Returning to London by overwhelming demand, the internationally acclaimed Tango After Dark presents tango as it was meant to be experienced: raw, intimate and irresistibly seductive.
Nicolás Schell and Nair Schinca, who perform in Tango After Dark, were crowned World Tango Champions at the 2026 World Tango Championships in Buenos Aires this summer. They join previous World Tango Champions in a company that features 10 incredible dancers delivering a breathtaking display of strength, elegance and emotion. The dancers are accompanied by the electrifying sounds of a live orchestra, featuring five musicians and two singers, performing music inspired by the legendary composer Astor Piazzolla.
Review by Stephen Gilchrist.
“Everybody’s mambo crazy
Cha-cha happy, but I’m lazy
I don’t dig that frantic turpsichord
When I trip the light fantastic
I don’t wanna be gymnastic………
What I got in mind I think you’re gonna love
I got a new-fangled tango”
If your idea of Tango is Lena Horne’s ‘New Fangled Tango’ or the Strictly professional dancers tripping the light fantastic to their signature speciality in Argentinian Tango, as Al Jolson was fond of saying, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”
This explosion of Latin American tango by Germán Cornejo’s company at Sadlers Wells is probably the finest exposition of dance, bar none, seen on the London stage for quite a while. It is sensuous, sizzling, sexy and sensational in every respect.
There are ten champion tango dancers, including Cornejo, elegantly dressed on a beautifully and sensuously lit stage (by Charlie Morgan Jones) framed by drapes and some thirty hanging bulbs providing an imagined starlit night. The dancers explored drama, passion, longing, and tenderness in two hours of visceral emotion, intense and instinctual which, osmosis-like, transports the audience into the cafes of Buenos Aires. They are backed by a superb five-piece band under the musical direction of Diego Ramos on keys.
The music is by, and inspired by, the late Astor Piazzolla, the Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger whose works revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango. Piazzolla did not view tango purely as functional ballroom dance music; instead, he envisioned it as complex art music meant for the concert hall. Piazzolla was an internationalist. He was born in Argentina, moved with his family to New York and studied in Paris. He was advised by Arthur Rubinstein and came up with a fusion of all three styles, Tango, Classical and Jazz. His compositions were not suited to traditional tango ballroom and so new styles developed, which Cornejo explores to the full.
There is, in this evening of a thousand delights, ballroom, storytelling, and above all a tenderness and sometime sadness, matching the music in its often, minor key.
The precision, aesthetics, and cleverness of the continually changing patterns of the ensemble, in twos, threes or as a group is breathtaking. The basic tango steps, side step (salida), linear walking, a cross step (cruzada), and resolution is supplemented by some astonishing pivots, turns, and torso dissociation providing an explosive mix of traditional Argentine tango, contemporary dance, jazz, ballet, and high-flying acrobatics, which left the audience breathless. The girls threw their legs higher than Bonnie Langford while performing impossible feats of gymnastics.
The choreography is credited to German Cornejo ‘in collaboration with the dancers’ with assistant choreographer Gisela Galeassi. I lost count of the number of dances, all executed flawlessly, but each provided a change of costume (by German Cornejo, Alberto Mauri, and Mimi Pinzon), each a prime example of sophistication and beauty and all of which highlighted the exquisite body lines of the dancers.
There were also two excellent singers, Vanina Tagini, and Jesus Hidalgo and though my ‘O’ level Spanish was not up to translating the lyrics, the songs were performed with passion and dramatic effect which left you in no doubt as to what the song was about.
The entire score was lilting, melodic, often thumping with occasional hints of Michel Legrand. Gemma Scalia’s fiddle playing was technically exceptional.
This was an evening of beauty, thrills, style and musically superb. The dance, the production and the music all combining to provide an unrivalled raw, spontaneous and gut-level experience not to be forgotten any time soon.
Cast
Germán Cornejo – Dancer
Noelia Pizzo – Dancer
Nicolás Schell – Dancer
Nair Schinca Rosas – Dancer
Esteban Simón – Dancer
María Luján Leopardi – Dancer
Guido Palacios – Dancer
Flor Zarate Castilla – Dancer
Juan Cupini – Dancer
Erica Rossi – Dancer
Diego Ramos – Musical Director / Piano
Gemma Scalia – Violin
Matías Rubino – Bandoneon
Tomás Falasca – Double Bass
Jerónimo Izarrualde – Drums
Vanina Tagini – Singer
Jesús Hidalgo – Singer
Creatives
Germán Cornejo – Artistic Director & Choreographer
Gisela Galeassi – Assistant Choreographer
Diego Ramos – Musical Director
Charlie Morgan Jones – Lighting Designer
Gastón Briski – Sound Designer
Nahuel Delgado – Associate Sound Designer & Sound Operator
Sandra Castell García – Executive Producer
Laura Stevens – Production Manager
Ian Dixon-Wilkinson – Production Manager
Jacqueline Aviles Díaz – Wardrobe Manager
Tickets: Click here