"Summary of an Interview with Nora Dinzelbacher"
by George A. Nicol
San Francisco, California, USA

San Francisco, California

Nora was born in the city of La Paz, Entre Rios, the next province north of Buenos Aires. She started dancing and performing mostly Argentine folk dances in dance groups at the age of 9 or 10. She, however, was exposed to Tango at an early age. Her father would always sing Carlos Gardel Tango songs. Her uncle was a professional Tango singer. Tango music was always in her home, although Nora laughingly says she only dances Tango, she does not sing Tango. She loves the Tango lyrics however.

Nora moved to Buenos Aries when she was 18 years of age and although she went to the National School of dance, she also wanted to have a radio talk show. The accent from her province, however, prevented this from happening, so she focused on dance. Nora lived in Buenos Aires until she came to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1986 on a cruse ship where she was performing and teaching with her husband. When they saw San Francisco she said "...we went crazy..." (with joy.) They then returned to Buenos Aires where they were teaching and performing with their dance group. They then returned to San Francisco in 1988 and they decided to stay and make a living teaching and performing Tango.

In 1990 her husband died. This was a turning point in Nora's life. She had to decide what to do without her other half both personally and professionally. It was also very hard for her because her family was in Argentina. After a difficult time she finally decided to stay and make her stand in San Francisco. She speaks very warmly of the support she got during that period from her Bay Area friends.

Nora said that she attributes love of her work to her success here. She said she tries to go, stylistically, in the same direction and not change with the prevailing winds. She tries to be very consistent with her dancing and teaching style. She says Tango is her profession, craziness, her love, and her life.

She teaches almost every day all over the Bay area. In the summertime she tours the U.S. and Europe. She goes to Germany each year. This year she's been to Paris and Tokyo, Japan. She loves Japan, the people and the culture. She taught a single class in the Olympic Village in Japan this year for 620 people. She says it was a great experience to be alone in front of all those people teaching Tango.

In the summer she also has her Tango Week and a Tango Weekend. She has done this for many years. She was the only teacher at the Stanford Tango Week to participate in each of the seven years it ran.

For her Tango Week she had teachers from Argentina and had a live band, the New York Tango Trio. There were classes run and a Milonga with a live band each night. There were also lectures and films from Argentina about Tango and the culture of Argentina.

Nora say that the San Francisco Bay Area has a special energy for Tango. She also believes that the Bay Area has more Milongas and more teachers than any other city in the world. She says one of the benefits of having so many Milongas and teachers here is that the level of dance in the Bay Areas is higher than in most cities because there are more opportunities to take classes, practice and dance than in other cities.

For the future Nora wants to continue to teach, choreograph, and perform with her dance company, the Argentina Folk Ballet, which is made up of five dance couples. Nora says she loves choreography and performing on stage because it gives her yet another way to express herself. She says she would love to perform more if she could find a very good dance partner who will commit to work with her and one who can stand her "bad humor" she says jokingly. She wants a partner from Argentina whom she does not have to teach anything to, and one where there is good dance chemistry.

Finally Nora says that the philosophy of Tango is told in how Tangueros live their lives, the way they act, the way they talk, and their love of the night life, with much socializing and human contact. In this day of technology she believes like in dance, sometimes it is good to go back to the basics of more social interaction and human contact.