CICCIO AIELLO & SOFIA GALANAKI
Ciccio:
From Cosenza-Italy, professional dancer and coreographer Ciccio Aiello met tango after a 20 year career in classical and modern dance. He began his studies in classical dance in 1978 and was part of the Skandeberg company (1987-1991) with which he appeared in many operas in the Rendano Theater of Cosenza. After a long career and training in various dance forms, during which he was invited to present his work on television ( Maurizio Costanzo Show e Un Milione al Secondo di Pippo Baudo) and the cinema (Giorni Felici a Clichy di Claude Chabrol, 1990), in 1991 he met tango thanks to his friend and colleague, Cesira Miceli. Since then a new era begins next to maestros like Pablo Veron, Gustavo Naveira, Giselle Anne, Chicho Frumboli, Ezequiel Farfaro, Eugenia Parrilla, Julio Balmaceda,Corina de La Rosa etc. and supported by Cesira Miceli he founded a new tango school in Calabria.
In 2004 together with Elda Cosenza, his first partner in this adventure, shows for the first time his work in tango in the historic festival Invasioni of the city of Cosenza and founds together with her and others “Calabriatango”. Since then and up to now he spreads all over Calabria his teaching method, performing also in shows for the theater.
2005-2009 he dances with Elda Cosenza in various shows all over Calabria: Noche de Tango with the orchestra Serrensamble and direction F. Perri; Pasional direction L. Colombo; il Musical Bastimenti direction C. Perri; Evolución del Tango, author and interpreter, with i Non Solo Tango Quartet. Since 2009 he began working outside with the dancers Cristiana Casuscelli and Elisabetta Borgese, with whom he presented the show Forme in Movimento together with the Tango Sonos Quartet, and with the argentinean Pamela Damia, with whom he created the show Tang….Osando. He is the interpreter of the tango scenes in the film Cruel Tango by Salvatore Metastasio (2011). Artistic director of the Cosenza Tango Festival that will take place in november for the fith time, of the summer version Tango & Benessere.
He has taught numerous workshops and seminars and has been invited to various tango festivals all over Italy (Meditango Festival Roma, Palermo Fashion Tango Week, Siracusa Pasquettango, Tango Tendencia Rimini). He gives regular classes in the entire Calabria (Cosenza, Lamezia Terme, Catanzaro, Corigliano, Rossano) and collaborates with Mujeres de Tango in Napoli and Isernia.
In 2012 he met Sofia Galanaki in the seminar of Chicho Frumboli in Cagliari and after the first dance together they decided they wanted to work together! So in 2013 they began collaborating giving seminars in both Crete and Italy.
Sofia:
Dancing has always been part of her life-since the age of 4 when she took up classical ballet- till today.
For many years she experimented in various dance forms (classical dance-modern-traditional-latin-flamenco), until early 2001, when she watched a tango show. Since then she has dedicated herself to tango!
Her studies in Classical Philology led her to Germany, where -while writing her thesis- she had the chance to travel to Tango Fetsivals and Marathons and attend workshops by the most reknown maestros in the field.
Her encounter with Chicho Frumboli in 2004 has been crucial. He has defined her dancing career ever since. She took classes with famous maestros as Pablo Veron, Sebastian Arce-Mariana Montes, Julio Balmaceda-Corina de la Rosa, Fabian Salas-Carolina del Rivero, Pablo Villarazza-Dana Frigoli but also with important representatives of estilo milonguero-villa urquiza style, such as Tete Rusconi, Susana Miller,El Pibe Sarandi, Javier Rodriguez- Andrea Misse among others.
Her goal has always been the understanding of the “phenomenon tango” through the investigation of the entire dancing pallette and the history of the dance per se, but also of movement in general, which is why she studied systematically (2004-2008) various methods of kinesiology (Feldenkrais-Gyrotonik-Kinesiologie).
While in Germany, aside from her regular classes in Heidelberg in the dance school Tribu del mar, she collaborated with various professional dancers
giving seminars in cities in Germany, Switzerland and Italy and participating in International Festivals giving lessons and shows (Tangomafia Freiburg, Tango Festival Wiesbaden, Tango Tage Leipzig, Yunta Brava-Bodrum).
The show with Federico Toledo in the historical milonga of Wuppertal, Cafe Ada, on the restaging of Pina Bausch’ play “Bandoneon” and her meeting with the great coreographer has been a key moment in her career, as also her assisting the classes given by her maestros Pablo Veron in Germany (2004-2005) and Chicho Frumboli in Greece (2010).
Her 2 travels to Argentina brought her also closer to the culture of the country and the dance itself.
Since 2008, based in Crete, first in Heraklion then in Rethymnon, she has been organising regular classes and milongas in both cities, and invites on a regular base dancers from Greece and abroad to give seminars and shows.
In Heraklion together with the Oriental Dance Queens she has founded the school Art & Dance Factory where she teaches tango. In Rethymnon she is in charge of the tango group of the Cultural Association, with which she has presented 2 shows in the Fortezza theater (Un tango hasta el cielo-2012, Malena amor y tango-2013) and where she organised the first Tango Festival “A los Amigos-September 2013. She also collaborates with other groups or tango schools in Crete as a guest teacher or dj in the milongas (Danza de Fuego, Tangoneon-Heraklion, S. Mavroforou school-Ag. Nikolaos, Tangueria-Chania).
Last stop in her tango career, the encounter with Ciccio Aiello 2012 in Cagliari, with whom she works now on a permanent base giving seminars both in Italy and in Greece. Together they form a couple with a strong traditional and dynamic base.