Blog - Tangosynthesis

Three Years of Teaching Dance

19 Sep 2019 - by Graham

It was three years ago today that I opened Jivebeat and taught my first ever dance class. This was not something Iâ€™d ever imagined that I would be doing, particularly since I started dancing so much later in life than most of those who end up making a career out of it (I was 42 when I went to my first class), but I knew from the moment I clipped a radio mic to my head and started going through the fundamentals that it was something I was going to enjoy. The story of how I got into dance teaching almost by accident, and how at some point this switched from being all about modern jive to focusing on tango has been told many times before, so Iâ€™ll let you read about that elsewhere. But I rarely talk about the ups and downs of running a dance class, and [read more...]

Dancing Without Tandas

05 Jul 2019 - by Graham

For those of you not familiar with the traditional tango way of doing things, tandas are groups of tracks played together that share a common rhythmic structure, orchestra, or style. It is usual for people to dance together for the duration of a tanda, then swap partners at the end of the tanda which is signified by a 'cortina' (curtain) of so-called "undanceable" music. This is the way that most traditional milongas are organised and the only way that a lot of tango dancers have ever experienced tango. At milongas that follow the rules of tango to the letter, you are supposed to only dance with someone for one tanda per event or else you may be considered to be a fixed couple, and breaking a tanda in the middle to dance with someone else is out of the question. But there is another way of [read more...]

Tango with Bounce

19 Jun 2019 - by Graham

Tango can be bouncy and fun! Yes, there, I've said it. Tango, the dance style that so many people seem to think of as old fashioned or slow, can be just as full of energy and bounce as salsa or modern jive. And no, I've not gone crazy, I'm talking about milonga rhythm, the often-missed brother to tango that follows most of the same rules as its better known sibling, but with simpler faster steps, movement on every beat, and syncopation which adds to the musicality. Okay, so full disclosure... until very recently I was no fan of milonga. I felt it was all a bit too frantic and lacked the opportunity for connection and expression that you get from a slower tango. But then I was unexpectedly thrust into a 3 1/2 hour milonga workshop with Sebastian and Roxana at the England International Tango Festival in Tonbridge ("Quick... [read more...]

What is Neotango?

04 Jun 2019 - by Graham

With all the #neotango and #tangounderground branding that we are posting these days, a question I keep getting asked is "What is Neotango, and how different is it to traditional tango?" It's a fair question, given that we are trying to encourage people to make the move from traditional events and join us at a neolonga as for all they know it might be as different as salsa or LeRoc to what they know as 'tango'. Have we changed it in any way? Is it a modern version of the dance that had been 'fused' with another style to create something different? Will they even know how to do it? The first and most important thing to get across to people new to Neotango is that it is exactly the same dance as they would learn at even the most traditional of classes. It follows all the same rules, [read more...]

I'll never be as good as them!

27 Jan 2019 - by Graham

I've seen something very strange happen a number of times over the last few weeks, although on reflection, maybe it isn't that strange after all. Part of the job of running dance events and classes is that I spend a good part of the evening wandering around the room and talking to people. I might talk to them whilst we are dancing (yes... I know... heresy, but we are neotango after all...), over a cup of tea, or whilst they are sitting down at the side of the room between dances, but I do try to get around to as many people as possible. And one of the things I hear a lot is "You see him / her / that couple over there? I / we will never be as good as them!" Fair enough, you might think. We can't all be experts. But then I cross [read more...]

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