with Graham and Nathalie
Those of you who are regulars at South Norwood will already have heard the sad and unexpected news about Fred, who passed away suddenly last week after a stroke. All of us at Tangosynthesis extend our deepest sympathy to his family and friends at this difficult time. Fred was a cornerstone of the South Norwood tango group and had been coming to us for several years. His unique and flamboyant dancing style always made everyone smile, and although he never quite seemed to dance the exercises in the way that I had planned he inspired everyone to really enjoy the dance and to express themselves on the dance floor more than they thought possible. Fred was unique and brought a wonderful character to the group that will never be replaced. His stories made us laugh, his dancing inspired us, and his personality brought us together. Thanks for all the [read more...]
This week’s blog post is about a feature on our website that you may not have noticed. Did you know you can subscribe to our calendar and have events or classes appear directly in your phone or computer diary as soon as we publish them? No? Well… Although everything is already published on the Diary of Everything page on our website, people regularly ask us to add all our X/Tango events, workshops, classes, and anything else we do as “Events” on Facebook so it is easy to add these to their calendar. That is certainly one way to broadcast it, but there are problems: It is a lot of work to add everything into Facebook as well as on our own diary as there is no way to cut/paste between the two. Even if we did do that, we would be at the mercy of the [read more...]
It is the start of September and the summer season is drawing to a close, so it must be time to get back to tango! Both of our regular class venues were closed for some or all of the summer period, with Sevenoaks shutting on the 1st August and South Norwood shutting on the 28th August (that was initially planned to only be for one week, but it extended into a second week because life got complicated), but next week they both re-open. So it is time to find your dancing shoes and see what you remember. We all like the format of the classes so most things will carry on exactly as they were before, but there will be a few changes born of necessity: Five-for-Four Entry price is £12pp, but to keep the costs down we offer a "five classes for the price of four" [read more...]
Group classes are an excellent way to progress your tango and learn new techniques, but when you want to focus on something specific or just need a bit more time with the teacher to understand something or iron out bad habits there is nothing better than a private one-to-one session. Until now we have only been able to offer these at a local village hall on Monday afternoons, but now with the opening of Graham's studio we are a lot more flexible. The studio is in Biggin Hill, and one-to-one sessions are available throughout the week. The cost is £35 per hour, and is the same whether you come on your own or with a partner (assuming you dance together). Bookings now available from the 28th May onwards. Please visit the Private Classes page for more information, and the Hawthorn Studios page for where to find us. [read more...]
On the 19th April we had our first X/Tango event in four years, and it was everything we hoped it would be! A good number of people came from all over the area - South Norwood, Croydon, Sevenoaks, Borough Green, East Grinstead, Canterbury, and much more - and we had a good balance of leaders and followers. So absolutely we will be doing it again. But what is X/Tango? What is the difference between an X/Tango event and a milonga you may have attended that was run by a more 'traditional' tango school than us? From the first moment I discovered tango and began to learn this amazing and intricate dance style I knew that I did not want it to be constrained by one type of music. Tango was bigger than that, and it confused me that so many places seemed to be saying that if you [read more...]
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