Raquel Makow

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Raquel was born in San Francisco, California, in the spring of 1991. She was raised by a father from Buenos Aires and a mother from New York. From a little girl she was exposed to art and culture. She began dancing Jazz, Ballet and Ballroom at the age of 10. In time she began to focus more in Ballroom (International Latin style) which includes Cha Cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble and Jive.

At 15 she began participating in competitions, which led her to travel all throughout the US and later on throughout Europe. That same year Raquel traveled to Buenos Aires to visit her family. On that trip she took her first clases of Tango and attended her first milonga, La Viruta. It was in that moment that she felt her first tango embrace and she entered a different world, a world of pleasure, forgetting everything in that moment and falling in love with Tango. After she returned to her life in San Francisco, to her world of Ballroom, a demanding environment of competitions, sparkles and lights. But she took with her the memory and sensation of that night in the milonga, something that forever remained engraved in her heart.

At 19, Raquel moved to Portugal to dance with an accomplished and well known Ballroom dancer. Together they earned the title of National Portuguese Champions in 2011. Raquel later continued her Ballroom career in the Czech Republic and Canada winning other international titles. However, despite her success, something was missing in her life, and without that her soul was not complete at the end of the day. She never forgot that feeling that dancing Tango gave her. And more and more each day, she yearned to dance Tango and to feel that sweet embrace from the milonga. Her days would dissolve in songs from Carlos Gardel to Juan D’Arienzo, and she felt a need to dance Tango that she no longer could resist. So in 2013 she decided to abandon Ballroom to move to Buenos Aires and dedicate herself to Tango. She went to Buenos Aires without work and without knowing the life she would lead, all in search a feeling that Tango gave her.

In Buenos Aires, she dedicated her days to studying Tango, practicing, going out the milongas and giving 100% of herself to Tango. It was and continues to be a rewarding and at the same time frustrating journey. She discovered that Tango is a much deeper art form that you cannot cover up with lights and tricks. In Tango one truly has to open him/herself up to their partner and connect from a much more intimate place than in other dances. Raquel learned more about herself in her process of studying and dancing Tango. In Buenos Aires, she also worked as a Ballroom judge and coach of the best competitive couples in Argentina and Uruguay.

Then one calm weeknight in May of 2015, Raquel Makow and Maxi Copello met each other for the first time at the famous milonga at Salón Canning. They spent the whole night dancing with other people until the early hours of the morning when the people trickled out one by one, and the dance floor slowly emptied. The only people left were the late night milongueros and the two of them.

Raquel stayed still in her seat for the first time all night. Maxi finally had his opportunity. He caught her eye, invited her to dance with a cabeceo, and together they walked on to the dance floor. Maxi embraced Raquel, and she closed her eyes feeling and listening to each thing that Maxi told her with his body. In that instant, they got to know each much deeper than they could ever have with words. Something magic occurred that made Raquel feel the way she felt her very first time she ever danced in the milonga. She suddenly entered in another world, losing notion of time or space. Following her intuition, Raquel knew in that moment that she had found her soulmate in dance. From then on, Maxi and Raquel dance together professionally and share the same dream to dance, create art, and to convey to others their love of Tango.