Rudolf Kraus - Rudi
TDJ Rudi who, almost 20 years ago, joined a tango course only to please his Milena. And who demonstratively sat through the first class, because it certainly wasn’t for him and he wanted nothing to do with it. And that was the true beginning of his life project. Project Tango.
After only a year or two, from a situation from which few people would have come out alive, or at least still able to walk, he emerged as a dancing tango encyclopedia. A long sick leave allowed the project to progress at lightning speed — composers, orchestras, singers, albums — who, with whom, in which year… Everything. Playlists were constantly being arranged and rearranged, and his family swears that, after listening to so much of it, each of them would be capable of putting together a solid milonga.
Split, and perhaps even Croatia, got its first true tango DJ. The milongas became real traditional milongas, with all the proper elements, codes, and music. God forbid anyone should ask for something that didn’t belong there — he had the deadliest stare and the most stubborn refusal to compromise. And while everyone else used YouTube to study the bravura of famous dance couples, he studied recordings from milongas in Buenos Aires. “Now that’s the real thing, that’s what I’m talking about. We’re not learning for the stage, but for the milonga,” he would say.
A milonguero at heart, what mattered most to him were a good embrace, rhythm, and walking — pure minimalism and perfection. “For God’s sake, anyone can fall! But when you learn how to walk, then come talk to me. Do you know that Argentinians spend 10 years learning only how to walk?!?” — that was one of his favorite theories. And there were many of them, and they will be retold for a long time.
And like every true DJ, he had phenomenal and inexhaustible playlists in every style for the best celebrations and after-parties. Those, too, will be talked about for a long time.
And we are truly very proud that we had him.
We will feel his absence for a very long time, but we continue onward — Powered by Rudi.
Written by: Maja Jakir
