Blog - Tangosynthesis

What is tango?

01 Nov 2023 - by Graham

It is often described as “a dance of passion” or “the sexy dance”, but when it comes to everyday social tango this is very misleading. Tango is not inherently any more passionate or sexier than any other dance style. So… what is it? Tango is mindfulness. It is musical meditation. When you dance tango it is as if you are the only two people on the dance floor, and the rest of the world goes away for a few minutes. Tango is improvised, with the leader and follower obeying certain rules and principles; there is no choreography to learn and no sequences to memorise, so every dance is different. If you have been avoiding tango because of its “sexy” or “passionate” reputation then think again. Tango is for everyone, so give it a go. [read more...]

Is Tango its own worst enemy?

19 Jun 2022 - by Graham

For many people, tango is not just a dance. It is defined by the music, the clothes, and the environment in which it is danced as much as by the dance itself. Old musical recordings from the Golden Age of Tango set down by famous tango musicians set the tone and atmosphere, and everyone attending the venues is expected to dress in a way that at least gives a passing nod to the styles of 1950s Buenos Aires. But this approach is not universally appreciated, and for a lot of people new to tango this orthodox traditional atmosphere is what keeps them away. If tango is to survive and grow it needs to learn how to cater to these new people as well as the existing dancers. I talk to a lot of people about tango and encourage them to come along to one of our classes [read more...]

Social Dancing... not Social D[ist]ancing

19 Jan 2022 - by Graham

If there is one thing that we have learned over the last couple of years it is that we are remarkably bad at predicting the future. Towards the end of 2019 I invested a large amount of money into sound and lighting equipment for all the festivals and events that I had planned in the "amazing year of 2020" that was just around the corner. Our event calendar had never been so full, and whether you were looking at our schedule as The Tango Underground or the Lacuna Works the year of 2020 looked as though it was going to be something really special. Well, it was something all right, but not quite what any of us had expected. Regardless of whether it turns out that the bigger damage to life and society came from the virus or from the way we tried to mitigate it (I know [read more...]

Classes are Back!

23 Jul 2021 - by Graham

This is the first week that we have been able to run classes in forever, and it was a great feeling to get back into our venues. Well, one of our old venues and one new one... but more about that later. It was great to see so many familiar faces there - as well as some new people who somehow heard about us during the down-time - and you are all very very welcome. It is strange that in some ways it feels like we have hardly been away, and yet in others it's almost impossible to remember what classes were like in the BC era*. Coming back was something that was very familiar, and yet getting ready on Wednesday afternoon for that first evening class in South Norwood was almost as stressful as getting ready for my first ever class in Bletchingley all those years ago. I [read more...]

Dancing... As It Was Before

07 Jun 2021 - by Graham and Nathalie

As dance classes and events start to be posted in our calendars, and plans are made for some sort of normality to return to the dance world, many people have been asking how we will be running our events in the post-pandemic landscape. Some people would like to see an immediate return to the way we used to do things before March 2020, whilst others would like to see some form of restrictions carry on for an as-yet undefined length of time or until some goal has been reached. Since it is impossible to do both of those things at the same time it falls to individual dance and event organisers to set their own policy or approach and to decide how they will implement it at their events. This is how we have arrived at our decision. In March 2020 when the world first became aware of the [read more...]

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