Mira Barakat

I fell in love at first embrace with Argentine Tango at my first milonga in 2006. With a dance background in Modern dance, Contact Improv, Swing and Blues, I took quickly to Tango and felt especially drawn to the connection and embrace. A few years later I moved to Buenos Aires to study intensively, dance, sing and soak up Tango in its birthplace. During more than two years there, I studied with some of today’s best dancers and teachers. After Argentina I moved to New Zealand, where I began teaching and performing Tango, including on behalf of the Argentine Embassy and tour to Samoa representing Argentina.

Since moving back to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2015, I have been teaching private classes from my home studio in North Oakland and group classes around the Bay Area, including at Athletic Playground with Homer Ladas, at Alma del Tango, and at La Bruja; and I have been performing Tango, both dancing and singing. I was a member of the all-women’s company Tango Con*Fusión from 2016-2019, and I performed with them in the theater show Sex, Women & Tango, as well as on tours to Buenos Aires, Berlin, and New York City. With Shira Yaziv I performed Tango-Contact in 2019 with Scott Wells & Dancers.

I work frequently with the Queer Tango community. I teach regularly at Abrazo Queer Tango in Berkeley. In July 2018 and 2019, I taught and performed at the Berlin Queer Tango Festival with Tango Con*Fusión. In April 2019 I performed at La Milonga Re Queer in Buenos Aires and in September 2019 I taught at the New York Queer Tango Festival and performed there with Astrid Weiske from Berlin. In April 2022 and 2023 I taught at Conexion Miami Queer Tango Festival and performed there with Phi Lee Lam from New York, Astrid Weiske, and Gaston Olguin from Buenos Aires.

As a classically trained singer, I was drawn into the music of Tango along with the dance. I have been singing Tango since 2012, both in Buenos Aires and in the United States, and currently perform around the Bay Area, most frequently as a duo with guitarist Scott O'Day.

I return to Buenos Aires every year where I co-lead a Tango immersion retreat, BA. Tango Evolution, with maestro Sebastian Arrua. As one of the BA. Tango Evolution hosts, I bring with me my skills in Tango - dancing, teaching, and singing; languages and translation; organization and planning; as well as my experience integrating myself into the Tango life of Buenos Aires.
More info: mirabarakat.com