Mark's Tango

Mark and Lorraine began to dance Argentine Tango as a vehicle for reconnection following a personal tragedy in the late fall of 2000. Their first local teacher, Steven Payne, was the principal organizer of the Utah tango community. Steven taught a close-embrace (milonguero-style) tango with emphasis on partner connection, improvisation, and musicality.

When Steven and his family left for a professional residency in Portland, Mark became the anchor and pivotal protagonist for tango in Utah. He immediately became an officer and, soon afterward, president of Wasatch Tango Club. He also began teaching introductory tango classes, organizing milongas and creating tango presentations. He was instrumental in organizing milongas at the Orbit Cafe, Green Street Social Club, McCune Mansion, the Utah Museum of Art and History, Rose Sachs Gardens, Wasatch Broiler, Gallivan Center, and Lex DeAcevedo’s recording studio in Midvale.  Mark began collecting recorded tango music and imported many CDs from Buenos Aires. He served as DJ at many of these early milongas and introduced traditional milonga music structure (tandas and cortinas) to the local tango community. Under Mark’s direction, milongas at the SLCSL began to feature live tango music with Daniel Diaz and his Tango Camerata (Daniel Diaz, bandoneon; Jeffrey Price, piano; Lynnette Thredgold, violin; Brian Salisbury, violin; and occasionally with Alfredo Campelo on percussion or as the vocalist.)

By 2005 Mark was becoming more engaged with professional commitments and began encouraging others to take over many of the club’s organizational responsibilities. There were so few local teachers and tango classes at the time that he felt teaching would benefit community growth more than remaining an officer in the tango club. In January 2006 Mark relinquished the presidency and began to teach regular, introductory, beginning, and intermediate-level tango classes. He and Lorraine continued to teach these classes, off and on, typically from September through May until 2018. More information about these classes and tango along the Wasatch Front can be found on the tango community website calendar. Mark & Lorraine and Dmitry & Irene Pruss together host a tango event, Milonga Sin Nombre, each month throughout the year. And Mark & Lorraine also are founders of Pioneer Encuentro, an invitation-only, milonguero-style dance event that now brings more than a hundred experienced tango dancers to the Salt Lake’s Clubhouse (former Ladies’ Literary Club) venue every year.

As a result of travel, sometimes for tango, but mostly for his profession, Mark now has danced and has tango friends in most major US cities. These include: Albuquerque, Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Berkeley, Boulder, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Eugene, Ft. Lauderdale, Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Kanas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Maui, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Haven, New Orleans, New York, Oakland, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa, Tucson, Washington DC, and many other cities.

In 2008 Mark, Lorraine, and friends from the Salt Lake community visited Buenos Aires and there danced in many of the best known and most historic milongas. This was an opportunity for them to test drive their tango background.  The experience was validating.

Mark and Lorraine’s dance continues to evolve.  They now feel all styles reflect aspects of tango and they no longer care to discriminate between dance styles; however, they remain fond proponents of the close, social dancing that is still found in many Buenos Aires milongas and that focuses on comfort, social respect, partner connection, improvisation, and musicality.

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For more information about tango and tango music see also: