|
You do not need a partner unless noted otherwise.
Please wear comfortable shoes secure to the ankles and leather or suede soled, not rubber-soled.
Regularly Scheduled Classes
Mondays 7:45-8:45pm and 8:45pm9:45pm at the fabulous Golden Tree Studio.
608 Anacapa Street. Downtown Santa Barbara.map.
Wednesdays 7pm-8pm and 8pm-9pm at Laurel's Hilltop Ballroom. In Somis/Camarillo area at
6470 La Cumbre Rd (1/2 block north of the 118), Somis, CA, 93066. map from yahoo. map from google. (do not use map from mapquest; it is inaccurate.)
Fridays 8pm-9:30pm at Rudenko School of Dance
39 West Calle Laureles. Uptown Santa Barbara, near State and De La Vina Streets.map
Class Description and Details below.
But please check calendar of events for up-to-date information.
Details of Classes/Practicas
Golden Tree Mondays in 2006
7:45 - 8:45pm
8:45 - 9:45pm
Classes on tango, milonga, and Vals Cruzado, open to all levels, beginners welcome!
no partner required. Please wear shoes secure to your feet and comfortable. Rubber soles are NOT preferred, but son't let your rubber-soled shoes keep you from coming!
Please read description below
Description and requirements for Monday Classes at Golden Tree
In the U.S., most teachers of Argentine tango who know the facts don't have the guts to tell the students the facts, because they know it will cost the teachers revenue from their "intermediate" and "advanced" classes to tell the dancers the truth. Frankly, for most dancers, regardless of experience, this Monday Night calss (and classes like this one elsewhere) are by far the most worthwhile use of the time and money spent on tango classes. We like to encourage "Advanced" and "Intermediate" dancers to come as often as they can to this class. There is nothing more jarring to see on a dance floor than some of the mosterosity that "Advanced" and "Intermediate" dancers subject their partners and fellow dancers to, becasue they do not have a grasp of what's covered in the "Beginners" classes! Being a good dancer has very little and often nothing to do with what figures and steps you know.
Beginners, Welcome! This is where the fun begins. Before you learn all the useless waste that you're likely to have to un-learn later, before you are pigeonholed into categories according to your ability to memorize steps, before your feet are schackled with the garden-variety basics and salidas, we'll get you started right from day one, with good fun, and with no stylistic preferences imposed. You will learn the fundamentals in this class in a way that you will understand the essence of what Argentine tango has to offer you to enrich your lives. You will get exposed to the "juice" of what we have learned from the world's best and brightest dancers and teachers, and you will be on your way to dance the tango your way, and on your way to becoming your own best teacher!
What we cover in this class is the bread-and-butter of each and every tango dancer for social dancing. HOW YOU DO WHAT YOU DO is much more important than what it is that you do! We usually don't teach these classes as series.
Requirements: A desire to learn to enjoy tango dancing by staying focused on the fundamentals!
Laurel's Hilltop Ballroom Wednesdays
7pm - 8pm
8pm - 9pm
Two 4-Series of classes at 7pm and 8pm are based on the fundamentals of the tango the way it is danced traditionally, in an embrace that is adaptable and flexible. Beginners should come to the 7pm class first. Each week's material in the 8pm class is built on the material in the 7pm class same week.
Rudenko Fridays in 2006
8 - 9:30pm
We like to spend no time at all in this class on posture and partner connection and weight shifts. We like to spend as little time as possible on pivoting with good balance on your own and in embrace, and on walking and simple turns with good balance in embrace.
This class is suitable for dancers who have a good understanding and some experience dancing the fundamental elements. It builds on the fundamental concepts and elements of the dance (e.g., on the material we cover Monddays at Golden Tree Studios, or Tango-Santa-Barbaras Level-I and II series of classes). This class introduces you to more elements of each dance and includes technique, and covers all musical forms, from the primitive to the modern. Class material varies each week. It may include navigation skills, improvisation skills, and embellishments to help personalize the dance for each dancer and partner couple.
We named this class after Julio De Caro, a musician who, starting in the 1920s, made a big impact on the development of tango the music, and therefore, tango the dance.
click on picutre to learn more about
OTHER SPECIAL SERIES OFFERED FROM TIME TO TIME.
Biagi Series I Class
Introduction to Argentine Tango Music and Dancing in Closer Embraces
with Michael Serry and Julie Stillman
None scheduled at this time.
We teach close embrace dancing as a part of dancing in what we call a "Dynamic Embrace" which means sometimes close, and sometimes open, as the music, the mood, and the connection with each partner inspires in you. The ideal situation is that partners can open and close the embrace as often as they want during each tango, or from one tango to the next.
Closer embraces make it possible to dance better on small or crowded dance floors (such as Wednesday night socials at Cafe' Buenos Aires in Santa Barbara). What we mean by "dance better," however, is not just a reference to limited space on the dance floor. It is also a matter of expressing the mood of the place in which we dance. Social Argentine Tango dancing is very much a private experience between two partners, and nothing embodies the essence of that partnership in the same way as does an intimate embrace. But A well-attended event with limited open space on the dance floor also has a special mood, one that often suggests dancing in closer embraces for reasons beyond the practical concerns with economy of space and movement. Another reason why close-embrace dancing is a good thing to learn is that it is by far the most common way to dance the milonga, the playful, highly rhythmic predecessor of the tango that you often here at tango parties everywhere. And then there is the huge body of tango recordings that lend themselves really well to dancing in a closer embrace; many almost "beg" to be danced in closer embraces!
This series of 5 classes introduces the most fundamental elements of Argentine Tango and the relevant technique in two different ways to embrace a partner closely. The music program introduces orchestras and recordings of tangos, tango valses, (and occasional milongas,) that are well suited for dance interpretation in closer embraces. This music is heard often in milongas everywhere in the country ("milonga" also means an Argentine Tango social dance party) and is well represented, for one example, by most recordings of the Rodofo Biagi orchestras.
click on picture to learn more about Rodolfo Biagi and Tango
Biagi Series (II) Class
Beyond the Introduction
Argentine Tango Music and Dancing in Closer Embraces
with Michael Serry and Julie Stillman
none scheduled at this time
is a series of 5 classes that builds on the fundamentals covered in Biagi Series (I), and gives you more to dance in a close embrace. We will teach you more of the fundamentals, but we will start emphasizing HOW to dance in close embrace. In this series we will also teach you some of what you need to know to start creating WHAT you dance!
Tangomilonga.biz brings you the one and only series of its kind:
Dancing with Freedom Series:
Raising the Bar!
No series scheduled at this time.
The truth about tango dancing that some, but not all, teachers know, and that not every teacher will tell you is this: tango dancing has different levels. (WHAT?) No, it is not "beginner" and "intermediate" and "advanced". That's a classification that does not serve the purpose of making real tango dancers out of tango lovers. It wastes time and money for the students. The truth is that different levels of tango dancing exist commensurate with the level of understanding of the big picture of the tango, as a dance of originality, creativity, and personality, inspired by musicality, partner connection, ambience, and a thousand other factors. A dance in which you can know and "do" your ganchos and double ganchos and boleos and giros with sacadas and enrosque's, even with impeccable technique, and still be a "beginner", forever!
Our Dancing with Freedom Series are for dancers who want to get to the advanced level of understanding, which is very different from advanced level of figure knowledge, memorization, and technical execution. This series is not for everyone. So nobody is disillusioned, you will not "learn" in this series to "lead" and "follow" figures and combinations. You really must want to UNDERSTAND tango dancing beyond a gentle, sophisticated, sensual, whatever-adjective-you-like contact sport consisting of "leads" and "follows" accompanied with some background music from a foreign land largely to be ignored and wasted in favor of executing figures accumulated in memory.
So, What is dancing with freedom? One way to put it is this: dancing with the shackles removed from your feet. Another way to put it is this : dancing without being pigeonholed into beginner, intermediate, and advanced boxes according to your ability to memorize, anticipate, and duplicate other peoples creations, sometimes counting your step numbers from 1 to 8. Dancing with Freedom Series will get you back on track to DANCE TANGO! It will, among other things, build your confidence to dance tango your own way (no! we are not re-inventing tango), with good technique, to any tango music you like, with any dancer who dances with his/her own personality, not that of the teachers, not that of the performing tango stars.
What does it mean to have your feet shackled?
For the man, it means, for example, "learning to lead" the woman to the cross from step 1 thru step 5 of "the Salida", and then "leading an ocho forward and back", and then to "the resolution" on steps 6, 7, and 8, much more often than giving the woman the freedom to be present in the embrace, as a partner, not a "follower". It means also, for example, "learning to lead ochos" and "learning to lead molinete's". It means "learning to lead a double giro from the cross," and then when you are "advanced", with sacadas and enrosque's!
For the woman, it means for example, "learning to follow a molinete'". It means learning to "practice your ochos" at a bar. It means asking a question like this: "Where do I put my free foot after a boleo, and where do i put it after the cross?" and taking to heart an answer like this: "next to the weight-bearing foot after the boleo, and behind the weight-bearing foot at the cross."
Sounds different? We hope so! Here's something you can do that may help clarify what we mean: The next time you are on the dance floor, count how many times you "do the salida", assuming you are lucky enough to have the space to "do it" w/out bumping into other couples. Then count how often you "do the ochos", or "do the molinete", or "do the sandwich", and keep track of what order you "do them" in, and then sit back and watch how many other couples "do them" and in what order they "do them". Keep track of how often you "do a gancho" and how many of those times you "do the gancho" after you "do 2 or 3 back ochos". Again, compare with the other couples. Then you may begin to understand what it means to have your feet shackled, like thousands of other couples who "do them" not knowing how to dance with freedom. Dancing with Freedom is dancing as tangueros, not ocheros, not salideros, not gancheros. It is "doing less", but dancing more YOUR WAY. The only way you'll know what it means exactly, is to have the desire as "a beginner", the frustration as "an intermediate", and the courage as "an advanced" dancer to come and put yourselves in our hands and let us show you.
When you first begin to understand what it means to dance with freedom, you will start thinking twice before paying again to learn to memorize and duplicate figures, and string them together after you become "advanced", no matter who teaches them, and how well they teach. When you get used to the exhilirating experience of dancing with freedom, you WILL never again feel good about attending classes where the freedom is (always without malice) taken away from your dancing. You will know the difference between the illusion of learning to dance tango and the beauty of dancing tango your way.
In Series 1: Raising the Bar, we have an introduction, the concepts, the technique, and the implementations with very specific goals in mind, which you will hear when you come to class. Dancing with Freedom Series 1 should culminate, among other things, in the profound understanding that, as Carlos Gavito best put it "The Salida does not exist," and in a distinct initial change in the way you dance so that you start making the dance your own.
In Series 1: Raising the Bar, Dancing with Freedom is just the start. It will start you on the path FIRST to learning, or to recognizing that you already have, but are not used to using, the tools to enjoy improvising and embellishing as you navigate around the dance floor, two bodies as one, and developing the skills and the confidence to use those tools to ENJOY DANCING TANGO YOUR WAY!
Requirements:
Women and men must have a solid command of weight shifts, and good balance and posture. Men must have a solid command of the difference between parallel (even) and cross (uneven) walks. Thats all that is required. Please come early. These classes are dense with material.
D'Arienzo Group Class
None scheduled at this time.
Dancing in closer embraces is very different from dancing in an open embrace. The best way to dance on a crowded floor, with a more intimate partner connection, and to music that is often associated with "club-style tango," is dancing in closer embraces. A very large body of tango recordings lend themselves much better to dancing in closer embraces than they do to open embraces, and you can hear these recordings played at tango events all over the world. Many almost "beg" to be danced in closer embraces, and you can see tango dancers indulge in the pleasures of dancing to them with an embrace that is heart-to-heart and cheek-to-cheek. Dancing in closer embraces is also intimately associated with the milonga, the playful, uniquely rhythmic music that preceded the tango. Milonga, the dance, has its own flavor, quite apart from the tango.
We are offering the D'Arienzo Group classes so dancers have the opportunity to hear and become more familiar with the recordings associated with "club-style tango," to dance better in closer embraces, and to dance to the rhythm of the milonga the way it is supposed to be danced: in close embrace and quite distinctly from the tango. "Dance better" in this context is not just a practical matter. It is also a matter of expressing the mood of the place you are dancing in. True, social tango dancing is very much a private experience between two partners, and nothing embodies the essence of that partnership in the same way as does an intimate embrace. But A well-attended milonga with little open space on the dance floor also has a special mood, one that often suggests dancing in closer embraces for reasons beyond the practical concerns with economy of space and movement. Each class period is divided roughly half on close-embrace tango dancing, and half on the milonga.
click on picture to learn more about D'Arienzo and Tango
By Appointment Only
Semi-Private Intensive Series for Beginners
(small groups)
With Michael Serry and Julie Stillman
This class series is for dancers who want to advance fast. We are now accepting members.
Please call 805-884-1049 to arrange your seires.
Small-Group Semi-Private Classes are excellent alternatives for fast-learners, or for a group of friends who want to learn tango together, but who do not want to pay for private classes. Our small-Group, Intensive, Semi-Private Beginners series focus on the most critical concepts in the fundamentals of Argentine Tango (mainly the dance, but also the music), with ample one-on-one interaction w/ the teachers. This class series is open to the beginners, and it is where beginners start. These classes are also recommended for experienced dancers who have the patience (and the courage!) to want to re-discover the fundamentals and re-examine their understandings of the fundamentals, and who want to find out how well they have absorbed those fundamentals and incorporated them into their dance. Please call to find out more: 884-1049. Please see also our philosophy on the tango.
Canaro Milonga Workshops
With Michael Serry and Julie Stillman
no workshops scheduled at this time
The Milonga is a dance that preceded the tango. It is a playful dance with a distinct rhythmic signature in the music. The tempo is typically faster than in most tangos. It is most often, and best danced in closer embraces. The Milonga is a very different dance from the tango, and has some lead and follow fundamentals different from the tango. It also has many elements that are unique to the milonga and absent in tango dancing. Francisco Canaro is the musician whose recordings of milongas are most often played and danced to worldwide. Click here to learn more about the teachers.
click on picture to learn more about
Suggestions for First-time dancers
1) Slippers, tongues, and other loosely-held shoes, and boots are not permitted.
2) Shoes that have soft cover for the feet are not permitted; this includes most jazz and modern dance shoes. Tango is a partner dance where you can get stepped on and kicked at the toes, especially at first.
3) Rubber-soled shoes make tango dancing at best very difficult, often impossible. Suede-soled shoes are the best; leather-sloed shoes are the 2nd choice.
4) Please arrive early to meet with the teachers, and make the best of the time and the money you'll spend on the classes.
5) Our group classes do not require you to come with a partner. We rotate partners when necessary to ensure you all dance and advance.
|
