Carlos Perez

Partners

Danced together in TangoTube's videos · our data

• Rosa Forte2006–2024 · 56 dances
• Rosa Perez2007–2018 · 20 dances

Events

Where they were filmed, most first · our data

• Misterio Tango Festival 20122 filmed
• Hong Kong Tangofest 20111 filmed
• Misterio Tango Festival 20131 filmed
• Misterio Tango Festival 20151 filmed
• El Chamuyo 20131 filmed
• Cuartito Azul 20151 filmed

Timeline

1. 1952Begins dancing in the Buenos Aires milongas, learning from dancers 10–15 years older.

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2. 1964Marries Rosa Forte and stops dancing for about 30 years.

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3. 1994Returns to tango with Rosa, assisting José 'Lampazo' Vázquez's classes.

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4. 1996About now the couple take charge of the práctica at Club Sunderland, Villa Urquiza, after Lampazo's death.

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5. 2002Retires from the printing business to dedicate himself to tango.

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6. 2009Interviewed with Rosa for the Milonguero's Room blog.

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7. 2015Teaches and leads prácticas in Liège in May.

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In their own words

Interviews on TangoTube · open a moment at its start

1. Herramientas de Tango entrevista corta sobre el Tango Pop Trainer con Carlos Perez

   A short interview by Enrique Grahl with Carlos Pérez, a Villa Urquiza milonguero, about the tools old-time milongueros used to practice. Pérez recalls an iron column in the dance halls that girls would hold onto to spin, and compares it with the chair and the bar that were also used. The rest of the chat is Pérez encouraging Enrique about sales of his Tango Pop Trainer, the device the interview is built around.

   • 0:00Describes an iron column that held up a small roof/canopy in the old dance halls, which women held onto to practice spins (giros).
   • 0:28Compares the old iron column to also using a chair or a bar/rail as something to hold onto while practicing, saying a good training tool should be more comfortable than either.
2. Carlos y Rosa Perez entrevista

   Carlos Pérez, filmed in Italy during a tango world championship, talks about how he teaches: he says 70-80% of tango is walking, with the embrace, the posture and clean footwork coming before any figure. He explains the pause as his favorite figure in tango, not a rigid stance but a body that keeps dancing even while stopped, and describes the embrace as something the man proposes but that the woman ultimately holds with her own pressure, without him squeezing. He closes by contrasting his own era, when you won a girl over with delicacy and good manners, with an earlier, rougher one he never lived through.

   • 0:06Says that in his teaching, 70-80% of tango is walking: the embrace, the posture that accompanies the music, and clean footwork, which he calls the basics of tango before any figures or turns.
   • 0:51Says the pause is the best figure in tango, meaning a stop where the body keeps dancing rather than freezing rigidly like a soldier bringing his heels together.
   • 2:17On the embrace, says the man proposes it but the woman ultimately makes it happen by supplying the pressure of her arm; he asks her to hold the pressure while he keeps a constant, caressing touch on her back rather than gripping, so she can interpret his lead with total security and without tensing up.
   • 3:04Contrasts his own era with the older, tougher 'compadrito'-style courting he didn't live through: he says his generation won a girl's interest through delicacy, good manners, kindness and gentleness rather than any kind of brute force.
3. "CARLOS PEREZ Y ROSA FORTE TENGO UNA PREGUNTA PARA USTEDES" por Pepa Palazon 2/3

   Pepa Palazón interviews the milongueros Carlos Pérez and Rosa Forte in Buenos Aires, in December 2011, in the second of a three-part conversation. Carlos recalls what the milongas and courtship were like before 1960, the shift from live orchestras to recordings, and the years of state of siege the couple lived through. He also tells how, after thirty years away from dancing, they returned to the milongas by way of Lampazo, and looks back over old photos of their tango fantasía and canyengue exhibitions, giving his own account of what that style was really like.

   • 1:16Recalls that around 1960 milongas began changing: couples started lingering on the dance floor to talk between tandas, a habit that had not existed before, and that a man walking his partner back to her seat after a dance was a firm social custom.
   • 5:26Says milongueros stopped dancing to live orchestras and switched to recordings around 1946-47, once recordings were good enough, mainly for the variety it gave.
   • 9:15Danced until 1964, then stopped for about thirty years (with occasional dancing at family gatherings), before returning to the milongas in 1994.
   • 10:24During a state of siege, he and Rosa were caught in a police and military raid on a hotel in Entre Ríos; about fourteen officers searched their room and demanded their papers.
   • 13:18Rosa Forte is his wife and dance partner; they were billed abroad as "the couple of milongueros Carlos and Rosa Pérez."

Connected

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