Great DJs are central in our mission to create a festival of immersive dancing and listening. All our DJs for 2024 have enormous amount of experience and are highly sought after at many events and festivals around Australia.
Friday Night: Beatriz Diaz
Beatriz was born in Montevideo, Uruguay and grew up listening to tango at home. She has been dancing since 2012 and DJing since 2018. Beatriz has completed several courses in tango history and DJing with the Instituto Argentino del Tango in Buenos Aires. Her DJing passion and style is traditional golden age music with very danceable rhythms, she believes in playing the best and most danceable tracks to get people moving both physically and emotionally. Her ultimate goal is to ensure that everyone has a great time and they leave the milonga feeling on top of the world.
Saturday Practica: Jarny Choi
Jarny began tango in 1998. He made key contributions to the Melbourne tango scene in the early 2000s, teaching classes and running community focused initiatives and events. He was one of the founding members of the famous Czech House milonga in Melbourne, which embodied the ethos of a DJ centred event. Jarny has always been interested in community building and social elements of tango, and his DJing aims to connect dancers to each other deeply through the golden age music.
Saturday Night: Fabian Conca
Fabian is a well-known and respected DJ in the tango community. He has been playing music for the famous milongas in Sydney: "Tango Entre Amigos" since 2001 and "Milonga Pasional" since 2018, as well as making appearances as a guest DJ in many milongas and festivals in Australia and abroad. Fabian has a very defined style, with a combination of a well balanced selection of rhythmic and melodic tunes from the 1920's through the Golden Age of Tango till the present - a mix of music for all taste that would guarantee to keep you dancing all night long.
Sunday Night: José Argañarás
José grew up in Argentina listening to tango from his parents' record player. He has been dancing tango for many years, and DJing at milongas organized by himself and friends in Bariloche, Patagonia. His love for tango is divided: he is both a dancer and a musician. He likes to combine these aspects when he can - he established and directed a tango sextet in Argentina and currently plays bandoneon with The Melbourne Tango Orchestra. He has travelled extensively to "encuentros de tangueros" across Argentina to hear the new wave of contemporary tango orchestras reviving the live music tradition, and he loves to throw a few newer tandas in between all the classic orchestras. His personality as a DJ is energetic and at times dramatic, and prefers music that is fun and rich in details. His ultimate goal is to provide a great night for all and to see smiles at the end of the embrace.
Monday Afternoon: Yuko Kinoshita
Yuko is a DJ and a milonga organiser in Canberra. She is one of the founders and organisers of the 2 yearly festival "Tango in the Spring" and a co-organiser and the resident DJ at the El Boliche Monday night milonguita. She also has DJed at various milongas and festivals across Australia. Her musical preference is solidly in Golden Age tango. For Yuko, tango is about connections and the joy of sharing — with our partners and fellow dancers on the floor. The music is a critical component, which binds us together and makes the connections possible. This belief dictates what she does as a DJ, and as an organiser.
On Sunday afternoon, we will host a forum about tango music, featuring 2 local classical musicians.
Helena Popovic
Violinist, Helena Popovic (AMusA, LMusA, BMus) holds a Bachelor of Music (Performance) from the Australian National University and is a member of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. She is a recipient of the Basil Bressler Prize for Violin, the Friends of the School of Music Scholarship, two-time winner of the Llewellyn Choir's Most Outstanding Performer award and the Canberra Critics Circle Award. Helena has been engaged as a soloist with various orchestras in Canberra including Musica de Camera, the Canberra Youth Orchestra, and the Canberra Sinfonia.
A passion for tango music inspired recent travel to Buenos Aires where Helena undertook some study, attending the La Academia Tango Club and participating in masterclasses with among others, the renowned Rodolfo Mederos. A highlight of the trip was an impromptu performance at the Teatro Colón.
Charles Hudson
Tenor Charles Hudson was born in the Netherlands and following studies in the United States and Europe has developed a reputation for dramatic performance and versatility across opera, oratorio and art song, performing regularly as tenor soloist with National Opera, Canberra Choral Society, Llewellyn Choir, SCUNA, Igitur Nos and Opera New England.
Charles is an acclaimed narrator, performing sellout shows for the next generation of music lovers with Canberra Youth Orchestra, the National Capital Orchestra, and Canberra Sinfonia, including Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, Vivaldi's Four Season's, Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead, NCO's annual Melodies for Kids concert.
Charles' devotion to declamation of the spoken word has manifested in a special affinity with the tango songs of Carlos Gardel. Along with other members of the tango band Just Us Tango, Charles visited Buenos Aires on a study tour in 2023, attending the La Academia Tango Club and a masterclass with Rodolfo Mederos, and visiting Gardel's townhouse.