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Charles Roques

Charles Roques has studied and danced Argentine Tango for 13 years. He began his studies in New York with Danel and Maria Bastone, noted tango masters (teachers of Madonna for her role in “Evita,” among others) eventually helping them teach and becoming their assistant and working with them at their popular weekly tango dances at the 92nd St. Y and the Pierre Dulaine Dance Center (of “Mad Hot Ballroom” fame), now the American Ballroom Dance Studio, where it was not uncommon to see many famous tango artists as well as celebrities appear. He also has taken classes and workshops with some of the most renowned tango artists in Buenos Aires and New York including Ricardo Ponce (El Chino), Miguel Angel Zotto, Juan Carlos Copes, Carlos Gavito, Pablo Veron (“The Tango Lesson”) to name a few. He taught tango at Sandra Cameron Dance Center, Hunter College, Studio XXI, and has appeared at dance festivals and performed onstage in New York at The Benefit for Broadway at Pace University, at Lehman College, at The Palm Court at the World Financial Center and has appeared as an extra in commercials and photo shoots and was in a Japanese documentary about Carlos Gavito. He has written articles about the history of Argentine tango in various tango publications in the United States and England. His training and background is based in the classic and traditional “Tango de Salon,” the elegant and graceful style most often associated with the Golden Age of Argentine Tango and still seen in the famous dance halls Sin Rumbo and Sunderland in Buenos Aires.

He grew up in Virginia and moved around the country as a child returning to Richmond where he received a BFA in painting with minor studies in photography from Virginia Comonwealth University. After graduation he was hired to teach photography at VCU where he stayed for four years before moving to Boston where he received an MFA from Tufts University in painting and art history. He lived in Boston where he continued to paint and exhibit and teach art classes before moving to New York City. Aside from painting and photography his interests and skills are varied and include music (guitar) and writing and the history and origin of language. (He speaks Spanish and some rusty French.) He also has worked as an editor, proofreader and copywriter. He currently lives in Mt. Vernon, MO.

“Thousands of emotions well up inside me through out the day. They are released when I dance.” — Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865)