1997. Dreaming of a Tango Scene in Delhi
DelhiTango as a domain name was born in 2004, but as a vision for a Tango Scene in Delhi had made its presence known before that. Delhi’s Tango Scene, as many others, owes its existence to a tango dancer’s wish for fellow tango dancers to dance with. When Stina arrived in Delhi in 1997 to work with Population Council on reproductive health research and searched in vain for tango. Herself a beginner at the time, it did not occur to her that it would be up to her to make it happen. But she did not stop dreaming of a Tango Scene in Delhi.

2001. When Stina found out that Swedish tango dancer Janne Janesten was travelling around in India she invited him to teach two weekend workshops. How, in a city of more than 10 million people, Cornelia, on her annual family visit to Delhi from the US, found her way to these workshops, can only be explained by good karma. Cornelia has been a partner in crime ever since.

2002. Stina kept brushing aside others’ suggestions that she should teach tango -until one summer day in Sweden, in 2002, when she found herself explaining to Gunilla Ryden, that she needed to learn how to lead in order to teach tango in Delhi. Stina could not have had a better teacher than Gunilla,

2003. One winter evening at the Central Railway Station in Stockholm, Gunilla and Stina decided jointly to take the risk of organising a workshop in Delhi the following spring with Gunilla as the visiting instructor.

2004. The one-week workshop with Gunilla, emphasizing communication and musicality, gathered a total of around 30 participants, several of whom are still seen on the tango floors of Delhi. Shefali graciously provided her wooden floor basement for the workshop- and fell in love with tango.

Only a few months later we had another visit from Stockholm, Sweden: Marta Eek and Jan Fredriksson. When not teaching tango with Marta, Jan kept disappearing mysteriously into internet cafes, finally revealing that he had set up DelhiTango’s first one-page website. This explained why he had been so keen for Stina to register DelhiTango as a domain name.

2005. Sandra, a salsa dancer and teacher of many years, decides to try out tango. She quickly became an important resource for DelhiTango, co-teaching and organising.

2008. After years of sporadic activities, DelhiTango begins to offer regular classes, weekly practicas, and monthly milongas. The media notices our new level of commitment and DelhiTango is featured in numerous newspapers, magazines and TV shows.

This was also the year when Emily and Madhu took the initiative to have a Tuesday Milonga at Sancho’s restaurant.

2009. Time for DelhiTango to enter the internet age and come out on a full-fledged website. In addditon, Emily and Nicolas have set up a blog for the tango community in Delhi: http://tangoindelhi.blogspot.com/

Tapas at Vasant Continental is added as a weekly Milonga venue.

Over the years, thanks to our previous websites and the tango grapevine, DelhiTango has been blessed with visits of many guest instructors and tangueros and tangueras from around the globe have come and danced with us. With our new website and the blog, we hope that many more of you will find your way to DelhiTango! Still on our wish list is a resident male tango instructor.