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Marcela Duran (Buenos Aires/Kentucky)

Known as “The Woman of the Tango” is an icon of the Tango scene around the world.

Marcela Duran, internationally acclaimed as a master teacher, also the iconic performer of the Broadway show Forever Tango. She has increased viewers' interests in learning the tango through her presence and style, and is an influential mentor of many Argentine Tango teachers and social dancers worldwide. She and her partner, Carlos Gavito, developed an unique and dramatically close tango embrace in which both dancers leaned forward against each other.

Marcela's first connection with the tango was through her father, a bandoneon player, in the tango orchestras in Rosario, Argentina, where she was born. She has worked as a dance teacher for the Argentine Government, specializing in modern dance and tango. She started to dance the tango in 1988 at Salon Canning. She has spent many years walking the tango and dancing with the great milongueros of that time and has absorbed and learned the essence of tango.

Following her dreams to spread the tango around the world, she came to San Francisco to perform with Forever Tango in 1994. She also performed at the Strand Theatre in London in 1995 where she partnered with the legendary milonguero Roberto "Alemán" Tonet. Subsequent to her engagement with the show in England, she danced for ten years with Carlos Gavito performing two classics of the show: "S.V.P" and "A EVARISTO CARRIEGO". With Gavito, Marcela performed for the series, Evening At The Pops, with the Boston Pops Orchestra broadcast by PBS. She was part of the original cast members at the Broadway premier of Forever Tango at the Walter Kerr Theatre in June 1997 when the show was nominated for the Tony Awards and Drama Desk Awards for Best Choreography. Marcela performed at the Spoleto Festival in Italy and toured through USA, Canada, Europe and Asia with the show. She has also performed at the Colon Theatre Opera House in Buenos Aires in 1999. In 2000, she became the World Champion of the Dance Sport Championship (International Dance Organization) on Argentine Tango.

She and Gavito taught Argentine Tango together, around the world for ten years, sharing their passion for dancing. They were the perfect example of how one can dance the tango on stage without losing the essence of this popular and beautiful art form.

She was also a member of the cast in the Broadway Production of Forever Tango at the Shubert Theatre in 2004 and at the Walter Kerr Theater in 2013. During the period of her association with the show she has performed and taught in 100 cities around United States, Canada, Italy, Portugal, England, Greece, Israel, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Shanghai, Mexico, Central and South America.

Among all the reviews and comments on her remarkable career, a phrase from the review of the San Francisco Chronicle on December 24, 2010 on her performance with Forever Tango, immortalize her name as one of the Great Divas on the History of Tango.

”The patina of a great tango dancer can be found in the remarkable Marcela Duran. With her partner, they are the least sensational couple on stage, yet they're almost worth the price of admission."

Marcela Duran's youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Duranmar1'Bold text'