Val Cenis Tango Festival

The Val Cenis Tango Festival is a tribute to Val Cenis ' distant Latin American "cousins" through the music and dance of these countries.

The Tango Festival celebrates the intimate, family and historical ties between Val Cenis and Latin America. Every summer, we welcome renowned maestros, orchestras and DJs to give this event an international dimension.

Dance classes, tango aperitifs, shows and milongas, with the highlight of the week eagerly awaited by regulars: the "Milonga de las Nubes" - Milonga of the Clouds - on the Mont-Cenis pass at 2,100 m altitude.

The Val Cenis Tango Festival pays homage to the deep-rooted ties between Val Cenis and Latin America. In the 19th century, the opening of the Modane rail tunnel diverted passenger traffic away from the Mont Cenis pass, until then a strategic route between France and Italy. This economic change prompted many families from Lanslebourg (one of the Val Cenis villages) to emigrate to Argentina and Uruguay, in search of new opportunities.

A century and a half later, the descendants of these emigrants have renewed ties with their homeland at major reunions organized on both sides of the Atlantic. The Val Cenis Tango Festival was born of this moving story of migration and transmission. A warm and festive way to celebrate these shared roots... and to make the mountains vibrate to the rhythm of the bandoneon.

To find out more, discover the comic book series "Les Colons du Rio de la Plata", which retraces this human epic.