The gancho-story started in August 2012. Tango is social and connecting people from all over the world. Tango has hooked to us and we hooked to each other, so the name is simply ‘gancho’.

Gancho is published every month. It is totally free and distributed via e-mail. It is published in English and Slovak language.

Gancho is a e-magazine about tango trying to touch tango life in all senses, music, dance, fashion, shoes, events, books, jokes, experiences, travel etc. It is enriched by people who write in and for it,  give interviews and shared their tango life with all of us.

We love tango!

Lucia Hazir

I was born in Bratislava, Slovakia. I used to dance ballroom dances during my secondary school, but because of having attended a school in Austria, I had to give up dancing to prepare for my A-level exam. After returning to Bratislava, and settling down a little, I realized I was missing dance a lot! I decided to find some dance classes and surprisingly ended up with Argentine tango. I met Deniz and after our first lesson we started a tango journey which, along the way, brought us to create gancho, the first free e-magazine about tango, and later led us to open our own studio, where we teach tango and try to enlarge and enrich the tango community in Bratislava and Slovakia.

Now we are married, live in Bratislava, run our studio and, together with our marvellous friends from gancho, aim to enrich the world-wide tango community with information and personal stories of tangueros and much more.
I am a freelance translator and interpreter of Slovak, German, English and Italian language. It’s me who is translating the gancho articles from English into Slovak.

Deniz Hazir

Born in 1977 in Turkey, I currently live in Bratislava, Slovakia – a place I love a lot. I started to listen to tango a long time ago (thanks to my father’s vinyls that we had at home when I was a child). In 2009, tango found me again, in Bratislava. I have started my life-journey with Lucia, enjoying the social and cultural aspects of tango based on sharing, communication and connection. This was the reason why, in August 2012, Lucia and I decided to create gancho, an e-magazine and a platform for sharing tango with many people. I enjoy the company of the gancho family. We love tango. <3

Besides my work on gancho, I endeavor to spread the love for tango in Bratislava and Slovakia via TangoVida (together with Lucia). Tango is life, life is tango.
I also enjoy shooting photos and sharing them on my photo-blog.
I studied mechanical engineering. I am working in a private company as a buyer. Married (guess to whom?)

Andrei Baican

Andrei lives in Bucharest and he is proud of the dynamics of tango in Romania. He works in the banking industry, he is passionate about web design, graphic design, video editing, cartoons and comics, and he loves Argentine tango. Here is a list of what keeps him alive:

• com, founder of Stuudio5 Web Design – his own studio for web & graphic design, video editing;
• ro, co-founder of Casa de Tango Bucharest – local tango school and club;
• com, co-founder of Tangomeet – online tango school of Sebastian Arce and Mariana Montes;
• ro, head of Healthcare Division in Banca Transilvania;
• Chica’s Journal, author of Chica’s cartoons series.

Corina Raduta

I was born in Brasov, the heart of Romania and now I live in Bucharest. I encountered tango in my childhood, when my grandfather – who used to take ballroom dance lessons – tried to teach me, besides social and table manners, tango and waltz. And then I forgot…

I met tango, in its Argentine form, again in 2007. And I’ve been living its universe in all the forms it can surprise me with. The experience is ever changing and always rewarding. My purpose is to touch as many lives as I can with the experience of tango, for tango is a life experience itself.

I’ve studied with many international maestros (Carlos y Rosa Perez, Ronen Khayat & Maya Schwartz, Ezequiel Paludi & Geraldine Rojas, Rodrigo Fonti & Solange Capperon etc). I consider myself a permanent student in tango, but I also gave back from what I’ve learned by teaching (1 year at Studio Tango Nada Mas Brasov, 2 years at my project-school Escuela Principal de Tango, Bucharest and a few times abroad, too, in Varna and Sofia).

I also had the opportunity to learn about tango music and DJ-ing from Marcelo Rojas – no.3 tDJ in the world and the designated official tDJ in Buenos Aires. DJ-ing is another form I choose to express my tango in.

I’ve been writing tango related essays and tango events reviews since 2010. I like reaching people from all over the world with the essence of this beautiful experience of tango.

My dream is to travel this world and see it through eyes of the tanguera that I’ve become.

Veronica Toumanova

Veronica lives in Paris and is one of the founders and teachers of Tango Mon Amour, a group of five professionals from Paris and Lyon. In Paris she teaches regular classes with her Tango Mon Amour colleagues and participates in the organisation of different Tango Mon Amour activities. Veronica has Russian origins, but started dancing tango while living in The Netherlands fifteen years ago. She has worked with various partners, performing and teaching all over Europe. Right now Veronica works in professional couple with Giorgio Regnoli, an Italian dancer living and working in Stockholm, with whom she teaches in Europe and Russia. Veronica is a popular dancer and teacher as well as a well-known tango blogger. Her essays on tango are translated in many languages and shared by tango people all over the world.

www.giorgioyveronica.com www.tangomonamour.com

Maria Petrova

My name is Maria Petrova-Galabova and tango completely changed my life. I started dancing by chance, but soon discovered that I feel most alive when I dance. To me, tango is sharing and communication while listening to and exploring the most beautiful music in the world. I love playing tango music for my students and friends and my soul is melted and invigorated to the sound of Osvaldo Pugliese, “Color Tango”, and “Bajofondo”.

Four years ago my husband Petar Galabov and I founded our tango school “Et Machibo” in Sofia. The name of the school comes from the Bulgarian phrase “I love you”, but written backwards. In a way, it expresses our personal story – in the beginning tango made us dance partners and later husband and wife. We try to share our love for the dance with our students and inspire them to be open and giving to the wonderful dance, music and people they meet through tango.
Last, but, not least, a lot of my tango friends and students chose this particular dance to help them cope with a difficult life situation or health problems. I try to tell their stories with the interviews under the title “Why tango?”. I wish to thank all the interviewees for their honesty and I must admit I find their stories inspiring and motivating to be a better person and tango dancer. Hopefully, they will have the same effect on you.

Marina Chroni

I am Marina Chroni coming from Greece and going to wherever life and tango leads. I grew up with classical and other dances and the sounds of accordéon. That was enough to make tango my love at first sight which would stay till now. Started dancing at home but when life brought me to Bratislava it got enriched through my tango family Lucía and Deniz. I like discovering the connection of this dance to our true selves which can only get deeper and deeper, so I would like to encourage others towards this direction. Plus, it can always be so much fun! Currently living in Brussels, working in business but keeping Bratislava in my heart and tango on my feet so to continue this beautiful journey!

Chrisa Assis

Chrisa Assis is the founder of a construction company, Bautanz. In Bautanz we make the most elaborate, enjoyable creations, as we take people who love to dance and we make them into dancers. How we do it? We creat moving experiences, we then wake up to the details of those experiences and attempt to share them with our partners, our environment ourselves.

Ileana Surducan (graphic artist)

I am a freelance artist, working in the field of comics and illustration. My works tell stories – merging reality and fantasy, mundane and magic, the familiar and the unknown. Art is a game in which a touch of humor is indispensable – after all, people need the courage to make fun of themselves.

I started dancing tango in 2016 and discovered the learning process to be beautiful and rewarding, but also full of challenges. I decided to document my journey through drawings, trying to capture the beauty of the dance, but also sharing my misadventures, my accomplishments, and my thoughts on tango.

You can discover more of my work following these links.

http://ileanasurducan.com/

www.behance.net/ileanasurducan

Ivica Anteski

Ivica is tango teacher, international tango DJ and founder of Tango Mentor.com
His mission is to help people enjoy social dancing and avoid falling in the trap of commercial acrobatic tango. There is something beyond movements, beyond music and beyond flashy combinations – it is us, the humans who communicate.

Find out more about him on the following links:
tangomentor.com
facebook.com/tango.mentor
twitter.com/tango_mentor