Enthusiasts are so passionate about tango that one of the first things they do when they travel anywhere is to look up for the tango scene there, aficionado and event manager Anil Kumar tells Anand Holla ahead of tonight’s show

As dreary a cliché as it is, it takes two to tango turns out to not be all that true. Piloting Qatar’s sole tango festival for the third year in a row is Anil Kumar — banking executive by day, ardent tango aficionado at all other times.
The Third International Tango Festival Doha will treat patrons to spectacular tango performances by some of the finest contemporary tango dancers at the Al Jawhara Ballroom, InterContintal Doha The City, at 7.45pm today, apart from live music, a gala dinner and milonga, which is basically a tango dance party.
Sample the list of star performers: Los Guardiola from Argentina, Walter suquia and Ayelen Sánchez from Argentina, Hernan Rodrigues and Florencia Labiano from Argentina, and Ceser and Elizabeth from Colombia.
Kumar, who has been single-handedly putting together the event, points out that the first edition drew 135 participants, the second 160, and the third, now, is expected to be attended by close to 250 patrons. “Tango enthusiasts are extremely passionate about it because it is beyond dance and art. It’s a sad story that can be sung,” Kumar says.
As a middle-class boy from Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, India, Kumar began working and supporting his family at the age of 15. Later, after spending seven years in Dubai as a banking executive, Kumar moved to Doha. Despite never having danced before or even given it more than a passing thought, he enrolled himself in a salsa class, three years back.
“Then one day, I was introduced to tango. It spoke to something inside me,” Kumar recalls, his eyes lighting up, “I then happened to watch Scent of a Woman, the film in which Al Pacino plays a blind, retired army colonel, and it has this famous tango scene which Pacino is superb at. That film inspired me a lot.”
Slowly and passionately, Kumar began learning the nuances of tango by practicing, watching videos on YouTube. Around then, when he travelled to Thailand, he met an Argentinian couple in Bangkok and learnt tango from them.
“Tango enthusiasts are so passionate about tango that one of the first things they do when they travel anywhere is to look up for the tango scene there,” says Kumar.
That habit of tango lovers would only mean good news for Kumar. In one of the initial salsa group meets, Kumar chanced upon three other tango lovers in Doha. “So Tango Club Qatar started with just the four of us,” Kumar says. Soon, they found themselves with a venue at the Intercontinental Doha The City, which would become the place for regular meets and tango classes.
“Soon we made a Facebook page — Tango Club Qatar — and began posting updates on it to unite the Tango community in Qatar. And it worked,” says Kumar. This led to social gatherings of the community, every week. “This is when we get together and dance for two hours. There are more than 45 active tango enthusiasts in Qatar who participate,” he points out.
And then, there are those passing by. “At every weekly meet, we would have around seven to nine fresh faces. Those would be mostly the ones travelling to Qatar for short visits. I would note down their email addresses and thereby expand our tango community and also keep it open to more participation,” says Kumar.
Given his high ambitions for the quality of the festival, Kumar considered travelling to Argentina so as to get to know the home of tango and its great proponents better. “However, that trip was too expensive to make,” he says, smiling, “Instead, I managed to get two famous tango dancers down to Doha for the fest, which featured workshops on the basics of tango, and of course, tango performances.”
Kumar bore all the costs on his own, just as he has been all along, including organising the third edition of the tango festival today. “I wanted to go beyond what would usually be considered as my limits,” he says. While most expats save money for a house, education or other such “serious” reasons, Kumar saves money all through the year just so he can fund his passion project — the Tango Club Qatar’s annual festival.
“To put together this festival has cost me QR60,000,” he shares. While the tickets are priced at QR275 — includes tango performances, buffet, live music by Tango Nuevo Project, and Milonga until late hours — Kumar estimates to still lose around QR15,000, after footing all the expenses.
“From booking the artistes to arranging for their flight tickets, hotel stay and food, to organising the logistics of the event, it’s quite a pricey affair,” Kumar admits, “But I am very happy to be able to do this. These artistes are all booked until September 2016, but still we manage to get them here. We must always find the way out. Since it would be a lot more expensive to fly them down from Argentina, for instance, I figure out their schedule and try and catch them while they already are in the Middle East or the Far East, so as to reduce costs.”
Apart from receiving support from the Argentinian Embassy in Qatar in the way of solid word of mouth, the tango festival also draws in big shots such as CEOs and business honchos because many of them happen to be tango enthusiasts, Kumar points out. “Of late, even the Kuwait and Dubai communities of tango have expressed their interest in being part of Tango Club Qatar’s activities,” he says.
​Tango has often been hailed as the ultimate communication between two people, and even called a four-legged animal with two beating hearts.
Perhaps, it’s best summed up by an unknown quote, which every tango lover like Kumar, vouches for: “I believe that Tango has the potential to bring out the best in each of us, at least while in the embrace. We surrender our egos; leave prickly personality traits at the table; and cease to be CEOs, taxi drivers, engineers, unemployed. We replace all our externals with a purity of spirit, a generosity of kindness, splendid caring. And when these elements flow freely between partners, it is... the joy.”
And why does Kumar love tango so deeply? “It helps me forget all my worries, all the stress and concerns. I feel happy and relaxed. Tango music has that amazing power and so does the dance,” he says, “Tango is like an addiction.”