This is Tango Now explores two fascinating issues relatable to anyone: identity and willpower. Who we are and our ability to act according to our own desires is what both makes us unique and binds us together. With its realist and surrealist, highly rational but also emotionally primal approach to life, tango provides the very platform to explore such primary human issues.

In This is Tango Now, we find ourselves among three characters: A Marionette, submission incarnate, who suddenly realizes that all her life she has been under the control and will of a domineering Puppeteer. Under the guidance of the Duende (a mysterious and mystical figure of ambiguous motive), our Marionette embarks on a journey of self-exploration, awareness, discovery, and liberation unlike anything she’d ever dreamt able. The intense and highly kinetic energy, pulse, and sound of tango are the backdrop for this story, intertwined with powerful dance, live music, lights and pure spectacle that reaches to tell her story…your story.

This ensemble of major stars presents us with gorgeous scenes and an ever changing mood. This is Tango Now connects with audiences around the world via pure sound and original movement.

"As globalization marches ahead and populations diffuse throughout the world, not only has tango firmly established itself as an influential genre in the realm of world music, tango’s emotive themes, associated with migration, continue to resonate with audiences today." - USA Today

"Over the past several years, the featured musicians have performed together in various configurations, developing a deep rapport ... exceptionally sensitive, rich, and evocative."
- Broadway World

“Tango is music, dance, and poetry. Tango is an expression, a gaze, a walk, and a type of character–an entire moral system. It is rare to see all these things represented on stage together.”
- Alfredo Minetti, producer

Alfredo Minetti, Ph.D.
Music Director, Anthropologist, Pianist, Composer, Lecturer

Alfredo was born in Uruguay to a family of tango and opera aficionados. He started his music studies encouraged by his grandparents, and was exposed to tango very early in life by his maternal grandmother, who was an accomplished tango dancer.

After living for a couple of years in Argentina, his family settled in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he studied classical piano under Ondine de Mello, and performed in tango ensembles formed by Uruguayan and Argentinean expats.

With a multitude of interests, Dr. Minetti established residence in the USA, and earned his Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Indiana University, specializing in the anthropological study of music and music groups. His areas of interest include: group creativity, social aesthetics, and collective emotion.

He continuously collaborated with the Latin American Music Center at the Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music as pianist, composer, arranger, and coach. While living in the Midwest Alfredo founded and directed two tango ensembles: BloomingTango and Tangamente.

In 2008, he created ‘Minetti Productions,’ a performing arts production company intended to promote the blending of research on relevant cultural topics and the performing arts. His newest creation, in collaboration with dancers and choreographers Fernanda Ghi & Guillermo Merlo, is the tango show This is Tango Now: Identidad, which premiered in March of 2011 and is being widely requested around the world (see clip at http://vimeo.com/23056064).

For Alfredo, tango is a channel through which one can reach their soul, it is rational and deeply emotional, nostalgic and ironic, and explores every aspect of human existence. Paraphrasing the great tango poet Enrique S. Discépolo, Alfredo notes: ‘tango is a sad thought that can be played.’

Alfredo Minetti is an exclusive artist of Class Acts On Tour: http://www.classactsontour.com/