Karina Romero, New York City: tango teacher and organizer
Photo by Camilla Galletto (9 years old)
The last time I talked to Karina Romero she had just rebuilt her career. That was in 2017, a year after she had split up with her long-time partner and husband, Dardo Galletto. She had given up her share in their successful tango studio in Manhattan, and moved out of their apartment with her two daughters Malena and Camilla, who were ten and seven at the time. She rolled up her sleeves and began teaching by herself, and turned into an organizer of tango events in and outside New York City, including participating in the renowned ‘Stowe Tango Music Festival’ in Vermont. And then she snatched up a desired teaching gig: She taught Liam Neeson, the acclaimed movie star, for a tango scene in ‘Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House’ — a major Hollywood production. In a few weeks she taught the shy actor, who claimed to have no dance experience at all, the basics of Argentine tango. It was another feather in her hat for Karina Romero, who had come on her own as a young woman from Argentina for a new life in New York twenty years ago.
I was concerned about Karina and her girls living in the middle of New York City, the epicenter of the Covid-19 crisis. When I called, she told me she had just moved to New Jersey the month before with her children and was about to marry a new partner: Jorge Carmona. She was at a safe place, she assured me, albeit jobless. Until March she had been teaching weekly at the Argentine Consulate in addition to private lessons, and was running her own monthly milonga. All that stopped when New York City shut down. This meant that she was forced to cancel some big events in the spring: a workshop series with tango master Gabriel Missé and his partner Maru Rifourcat in April, and one in May with Junior Cervila and Guadelupe Garcia. Both workshops have been highly successful, and she has been organizing them on the same schedule for the past ten years. Now Missé and Maru Rifourcat were stuck in San Francisco, unable to teach and unable to travel for their planned assignments in New York or anywhere else.
Karina’s calendar is usually mapped out for three months but now it looks bleak. Since her last milonga on March 6 she hasn’t been able to teach or work, and consequently doesn’t have an income. “It was hard before,” she says evidently distraught. “Now it’s even harder.”
We talk about her perspective as a young tango dancer in New York. She told me that when she came to New York in 2000, her dream was to have a school of her own. She wanted to teach tango, but having succeeded, she then wished she could be more: “I wanted to teach people from all over the world about the art and music and culture of Argentina.”
While she has been a successful ‘ambassador of tango’, just as she originally wanted, given the current situation her dream of a school is not likely to happen anytime soon. Instead she has applied for financial aid promised by the federal government, but has yet to get anywhere. Like so many unemployment applicants, she received the wrong application form and had to follow up with a phone call. She called the unemployment office more than twenty times and waited for about six hours. Despite the frustration she sounds positive and almost cheerful over the phone. She says she’s not too worried about money at this point, thanks to her fiancé who is supporting them. “We’re healthy, and that’s important,” she stated bravely, and finds comfort in helping her daughters. They keep her busy and she is delighted to be part of all the new things they are learning under the present circumstances. She tells me that they are on a tight schedule with their online-schooling and various art and special assignments. “They need my help right now to get through the day.” She also teaches them to send out positive messages, despite everything. Asked about whether she is thinking of teaching online, she says she is too busy. “Life altogether takes much more time these days; what used to take five minutes, now takes an hour!”
What does she think is going to happen to tango in the future? “I believe that tango will be the last thing to come back when the economy opens up again, and I think that people will be afraid. When we have a vaccine, we can come back. And even then the only option might be to teach couples: people who know each other, who are intimate with each other. Private lessons are going to be fine, but we cannot have the milonga back again soon.” She thinks that life in general is going to be hard. Despite her already full schedule, she now takes the time to practice a lot with her future husband Jorge. And she will try again to call the unemployment office.
*