The Tangosynthesis Blog
with Graham and Nathalie
England International Tango Festival 2018
31 May 2018 - by Graham
Over the recent bank holiday weekend (25th - 28th May 2018) we had the privilege of being involved with the England International Tango Festival, organised by Tango Boot Camp . After a number of years of it being based in Ardingly, and then one year where they relocated to Brighton as a new venue was being agreed, this year it was held in the magnificent buildings and grounds of Tonbridge School in the heart of Kent. The school itself is around 500 years old, with most of the buildings you can see today dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, and this formed a stunning backdrop to an amazing weekend of tango. Our role in the festival was a technical one, providing sound equipment, lighting, and making sure that everything worked seamlessly for the workshops, practice sessions, and milongas throughout the weekend. We began our set up on Friday [read more...]
It's Only Music
21 May 2018 - by Graham
When preparing for a tango class or an event, the music the DJ chooses to play throughout the evening is probably the most important thing there is to decide. It doesn't matter if you provide a bar, free food, a fabulously ornate building with a perfect dance floor, or even a view across the Serengeti for the dancers to enjoy between tracks, if the music isn't danceable then you might as well not have bothered. But therein lies a big problem, as whilst for some people the music is just there to provide a background for the dancing, others consider tango (the dance) and tango (the music) to be inextricably linked and intertwined. If it isn't the right music, it isn't tango. I grew up watching contemporary ballet and street dancers performing to everything from Rachmaninov to Run DMC, and so the concept of there being a 'right' [read more...]
When You Start to Learn Tango
01 May 2018 - by Graham
There is no getting away from it, learning tango is different to learning other dances. Other dance classes will start by teaching you some basics that can be used to take you through an entire song, which might include a few fundamental steps, some sequences that you can dance from memory, and maybe a few embellishments to add a bit of flair to the sequence. After a couple of lessons you may not be good, you may not be smooth, but the steps you have learned at those classes will look like and feel like dancing. You will usually have the shape and rhythm of the dance by then, and over the next few months you can start to concentrate on polishing up the edges and expanding your repertoire of steps. But tango is a bit different. Tango isn't danced in sequences like some dances, and the basic [read more...]
Tangosynthesis is Here!
22 Apr 2018 - by Graham
As most people probably know by now, when I started teaching tango at Jivebeat it was almost entirely by accident. A random decision to give the regulars at Sevenoaks a tango taster class one evening (you can read about that here ) soon became a regular feature, and pretty soon more people were finding us because of the tango than were finding us for modern jive. This was not a problem for us as we love teaching both, but after a few months we started to realise that people were being confused by the name. Tango at Jivebeat...? Is it really tango? Is it "modern jive in a tango style"? How can modern jive and tango be even slightly compatible? We hadn't thought of this, as since we knew what we were doing we just assumed everyone else would as well. Jive and tango are two separate classes [read more...]
X-Tango - Alternative Milonga
12 Mar 2018 - by Graham
It has been a long while coming, but we have finally announced our first X-Tango Alternative Milonga, and it's going to be on the 23rd March 2018 in Sevenoaks, in place of our usual weekly class. But what do we mean by X-Tango ? What is the difference between that and regular Argentine Tango? And why are we calling the milonga alternative ? The Argentine Tango we dance and teach at Jivebeat is the same Argentine Tango that you will find anywhere else. Yes, if you come to our class you may find that we put the emphasis in different places to where you might expect, and just like everyone else who teaches tango we have developed our own teaching style. But the dance itself is the same dance you will learn in Buenos Aires, Brighton, Bromley, or Bangalore, no matter how traditional or nuevo (modern) your class [read more...]
