struggle, he thrives: he can always come up with something new.

Here’s a video from 2006, for example. As if we were looking at different dancers!

The following video in which they dance the history of tango proves their talent:

A history of tango – Sebastian Arce & Mariana Montes

Sebastian and the TangoMeet

With the lessons of Sebastian Arce and Mariana Montes started TangoMeet, a webpage designated for tango video-lessons. Subscribers received new video lessons every month for a fee. Nowadays subscribers can buy specific packages, and new teachers such as Sebastian Achaval & Roxana Suarez, Sebastian Jimenez & Maria Ines Bogado and Ivan Terrazas & Sara Grdan have also joined the program.

Sebastian & Budapest

Hungary, fortunately, is frequently visited by qualified masters of tango. If my records are correct, of all foreign teachers of tango, Sebastian has given workshops and classes on most occasions. Should I be mistaken, please let me know. Anyhow, Sebastian was first invited to Danubiando Tango Festival and nowadays Barrio del Tango organizes workshops with him on a regular basis.

Sebastian & improvisation

As Mariana got married and moved to Cagliaria, Italy (she’s also raising her beautiful daughter here), she can’t always be with Sebastian at performances and workshops. For this reason he often has to look for temporary partners. For one of the best tango dancers in the world, this seemingly easy task becomes a huge challenge. This is how we got to know Antonella Terrazas – as the partner of Sebastian Arce – and she has been a regular guest in Budapest, giving workshops of women’s and men’s technique.

On an occasion, his then-current partner, Natalia Tonelli (2007 world champion of tango escenario) couldn’t make it to Budapest and he had to find a partner, partners for his evening performance on a very short notice. That’s how he teamed up with Maria Glotz and Andrea Serban. As the only preparation for the evening performance with his new partners, he danced with both girls no more than 30 minutes. At the end of the practice session, both Marcsi and Andrea asked Sebastian what should they change in their dance. His answer? Everything is perfect the way it is, and they shouldn’t change anything. When the time for the evening performance arrived, we just stood there in awe! Tango is art; what we saw there that night was 210% improvisation! Take a look at their dances!