TangoMujer was founded in 1996 by Fabienne Bongard, Rebecca Shulman, Valeria Solomonoff, and Brigitta Winkler. Artistic direction is collaborative and shared by all members of the company.

Fabienne Bongard is known for her special affinity for the milonga and Argentine waltz, cheerful cousins to the darker tango. Born near Montreux, Switzerland, she came to New York in 1979 to train at the Martha Graham School and study tap, jazz and ballet. She then turned toward ballroom dancing, and later, she became fascinated with the Argentine tango, and began to study with local experts. In her travels to Buenos Aires she has studied with Pepito, Petaca, and Manolo, all kings of milonga dancing. She has also trained with Gustavo Naveira and Fabian Salas. She has taught for the New School for Social Research for ten years.

Fabienne has led workshops in and out of New York, and has done theatrical ballroom exhibitions and improvised and choreographed tango performances, including New York City's First Nite '97. She is currently living in Los Angeles.

Sharna Fabiano has a background of classical and modern dance and began her life as a tanguera in 1997. From 1999-2002, Sharna worked in Boston with Bridge to the Tango, a production company founded by Daniel Trenner. She traveled six times to Buenos Aires to study and absorb the rich culture of tango, and coordinated a team of local instructors and monthly guest artists in Boston. Sharna partnered Jose Garofalo and Mariano "Chicho" Frumboli on Bridge to the Tango instructional videos, and visited Cuba twice to teach and perform as part of a US-licensed cultural exchange.

In 2002, Sharna relocated to Washington, DC where she now lives and works as an active member of the tango community. In 2005, her first solo choreography, Breakdown Tango, was commissioned by the Auros Group for New Music. In 2006, she established Sharna Fabiano Tango Company in Washington, DC and in recent years has danced at the Argentine Embassy, Lisner Auditorium, and Kennedy Center. She has produced two evening-length shows at Dance Place, and contributed work to the Dance DC Festival, DC Improv Festival, and Hispanic Festival. In 2008, Sharna was featured as an emerging artist in Dance magazine, the Washingtonian, and Dance/USA Journal. Her fusion work "Uno," a collaboration with composer Glover Gill, was selected for the Festival Cambalache in Buenos Aires.

Among her most influential teachers she counts Rebecca Shulman, Daniel Trenner, Brigitta Winkler, Pablo Veron, Chicho Frumboli, Gustavo Naveira, Graciela Gonzalez, and Pedro 'Tete' Rusconi. Her own teaching is characterized by a clear, articulate knowledge of body movement, and by a great depth of understanding of tango improvisation. Sharna has traveled as a guest artist to dozens of cities in North America and Europe, and her written articles on the depth and mystique of social tango have been widely read and translated into several languages. In DC she is Founder and Executive Director of Tango Mercurio, a nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging communities through social tango dance. Her website is www.tangomercurio.org

Angelika Fischer studied tap and modern dance before she discovered tango in 1982. Born in Southern Germany, she now lives in Berlin, and has been very active in establishing and developing Berlin's enormous tango scene. Having studied with the masters of Buenos Aires, particularly Eduardo Arquimbau, Angelika has performed internationally in Europe and North America, on stage, on television, and for numerous other events. She teaches in Berlin, where she and her partner Brigitta Winkler have had their studio Tanzart for tango and modern dance since 1987. www.tangoart.de

Rebecca Shulman has been affiliated with Dance Manhattan in NYC since 1994, helping develop the school's extensive Argentine tango program and curricula. Born in New York City, Rebecca studied classical ballet all her life and Contact Improvisation and yoga since 1993.

Her tango career began in 1991 with Daniel Trenner, with whom she began to perform and to visit Buenos Aires. Her Tango teachers include Mingo and Esther Pugliese, Gustavo Naveira and Olga Besio, Tete and Maria, Juan Bruno, and Antonio Todaro. She has performed with the finest dancers of her generation, and given workshops across the U.S. Students everywhere seek Rebecca's clear instruction on improvisation, technique, adornments, and musicality. For four years Rebecca taught and translated for Stanford University's Tango Week. In 1998 she taught at the Montreal Festival and for several weeks in Istanbul, Turkey. She has produced half a dozen popular instructional videos, available through Bridge to the Tango.

In January 2002, Rebecca cohosted Bridge to the Tango's visit to Havana, Cuba, teaching tango to Cubans as part of a cultural exchange. In March she danced at the grand opening of the spring season of the Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Germany. That summer Rebecca was honored for 11 years of contribution to tango in the U.S. In February 2003 she performed in "Swango: the Fusion" and in "Avantango" at Town Hall. In 2004 she gave workshops in Seattle, Portland, Baltimore and Northampton. In 2006 Jaimes Friedgen and Rebecca started the tango scene in Bombay. 2007 saw her teaching at festivals in Denver, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, and St. Louis.

More than a dozen of New York's current tango teachers are Rebecca's former students. Her dance partners after Daniel have included Omar Vega, Metin Yazir, Constantin Rueger, and Evan Griffiths. Every Monday night she hosts and DJ's the largest milonga in New York, Luna, which has been running at Dance Manhattan for over twelve years. Read Rebecca's article on TangoMujer

Valeria Solomonoff grew up in Argentina where she studied tango, modern dance, ballet and choreography. She twice received first prizes for her solos at Argentine dance festivals before moving to New York City in 1995. Upon arrival she co-founded "TangoMujer", the first all- female tango company. The company has toured across the United States and Europe and was the recipient of a New England Foundation for the Arts grant. In 2008, Valeria created the all female group "Tango X Ellas", which has twin companies based in New York and Buenos Aires, respectively. The Buenos Aires company performed with Tango Glamour in Uruguay and at the Cambalache Festival in Argentina.

Valeria's other credits include being the choreographer and dancer in the film "The Caller" which won a Tribeca Film Festival award in 2008. She also has choreographed the Off Broadway plays "Dona Flor y Sus Dos Maridos" (2008), "Locos de Contento" (2002) and "Let's Speak Tango" (2007). Valeria is the creator and director of "Tango Intimo", a dance-theater show that appeared at Repertorio Espanol in 2007 and 2008 and has been nominated for Best Production and Best Director by the ACE Awards.

As a dancer Valeria has partnered stars of Tango Argentino, Tango Pasion and Forever Tango. She has appeared on television and in television commercials. Venues in which she has performed include Lincoln Center, Symphony Space and the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, the Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival in Lee, Mass., the Herbst Theater of San Francisco, the Tanzhaus in Dusseldorf and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. She also was selected to perform for the President of Argentina and the U.S. State Department.

In addition to extensive Tango studies, Valeria has attended the dance academies of Alvin Ailey and Nikolais and Louis. Valeria has taught at Tango festivals, New York University, Hunter College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and at the Mark Morris Dance Center. Valeria currently teaches at Dance Manhattan and is the hostess of the monthly "Blue Moon Tango Night." Her website is www.valetango.com

Brigitta Winkler is a curious woman. She likes tradition and innovation and has been dancing tango for over 20 years. She divides her time between New York and Berlin. In 1980, her life changed when she discovered Argentine tango. She then spent some years in Paris studying with Virulazo, a star of Tango Argentino. At that time she met Coco Orlando Diaz, and they began performing together at Les Trottoirs de Buenos Aires in Paris. In 1986, they took their own show to Montreal and Toronto.

Brigitta traveled often to Buenos Aires to study with such noted dancers as Juan Carlos Copes, Antonio Todaro, Pepito, Gustavo Naveira, and Eduardo Arquimbau. In 1987 she opened Tanzart with Angelika Fischer, where she hosted Arquimbau's visits to Berlin. In 1994 Brigitta choreographed and danced in the Tango Marathon in the Theaterhaus Stuttgart and Tango Vision in the Podewil Berlin.

She teaches regularly at Festivals in USA, Germany, Italy and Russia, and in 2005 she openend her own Tangocenter called Phynix Tanzt in Berlin. Brigitta incorporates into her interpretation of tango Body-Mind Centering, which she studied in a four-year program with Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen. Besides working with TangoMujer she loves to work with Tomas Howlin from Buenos Aires. Together they have created a Teacher Training Network for Tango. Her website is www.brigittatango.de

© TangoMujer 2001