They say that tango lives in Havana

We could think that it is because bolero and tango are a bit brothers in their dramatic note. Or maybe because Havana never stopped waiting for Gardel in his failed attempt to land on the island when he immortalized himself in an airport in Medellin. For whatever reason, tango is alive in this city and subtly inhabits a corner of Old Havana, very close to the mythical Floridita. El Ojo del Ciclón, the name of the small bohemian redoubt that usually shelters it, seems to foretell the enveloping and captivating aspect of this genre that is divided between music and dance.

It is a daily 2×4 at the intersection of O'Reilly and Villegas, but once a year they throw the house out the window and under the umbrella of TangueArte they spread around the city with music, milongas, cinema and literature. In the last two years they have achieved a delightful complicity with the Embassy of the Argentine Republic in Cuba, which tirelessly strives to enrich the bridge between the two homelands. This alliance has already brought to these shores a diversity of artists; and this year it was Karina Levine who arrived to give voice to a precious repertoire of essential songs such as Garúa, Naranjo en flor and Siempre se vuelve a Buenos Aires. Karina is porteña by birth and marplatense by adoption, she came from the tumultuous and cold sea of the southern cone to rock in the ears of an audience as warm as the waters of these latitudes.

The artist displayed her voice, her arms, her interpretation that flirts with elegance and arrabal in equal measure. The extensive path on the stages was noticeable: roots, craft and vocation nestle in her throat, in her whole body. It was necessary to be at the height of that singing and a local musician achieved it, with more than enough. The piano that began the deep dialogue with the Argentinean melted in Tobías Alfonso's fingers. It should not be a surprise that Tobías gets it right and charms, it is the usual, what we expect from him, however, we know that this was his first approach to tango and his piano sounded with the absolute weight of the genre's tradition and, at the same time, distilled his fresh and Cuban imprint. We were surprised, of course, impossible not to be. He had deeply studied those parts, to such an extent, that he proposed Karina a divine game: to play her own version of Nostalgias; the Argentinean woman upped the ante: "let's go out without a net, without a rehearsal". So it was that Cobián and Cadícamo's classic, perhaps inscribed in the decalogue of the most versioned tangos in history, also sounded with notes of Cuban flavor. Karina Levine and Tobías Alfonso created at that moment the perfect link for these two lands that ignore the seven thousand kilometers that separate them and seem as much like sisters as tango and bolero are.

Milonga at El Prado, TangueArte 2022. Photo: Majo Minatel

Milonga with the Color Café Orchestra at the Egyptian Colonnade, TangueArte 2023. Photo: Majo Minatel.

Milonga at Ojo del Ciclón, TangueArte 2022. Photo: Majo Minatel.

Karina Levine and Tobías Alfonso at the Egyptian Colonnade, TangeArte 2023. Photo: Majo Minatel.

Milonga at El Prado, TangueArte 2022. Photo: Majo Minatel.

Milonga at the Egyptian Colonnade, TangueArte 2023. Photo: Majo Minatel.

Milonga at the Egyptian Colonnade, TangueArte 2023. Photo: Majo Minatel.

Milonga at the Egyptian Colonnade, TangueArte 2023. Photo: Majo Minatel.