Blog - Tangosynthesis

What do you dance at a milonga?

21 Oct 2019 - by Graham

I keep being surprised when people ask me this question, but it is something that crops up from time to time and so I should probably address it a bit more often. People know about 'milonga' as the faster form of tango which uses quick regular steps and lots of repetition, and they know that people travel a long way to go to 'milongas'. A connection between these two things is made, and the next thing I know is that I am being asked "Can you teach us the dance that people dance at milongas?" or "I see that there are a lot of milongas around, but where can I go to dance tango?" So let me clear this up once and for all: you go to milongas to dance tango. Okay? Is that settled? Tango is danced at milongas. But I can already start to hear the [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...]

I'm not good enough to go to a milonga...

11 Dec 2018 - by Graham

This is something I hear from new tango dancers all the time. I tell them about our monthly milongas and the smaller practilongas to see if they are going to come along and practise what they have been learning for the last few weeks, and the most common thing I hear back is "Oh, we're not good enough for a milonga yet. We'll need a lot more lessons before we're ready to come to one of those." But aren't milongas - tango social dances and freestyle evenings - the whole point of learning? I do understand that maybe week one or two might not be the time to attend your first milonga, but don't you come to classes to learn how to dance with other people in a social environment? And if you do, what invisible line do you think you need to cross before you can make [read more...]

Our First X-Tango Milonga

26 Mar 2018 - by Graham

On Friday the 23rd March 2018, we held our first X-Tango Alternative Milonga at our regular venue in Sevenoaks. This venture into the world of tango freestyle evenings - milongas - was something new for us and we had no idea how it would be received. How many people like dancing tango to modern or nuevo music? Would anyone come to a tango event run by an organisation with such a non-tango name as "Jivebeat"? Would anyone else like the music I play? But we have been promising ourselves that we would try something like this ever since we introduced tango to Jivebeat classes back in the summer of 2017, so it was about time we got on and did it. We need not have worried. We had slightly over 40 people that turned up, and it was great to see that people had travelled from all over [read more...]

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