About Mitra

Mitra Martin is a deeply resourced tango teaching artist and community development partner.

She has immersed in many of the interconnected disciplines of tango: leading, following, DJing, teaching, organizing, mentorship, and dance theater. Many of her students have gone on to be festival dancers, DJs, and teaching organizers.

Mitra currently directs research and editorial at an emerging innovation ecosystem, Awaken Tango. She consults leaders, teachers, and community developers who are seeking to develop wise ecologies for learning, she teaches curious dancers, and she dances for sheer joy. 

The tango school I co-founded

Humans of Tango Podcast Interview

Papers & Articles

Judgment and Acceptance while dancing Argentine Tango: A data-driven approach to explore the inner experience of tango dancers by Mitra Martin and Avik Basu, Feb 2025

The Tango World COVID Study, A summary of insights and implications, Aug, 2020

Why Argentine Tango? Oct, 2020

The Problem with Tango Group Classes, Jan 2020

A Fragile Hatchery: State Of U.S. Campus Tango Clubs, Aug 2017

Dear women of Tango. Let your joyful, unbridled, innocent, sensual self find the dances it wants, Dec 2015

The gentle, excellent, chivalrous, skillful, sexy men who Tango, Nov 2015

Tango eras

1998-2003 - Fateful trip to Buenos Aires, learning and dancing obsessively, NYC and the numie game!

2003-2008 - Los Angeles arrival, learning to lead and DJ, contact improv, dance theater and performance art, early experiments teaching. THE GLOBAL TANGO MAR VISTA CENTER FOR TANGO ARTS AND EXTREMES

2008-2017 - The Oxygen era, the Tango Challenge, researching notation systems, Tango slumber parties…

2017-2020 - Experiments in peer-to-peer learning, glimmers of Awaken Tango, COVID study

2020-2025 - Back on East Coast! Tango house adventure, teaching sabbatical, dancing just for joy!!

2025 - Reawakening with new insights, new perspectives, new questions, new strategies, a pure intent to be in service.

Some fun memories…

San Francisco Tango Exchange - presenter | Tango de los Muertos (Boston) - facilitator | The Tango Teacher Co-Op (Minneapolis) | San Francisco Tango Marathon - moderator | The Heartland Tango Festival - teacher, performer | The Baltimore Tango Solstice - teacher | Stone Soup Tangotopia - facilitator, teacher | CONNECT (Ashland) - lecturer, teaching facilitator | LA Tango Marathon - DJ, panelist | Portland Tango Festival - instructor, performer | The Houston Tango Festival - facilitator, performer | The Denver Tango Festival - instructor | The Albuquerque Tango Festival - instructor | The San Diego Tango Festival (2012-2017) - beginner bootcamp, performer | Kansas City Spring Fling - instructor | Caltech Tango Club - instructor, advisor | Google - tango instructor | The Princeton Club of Southern California - instructor | The Ford Theater - arts engagement facilitator