May 22-25, 2026

Registration is open!

The 14th edition of the Philadelphia Tango Festival will take place May 22-25, 2026 (Memorial Weekend). Each year, we choose a theme to unite the various activities of the festival: the workshops, seminars, practicas, milongas, concerts and more.

This year’s theme is CONSCIOUS IMPROVISATION. At the heart of this theme is a paradox: through deep study of tango’s structure and components, we can achieve greater freedom, fluidity and musicality in improvisation. This is conscious improvisation, rooted in tango structure, but exploring the infinite possibilities that this structure affords. Our festival activities develop this sense of conscious improvisation by honing our understanding of musicality, technique, movement combinations and the subtleties of lead-and-follow communication.

We have assembled an extraordinary team to guide us on this exploration…

TEACHERS / PERFORMERS
Octavio Fernandez & Carolina Giannini
Rino Fraina & Graziella Pulvirenti
Andres Amarilla & Olesya Kershaw
Pablo Garcia Gomez & Iwona Ionescu
Ignacio Ondartz & Meredith Klein

LECTURER
Matias Mauricio

MUSICIANS
Tipica Messiez
Duo Villarreal Crom
Mariano Castro
Emiliano Messiez

DJs
Maria Valentina
Gabriel Gaumond
Octavio Fernandez
Ignacio Ondartz

Learn more on the festival website…

The Philadelphia Argentine Tango School (PATS) strives to create spaces and events that are safe, welcoming, and inclusive for everyone, regardless of age, race, gender, sexuality, ability, experience, or background.

We’re very happy to launch a Safer Spaces Program to support this effort. Please check it out!

Huge thanks to our Safer Spaces Coordinators, Kate Donohue, Gustavo Rueda, and Amy Yang, who have been working tirelessly on this effort. They can be reached at [email protected]. You can report a an incident or concern here.