Argentine Tango Dancers
Brandon Kwae
Brandon started dancing after accidentally, while watching TV, turned the channel to a major dance competition on PBS. He was enthralled and quickly committed to a schedule of daily dance lessons. With almost 30 years of dance experience, winning numerous competitions and a background of incredible skills in numerous dance styles, Brandon really likes to pass on his passion for dance through teaching, he believes in starting with a balance between relaxed and efficient movement as in any pro-sport and adding a layer of musicality and phrasing with body movements.
Brandon together with his partner Laura Powell, have one of the most important dance studios in Los Angeles, Sonata ballroom and for years once a month they have their Milonga that bears the same name, musicians and prestigious tango dancers from Argentina and other countries and where everyone who arrives will be welcome.
Yuliana Basmajyan
Discovering her passion for Argentine Tango in 2007, Yuliana abandoned all other dance forms and devoted herself to intense training and exploration of this complex and beautiful dance. With her dance partner, Brian Nguyen, Yuliana’s hard work and dedication catapulted her professional career when they won two Argentine Tango Salon US Championships in 2010 & 2011 and made the finals at the Mundial World Championship in Buenos Aires 4 years in a row. Brian and Yuliana are the only US couple to ever place at the Salon World Championship by taking home the bronze medal in 2011.
Yuliana has had the opportunity to perform with many world renowned tango dancers such as Carlos Copello, World Tango Salon Champion – Maximiliano Cristiani, Pancho Martinez Pey, Oliver Kolker, Donato Juarez, Octavio Fernandez, Jaimes Friedgen, Mauro Peralta, Danilo Maddalena, Sergio Almiron, Gabriel El Huracan, Ricardo Biggeri, Marcelo ‘El Chino’ Gutierrez, Varo Boyajyan, Dominic Bridge, and
Meng Wang. She has taught and performed at several festivals, tango schools, tango clubs, and milongas in the US and around the world, including events such as: El Congreso in Toronto, Greek Island Tango Retreat, Armenia Tango Festival, Tijuana Tango Festival, San Diego Tango Festival, Fire & Ice Festival in Ann Arbor, Tucson Tango Festival, Valentango in Portland, Tango Mundo Festival in Palm Springs, Mercury Cafe in Denver, and La Nacional and Nocturne milongas in NYC. In 2018, Yuliana performed with Rojer Zalazar in Romper el Piso at the Arlene Schnitzner Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon and The Soraya Performing Arts Center in Northridge, California as part of renowned dancer and choreographer Natalia Hills’ company, Tangueros del Sur. She has also performed at Aram Khachaturian Musical Hall, the most prestigious performing arts center in Yerevan, Armenia. In 2019, Yuliana was on the judging panel at the Berlin Open Tango Contest and the Miami Tango Weekend Championship, and in 2020, at the Denver Mountain State Tango Challenge.
Additionally, she is the creator and organizer of the Southern California Tango Championship and Festival in Los Angeles, bringing competitors and social dancers together for a grand event that features world renowned instructors and orchestras. Over the years, this event has become the biggest international event in the US, attracting competitors from all around the world.
From 2009 to 2018, besides the tango championship and festival Yuliana hosted several other social events among which were Milonga Querida, one of the most prestigious milongas in Los Angeles, Milonga Luna and Divina Tango Weekend. Currently, Yuliana devotes her talents to teaching in LA, as well as teaching, judging, and performing abroad. She is the exclusive distributor of Regina tango shoes, imported from Italy.
Count Glover
Count Glover , Co-Founder, of Studio 1924 in downtown Oakland, CA, is a professional dancer, teacher and choreographer of Argentine Tango. Count has studied with some of the world's most renowned tango maestros. He is a well rounded, versatile dancer and performer, with a Tap and Ballet background that began at the age of two with his grandmothers dance company in Chicago. Count is also a well received social dancer of tango and is adept at all forms of
tango from all time periods and considered one of the best dancers of Argentine Tango in San Francisco.
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Count has performed in the Bay Area and around the U.S.and Argentina in many stage performances, he was a featured artist at the restaurant Destinos in San Francisco and also a principal dancer for the MonTango Orchestra base in the Bay area since 2000. Count is currently the featured dancer in the ensemble Tango del Cielo.
He has performed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, Michigan, Chicago, New York, Miami and in Buenos Aires
with Nuevo Tango Band “Tanghetto”.
Lisette Perelle
Dancing since the age of 5, Lisette began her training in gymnastics. From there her education continued to Hula, Ballet, Jazz, Modern, Ballroom, Argentine Tango and Theater. She received her B.A. Degree from Northeastern University in Speech Communications concentrating in Television and Film production with a Minor in Theater. She has worked in the Film industry for over 17 years and won Canada's Lotus award for 'Producer of the Best PSA Commercial' in 1996.
She danced and performed with the Northeastern Dance Theater Company from 1986-1988, where she did Choreography under the direction of Sarah Umberger. She was very involved in theater since childhood where she not only acted, sang and danced, but also choreographed numbers for the musicals, "Ghetto” , "Working" and "Blood Tango". She has since done choreography for a music video for the singer Jenifer Taylor, as well as many weddings and performances.
She was a member of the Argentine performance company Ballet Pampa Argentina under the direction of Pampa Cortes for 2 years. She starred in 3 tango film shorts, "Burn", "Tango in the Park" and "Tango Fatal". She has also performed on television for KQED San Francisco and Univision San Francisco along with leading roles in stage shows of “Love Junkies” and "Tango Fatal" under the direction of Jorge Torres as well as countless stage and private events.
Lisette trained in Argentine tango with Julian "Miller" Ramil, Pampa and Valeria Cortes, Fabian Salas and Carolina del Rivera, Mariana Flores and Eduardo Cappussi, Julio Balmeceda and Corina de la Rosa, Mariano "Chicho" Frumboli, Mariana Dragone, Sabastian Arce and Mariana Montes, Carlos Gavito, El Flaco Dany Garcia, Omar Vega, Daniel Juarez and Alejandra Armenti and many others. She has spent extensive time in Buenos Aires training and teaching as well.
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She has taught tango in the Bay Area including San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, San Rafael, Fremont, Castro Valley. Healdsburg, Other locations in California include Monterey, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, Mendocino, Ft. Bragg and Ukiah. She has taught in Bozeman , Montana, Helena, Montana, Palm Beach, Florida, Honolulu, Hawaii, The Big Island of Hawaii and Buenos Aires, Argentina as well.
LIsette has taught and performed with many well known dancers, such as:
Pampa Cortes, Julian Ramil, Jorge Torres, Roberto Reis, Facundo Pasadas, Eduardo Saucedo, Diego Lanau,Count Glover, Ramada Salieri, Alexander Moncada, Leonardo Pankow, Alexander Sosa, Rodolfo Saile and Martin Almiron.
Lisette has trained US Argentine Tango Champions and has been a judge for April Follies 2019..
Presently, she is teaching locally in the Bay Area and Hosts the popular Milonga Rubia . She often organizes for traveling Argentine Teachers that come to the San Francisco Bay Area. Lisette still dabbles with her own documentary on tango. She is an elegant dancer and patient teacher who concentrates on the techniques necessary for smooth, powerful and beautiful dancing. She works with the whole body focusing on connection, Embrace, alignment, lines and beautifying steps.
George Furlong
Born to an Argentinean family, Tango was a presence in George’s life since his early childhood. Thanks to a highly musical family, he started his musical training at age 10 and continued through high school and college.
Recognized for their musicality, George and Jairelbhi Furlong have performed and taught in cities throughout the United States,Canada, Mexico, Central America, China, and Russia, as well as in Buenos Aires (Argentina), and are seen as one of the most promising Argentine tango couple of their generation.
They have performed with the Fort Worth Symphony, Dallas Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Lisandro Adrover’s Quinteto,Opus Cuatro, and with bandeonists Horacio Romo and Daniel Binelli. They toured the USA in 2007 as part of the cast of ‘Tango Buenos’, and Mexico in 2008 with the Hugo Patyn Dance Company.
From 2011-2016, they were part of the cast of "This is Tango Now" created by Fernanda Ghi and Guillermo Merlo. They traveled throughtout the USA and toured China with Fernanda and Guillermo's "Identidad" and “Carmen de Buenos Aires.” They also have performed in shows such as "Maria de Buenos Aires" with San Antonio Opera.
Often invited to be part of the most renowned Tango festivals in the United States, George and Jairelbhi created ‘Evolutiontango’ in 2005, a dance group based in Dallas, Texas, and have produced, directed, and choreographed ‘Tango: Now and Then,’ ‘EvolutionTango,’ and 'Shades of Tango' among several other shows.
Since 2022 George and Jairelbhi are part of the organization of the San Antonio Tango festival.
In 2023 George and Jairelbhi created a new event in Dallas “Argentine Tango Jack and Jill Competition” and competition foe amateur in 3 categories: Tango, Vals and Milonga.