After breaking San Francisco box office records for a touring musical with 92 weeks at Theatre On The Square through May, 1996, FOREVER TANGO spent the summer and fall of 1996 and the first part of 1997 on the road. Wild and frenzied ovations greeted performances at the Spoleto Arts Festival in Italy, and in London, Chicago, San Diego, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, and Philadelphia.
This internationally acclaimed dance spectacle arrived at Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre on June 16, 1997 with a June 19 opening night. Due to its box-office success, the Broadway run was extended and moved to the Marquis Theatre. The production closed August 1, 1998 after over a year on Broadway - the longest-running tango show in Broadway history. FOREVER TANGO then toured major cities in North America (including a limited seven-week return run at San Francisco's Theatre On The Square) and spent the summer and fall of 1999 touring Asia. The production ended the millenium with another return to San Francisco's Theatre On The Square, December 7, 1999 through January 2, 2000. FOREVER TANGO then played an eight-show limited engagement at the Sacramento Community Center Theatre, April 4 through April 9, 2000 and has now begun a European tour.

The show features a world-renowned, all-Argentine cast which brings an absolutely unique excitement and passion to the stage. The production traces, through music, dance, and dramatic vignettes, the Tango's colorful, often checkered history, from its beginnings in turn-of-the-century Buenos Aires bordellos to its acceptance into high society. Sensuous and sophisticated, the tango inhabits a world where everything can be said with the flick of a leg, the tug of a hand, the tap of a foot, and the arch of an eyebrow.

Created and directed by Luis Bravo, FOREVER TANGO features a cast of 26 performers including 14 brilliant, exceptionally adept dancers who tango in their own unique styles, offering variety and dramatic insights to the dance. Led by musical director/arranger Lisandro Adrover, the onstage 11-piece orchestra is anchored by the bandoneón, an accordion-like instrument imported to Argentina from Germany in 1886 to become a mainstay of tango music with a melancholy, longing sound unique to the tango. With only 200 bandoneón players in the world, FOREVER TANGO is fortunate to have four bandoneón players on stage. They are joined by the acclaimed Argentinean singer, Carlos Morel.

Pop cultural historians note that the tango helped catapult early screen actor Rudolph Valentino to stardom, and its influence can be seen in a variety of dance forms, including modern dance, jazz, hip-hop, and ballet. The tango has become one of the most enduring and influential popular dance styles of this century and may well be Argentina's best-known export. While it has a repertoire of definite steps, it also allows for a certain amount of improvisation, as well as tremendous latitude in personal interpretation. The tango will never be danced the same way twice.

Creator/director Luis Bravo collaborated with each of the dance couples in FOREVER TANGO. "The tango is a feeling that you dance," says Bravo. "A story you tell in three minutes. It's passionate, it's melancholic. It's tender, it's violent. You dance it with somebody - but it is so internal, you dance it by yourself."

"Further," asserts Bravo, "the tango represents more than just a dance - it is also a music, a culture, a way of life."

THE DANCERS:

Jorge Torres
(Dancer/Dance Captain)
His refined talent and style place him among the outstanding choreographers and dancers of Argentine Tango.

Before graduating as a teacher of dance, Jorge began his career in the Colon Theater in Argentina.

He studied with Norberto Guichanduc, Rudolfo Dinzel, Pepito Avellaneda and Antonio Todaro and danced in the most noted Tango houses and theaters of Argentina with the most renowned Tango orchestras.

He participated in such shows as Imagenes, Tango y Anoranzas, La Pesada del Tango, Tangokinesis, Tanguisimo 91, Tango Tango, Viva Tango, Tango Passion, Buenos Aires Tango Show and Tango Seduccion.

In 1998, Jorge was nominated, with Forever Tango, for the Tony Award for best choreography as well as for the Drama Desk Awards.

He recorded with Karen Kain, "A Evaristo Carriego", for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company), directed by Luis Bravo.

He has coordinated such events as the World Tango Week 2002 in Tokyo and Tango Legend summoning the best figures every year.

He was invited to perform with the Sexteto Mayor at the Santiago Municipal Theater in Chile.

He was also a member of the jury for the First World CHampionship of Argentinean Tango in Buenos Aires in 2003.

He currently organizes conferences at the University of El Salvador in Argentina.

He joined Forever Tango in 1995, and currently holds the position of Dance Captain.

Marcela Duran
She joined the cast of Forever Tango in December 1994. She danced for ten years with Carlos Gavito, performing two classic of the show: S.V.P. and A EVARISTO CARRIEGO.

She performed for the series Evening at Pops with the Boston Pops Orchesta broadcast by PBS. She was part of the original cast of the Broadway premiere of Forever Tango in June 1997, when the show was nominated for Tony and Drama Desk Awards for the best choreography.

Marcela performed in the Spoleto Festival, Italy and toured through USA, Canada, Europe, and Asia with the show. She has also performed at the Colon Theater Opera House in Buenos Aires in 1999.

She was the winner of the Dance Sport Championship (International Dance Organization) on tango Argentino 2000.

Marcela Duran has worked as a dance teacher for the Argentine Government, specializing in modern dance and tango. She has performed at the Teatro Colon, and the Teatro San Martin in Buenos Aires. She has been a member of the successful production of Forever Tango at the Strand Theatre in London in 1995 where she partnered with Roberto "Aleman" Tonet.

During the period of ten years of her association with the show she has performed in 50 cities around North America, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Mexico and Europe.

Natalia Hills and
Francisco Forquera
Natalia was born in Buenos Aires. She started to dance tango when she was a child. Her first proessional appearance was in Tango-tagno at the Lola Mimbres Theatre, in Buenos Aires.

Her career included roles as a dancer as well as choreographer in many national and international productions.

In March 1995, she debuted in Luis Bravos's Forever Tango in San Francisco and was one of the original members of the very successful London Production that summer at Convent Garden. That same year she was specially invited to perform in honor of Princess Diana Spencer at the British Embassy's event in Argentina. Two years later she debuted on Broadway with FOrever Tango at the Walther Kerr and Marquis Theatre.

In summer 1998, she appeared in the long-running PBS series Evening at Pops, with the Boston Pops Orchestra.

During her association with Forever Tango (1995-2005), she performed in the most important cities of America, Asia, and Europe and for the first and only time in Argentina at the prestigious Teatro Colon of Buenos Aires.

Francisco Forquera was born in Mendoza, Argentina. He has studied various techniques of dance art and movement in New York, Spain and Buenos Aires.