Our 2011 tour of South America has remained very memorable for me, including our performance at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. As we started playing Stravinsky’s Tango, we pushed our music stands back a little, to make some space on the stage. Iván Fischer turned to the audience and asked if anyone felt like dancing the tango.

After the laughter died down, no one stood up, because it was such an unexpected situation, and Stravinsky’s piece is also not one that evokes the Argentine tango. We had agreed with Iván ahead of time, however, that at a certain point, Zoli Fekete would set his viola aside, walk over to me and ask me to dance. We moved over to the space in front of the orchestra, and began to dance, following the choreography taught by the renowned dancer Johanna Kulik. We were no professionals: we had to practice hard to prepare for this. (Since then, we have both become regulars at tango evenings – milongas –, which are so much fun.)

The audience welcomed our performance enthusiastically from the first steps – it was a great success! It was all Iván’s idea: he heard us talking at the airport about how we both like dancing the tango, and are relatively good. This led to him suggesting that since we are headed to the home of the Argentine tango, we Hungarian musicians should show a little of it to the local audience.

In 2019, at Müpa Budapest and at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, we took the stage with an entirely new tango choreography.

Photo: Gábor Máté