The Columbia Tango Marathon returns to West Columbia this Labor Day weekend with something it has never offered in its decade-long history: a full professional tango show backed by a live orchestra. From Friday, September 4, through Sunday, September 6, dancers from across the Southeast will gather at The Barn on Cherokee Lane for three days of milongas, workshops, and a Saturday-night performance that organizers are calling the event's most ambitious edition yet.
The marathon is the creation of Ken and Zenaida Broom, the husband-and-wife team behind Dragon Productions LLC, who have hosted the gathering since 2016. Ken Broom is a fixture in the Carolinas' social dance scene, a DJ with more than fifteen years of experience who has spun everything from salsa and bachata to ballroom and Argentine tango. His résumé reads like a tour of the region's dance floors: guest DJ at Spoleto's Tango on the Beach since 2006, Columbia's Mad Hot Tango Marathon from 2010 to 2012, the Argentine Tango Regional in 2014 and 2015, and the Queen City Tango Marathon in Charlotte since 2018, not to mention nine seasons of Dancing with the Stars. Alongside his wife, he has organized the Spoleto Tango Festival in Charleston, Tango by the Lake, and the WinterHeat Salsa Weekend. In 2022, the couple formalized their work under the Dragon Productions banner, offering event planning, DJ services, audio engineering, and theatrical lighting.
This year's marathon marks a turning point. Organizers are billing it as a special edition, headlined by a professional Argentine tango show featuring world-class dancers and live music. The performance will bring together Roxana Marinoff and Cesar Davalos, the duo known as R&CTango; Jael Montilla and Jesus Matias Aranguren; and Rocio Leguizamón Mancino and German Gabriel Filipeli, accompanied by the Meridian Orchestra led by bandoneón master Javier Sánchez. For the first time, the weekend will also include a slate of workshops designed to sharpen technique, connection, musicality, and floor navigation, taught by the visiting artists themselves.
The lineup reflects the global reach of the tango world. Sánchez, born and raised in Buenos Aires, has played the bandoneón for more than three decades, including a decade with the Latin Grammy-nominated Rodolfo Mederos Orquesta Típica and tours with companies like Tango Pasión and Tanguera. In 2016 he won first prize at the renowned Che Bandoneon International Competition, judged by bandoneón legend Victor Lavallén, and he has since settled in the Charlotte area, where he performs solo recitals across the Carolinas. The Meridian Tango Group he leads is itself a study in musical migration: cellist Yulia Zhukoff, who grew up in Saint Petersburg and discovered tango while studying at Duquesne University; clarinetist Viktor Kosh and pianist Lana Kosh, both Ukrainian virtuosos with doctorates from the Prokofiev Music Academy in Donetsk; and Sánchez on bandoneón. Together they weave a sound that spans classical training and the soul of Buenos Aires.
The weekend's schedule is built around the rhythms of a traditional tango marathon. Friday evening opens with a meet-and-greet, followed by a free Chacarera class with Marinoff and Davalos — a folkloric, high-energy warm-up — before the Welcome Milonga, spun by DJ John Singletary, a Durham native with eighteen years of tango experience who is making his second appearance in Columbia. Saturday brings an afternoon Alternative Milonga with Ken Broom, a break, and then the centerpiece: the professional tango show at 7 p.m., followed by the Grand Milonga, again with Broom on the decks and live music from the Meridian Orchestra. Sunday winds down with brunch and a Farewell Milonga hosted by DJ Jesus Aranguren, a Venezuelan-born DJ who has spun at milongas across the United States and at the Pittsburgh Tango Festival.
The workshops, offered separately from the marathon pass, cover everything from the fundamentals of confident social dancing with Monica Paz to a deep dive into the orchestras of Pugliese, Di Sarli, and contemporary ensembles with Lola and Javier, plus sessions on musicality and the distinctions between milonga lisa and traspie. Vendors will add to the atmosphere, with Natalia Kansburg bringing her Ambiente clothing collection and Sergey Zhiboedov and Natalia Moroz offering their Winged Lion jewelry and drawings.
The setting is as storied as the event itself. The Barn, officially the Hugh Dimmery Memorial Center, has been a home for social dance in West Columbia for decades. Its roots reach back to the square dance boom of the late 1960s, when Hubert Mack Dimmery, a retired Air Force veteran, threw his energy into forming a square dance federation in South Carolina and building a barn to hold the dances. With his wife Irene, he spent two years laying the groundwork for the center that now bears the family name. Hubert died suddenly in 1970, but the hall he envisioned endured, becoming the home dance for clubs like the Tanglefoots Square Dance Club and the Columbia Twirlers, and later a regular venue for the Greater Columbia chapter of USA Dance. Today the large, open floor and welcoming atmosphere make it a natural fit for a tango marathon, where the intimacy of the embrace matters as much as the steps.
Tickets for the full weekend run $200, with daily passes available at $30 for Friday, $145 for Saturday, and $25 for Sunday, and early-bird pricing of $180 available through July 31. For those traveling in, organizers have arranged discounted lodging at a cluster of hotels near the Columbia Metropolitan Airport. The marathon is, at its heart, a social event — a chance for dancers of every level to share the floor, learn from masters, and carry the tradition of Argentine tango forward in a corner of the South that has embraced it with surprising warmth. As the organizers put it, the weekend is about tango, friends, and fun, and this year, for the first time, it comes with a show worth staying for.