This year the Argentine World Tango Championship, spanish name Campeonato Mundial de Baile de Tango, was in September. The World Championship has two categories: Tango de Pista and Tango Escenario. As far as I know, it was the first time that the two categories were held on the same day.
Tango de Pista category
The first category is Tango de Pista (from 2003 to 2012 it was called Tango de Salon). Here you can compete according to strictly defined rules. The contest rules define how a couple could dance on a milonga. For example, they cannot use jumps. They take into account the musicality of the couples, the relationship between them and the elegance. On the World Tango Dance Tournament Wikipedia page you can see who has won the world championships so far. It’s a good feeling that Andi and I are listed on this page. :)
The competition consists of three rounds: qualifier, semi-final and final. The winner will be announced after the final. Each round has rondas(circles). In a ronda there are 7-11 couples of dancers. During the ronda, you have to go around counter-clockwise dancing tango. They have to dance three tango songs with different styles and the jury judge the dance
The fact that the name of this competition category changed from ‘Tango de Salon’ to ‘Tango de Pista’ deserves a separate blog post. Until 2013, the competition regulations were compiled based on what it was like to dance in the style of tango salons in the past. This is also why the Tango de Salon competitions started to get boring. Individual talents began to disappear. Fortunately, after the name change, in recent years, the regulations have been increasingly rewritten the idea how people would dance “social tango” at the milongas.
Let’s see what a ronda looks like
The couples line up, everyone is applauded and the competition can begin! What you can see here is one of the ronda of the 2022 semifinals.
The Final
This year, the location of the final was also be an open field, as it was last year, instead of Luna Park. A stunning setting is Corrientes Avenue with the Obelisco in the background.
40 couples made it to the World Championship finals. It was 4 rounds, i.e. four rondas It is interesting that the third place winner of the Tango de Pista, Diego Ortega, won the stage tango category in 2008(!).
Let’s see who won:
Tango de Pista winners: Sebastian Bolivar and Cynthia Palacios
In the Tango Escenario category, the order was completely reversed, compared to the semi-finals and the qualifiers. The couple who won the semi-final did not even make it into the top five.
Tango de de Escenario winners Ricardo Astrada and Constanza Vieyto
Congratulations to the winners!
