Dancing

Rodrigo Nicolás Palacios and Indira Hiayes are the second-best tango dancers in the world. Both are from Argentina, but Palacios calls Zurich home. He lives there with his family and also works there as a dance instructor.

Rodrigo Nicolás Palacios and Indira Hiayes are the second-best tango dancers in the world. Both are from Argentina, but Palacios calls Zurich home. He lives there with his family and also works there as a dance instructor.

Keystone

At the World Tango Championship in Buenos Aires, Rodrigo Nicolás Palacios and Indira Hiayes took second place in the traditional ballroom competition. Palacios lives with his family in Zurich, while his dance partner currently lives in Dubai.

Keystone-SDA

Keystone-SDA

Today at 10:48

First place—and with it, the title of World Tango Champion—went to Naima Gerasopoulou, originally from Greece, and her dance partner Lucas Gauto from Córdoba, Argentina, at the packed Teatro Gran Rex in Buenos Aires.

In the final of the Mundial de Tango, first and second place were very close: Palacios and Hiayes received 9.796 points from the judges, while the winning couple received 9.98 points. The world champion and runner-up are thus separated by only 0.062 points, as Palacios’ wife, Sonja Cuonz-Palacio, announced on Thursday.

The Palacios couple has been living in Zurich with their son since 2019. As part of his professional career as a tango dancer, Rodrigo Nicolás works in Switzerland and internationally as an instructor. “Argentina is my homeland, Switzerland is my home,” the newly crowned tango vice world champion is quoted as saying in the press release.

His dance partner, Indira Hiayes, is from Argentina, like Palacios, and currently lives in Dubai. The two perform together internationally as a dance couple.

800 couples from 47 countries

The World Tango Championship is held in two categories: in addition to the ballroom competition, there is the stage tango category, which features choreographed routines. In this second category, Argentines Nair Schinca and Nicolas Schell danced their way to victory. Second place also went to Argentines: Diego Ortega and Aldana Silveyra, who had won the ballroom category the previous year.

The stage tango, with its glamorous costumes and spectacular lifts, provided a spectacular finale to the World Tango Championship. In its 24th edition, the competition drew more than 800 couples from 47 countries.

The tango originated in the late 19th century on the banks of the Río de la Plata. It experienced its “Golden Age” from 1940 to 1955. Since the turn of the millennium, this melancholic dance has been enjoying a new resurgence.