Japanese couple wins 7th World Tango Championships!

For the first time, a Japanese married couple has danced to victory and won the salon dancing category of the Seventh World Tango Championships in finals held Saturday in Buenos Aires, knocking the reigning Argentines out of the top spot. This is an amazing achievement, a milestone actually, for Japanese dancers.

Hiroshi Yamao and his wife, Kyoko placed first in the traditional Tango Salon category of the 7th edition of the international competition at Luna Park stadium this weekend, taking home a cash prize of about $4,000 Cdn. They earned the highest point score during Friday's semifinal and was praised by the jury for the "dexterity and feeling" of their final performance. Yamao said, "We came here to dance and enjoy ourselves, without thinking anything big," "We would like to express our thanks for the huge support we've received from everyone here."


When they won the finals on Saturday, they wrote in their blog, "We finally became the world's No. 1! Thank you very much for supporting us."

Yamao must have been yelling "Banzai!!" when they won, haha. I know just by watching that Tango is a very difficult dance. You have to have spirit as much as technique. It's a language in movement that tells stories if done properly. Without that, the dance would just look like a series of steps; nothing interesting. And, for a Japanese to snatch the title in tango from Argentineans is probably not easier than an Argentinean to win the Sumo championship. So this shows really how much of an achievement they made. As a fellow dancer (in a sense^^) i'm really really proud of them. They really inspire me. Keep working hard!


Source - JapanToday; CBCNEWS.ca