Argentine Tango School

Tag: maestro

Marcelo Solis and Mimi dancing Argentine Tango

About virtual Argentine Tango classes and private lessons

About virtual Argentine Tango classes and private lessons

Virtual classes are a powerful aid to the improvement of your dance, having always in mind the ultimate goal of dancing embraced.

Marcelo Solis teaching Argentine Tango virtual classes online

In virtual classes, we are able to observe in detail our students dancing, and count on it as a magnificent tool to organize the presentation of our knowledge to them.

Even though what is unique to Tango are its in-person aspects, successful teaching methods will always require:

  • Visual presentation.
  • Clear explanation.
  • Meticulous observation.
  • Distanced objectiveness.

These elements are amplified in the case of virtual classroom technology.

Marcelo Solis Argentine Tango with Sofia Pellicciaro

We strongly advise you not to miss this opportunity.

Virtual classes help you to understand things differently, making you pay attention to aspects often passed on at the in-person classes, and facilitating you to make your communications more clear and efficient. 

Join our virtual classes

Here we want to share with you what we consider important for you in the process of virtual Argentine Tango instruction:

For students:

  • Be open-minded.

    Take advantage of what only virtual classes can offer to you.
     
    For instance, since your teacher cannot dance with you or physically move you, he or she will break down the movements into its most elemental constituents, helping you to fully understand what movements and how to execute them, in a way that will provide you with the opportunity to practice the move in a “timeless” and “spaceless” fashion, a more thoughtful way, and eventually a more aware way.
  • Let experience teach you.

    Since this is going to be a novel way to learn Argentine Tango, you will find on your path problems that will be only resolved with later corrections.
     
    For instance, your floor may not be the best for dancing Tango, or your furniture gets in your way, or your internet connection is too slow.
     
    All these are problems that get fixed much more easily than fixing your Tango. Go ahead and move your furniture, look at hardware stores online for plastic tiles that you can put over your carpet, call your internet provider.
     
    At each class you will get a better set up for your learning environment. And since we are a community, please share your questions regarding solutions to these challenges. I like to ask my students how they are fixing their particular problems, so I may be in the possession of an answer for you already.
  • Pay attention.

    Avoid distractions. If you are not alone at home, let your relatives and spouses know that you’ll be “away” for one hour.
     
    Even though you are physically at home, you are virtually at your Tango class. This “virtuality” is very real. You need to be fully engaged in your class. You won’t be able to be in two places simultaneously.
     
    Even if it is your living room or garage, it is the classroom for the duration of the lesson.
  • Ask questions.

    Do not hesitate. Your instructors need constant feedback to know that the communication is effective.
     
    Let them know you did not understand something, or you could not see it, or whatever passes your mind that is related to what is worked on during the class.
     
    Your teacher has modified his/her teaching style to the online channel, so you need to change your usual learning actitudes. Even technical questions related to the technology used for the class are admissible questions.

For teachers:

  • Plan your class.

    You will need to adapt your teaching style to the TV or computer screen’s two dimensional space.
     
    Keep in mind that your student needs to see you all the time. That is why turns are particularly challenging to teach in the virtual class set up, but not impossible.
     
    My solution to this problem is to segment the turns in its constituents, in order to keep training a fundamental element of Tango, avoiding making students having to look at the screen while they turn away.
  • Have the right tools.

    Supply yourself with a good camera and a good microphone. Since your communications will be exclusively visual and auditory, you need the best tools that you can provide yourself.

    I’ve been using a mini iPad for the camera and a wireless microphone. I like to show the moves having students behind me, so I am doing the with the camera at my back, so the microphone has been essential to make the sound clear even while I am talking looking away fro the camera.

    Although I have to say the iPad and Zoom (the video conference system that we use) are very sensitive in picking up the sound waves.

  • Have good lighting.

    I am using all the lights of my home studio pointed at me, and added an extra lamp with a styrofoam board to reflect light on my face when I get close to the camera.

  • Use screen sharing to play your music.

    This will make your students hear to the music you choose for your class with much better sound quality than if you make it stream from your microphone.

  • Keeping things in order.

    Use the waiting room feature and close the admission at ten minutes into the class to avoid interruptions.

    You can also have an assistant to work as admin. That is my case but it may not be yours.

Here are some examples of what we have been working in our virtual classes:




Learn to dance Argentine Tango at our virtual classes

Related posts:

More articles about Argentine Tango

Argentine Tango dance classes online.

Virtual classes

Online

See schedule:

Marcelo Solis answers what is Argentine Tango. He is an expert.

How to dance Argentine Tango

An introduction to the most important details

Find the answer

Anibal Troilo and his orchestra | Argentine Tango music to learn to dance

Argentine Tango music

Music to learn to dance

Listen and dance!

History of Argentine Tango: El Cachafaz and Carmencita Calderon at Tango (Movie 1933)

History of Argentine Tango

Tango is a culture

Learn more about Tango

Ricardo Viqueira dancing

Ricardo Viqueira dancing with Maria Darritchon

Ricardo Viqueira dancing with Maria Darritchon

Ricardo Viqueira dancing with Maria Darritchon to Edgardo Donato “El adios”, at Pasion Milonguera festival in Italy.

Ricardo Viqueira

Is a “milonguero porteño” and his connection to tango has deep roots. In his teaching Ricardo emphasizes the close embrace style and the roles of the axis and connection. He teaches his students how to recognize opportunities to change direction, develop the ability to dance in small or crowded spaces, and to create their own personal dance.

He is one of the most respected and sought-after teachers in Buenos Aires where he regularly teaches and in the rest of the world is well known exponent of the “milonguero” culture.

Ricardo is renowned for dancing Milonga with Traspié and Canyengue. He was the man behind the revival of the historic and well known Club Sin Rumbo in the neighborhood of Villa Urquiza. He also organized the Cristal Tango in Avenida San Martin in Buenos Aires.

See more Argentine Tango masters

 

Learn to dance Argentine Tango

José Gonzalez Castillo Argentine Tango lyricist portrait at the piano

“Sobre el pucho” by Juan D’Arienzo y su Orquesta Típica with Héctor Mauré in vocals, 1941.

“Sobre el pucho” by Juan D’Arienzo y su Orquesta Típica with Héctor Mauré in vocals, 1941.

José Gonzalez Castillo, author of tangos

José González Castillo

Poet and lyricist (25 January 1885 – 22 October 1937)

Lyrics for tango were born around 1914, based on those ones conceived by Pascual Contursi that year and the following years (“De vuelta al bulín”, “Ivette”, “Flor de fango”, “Mi noche triste (Lita)”), and they were growing strong very slowly.

So much so that in Carlos Gardel’s repertoire tangos were, until the next decade, a rare bird. There was not even a notion of how to sing a tango, a standard that Gardel was gradually establishing after 1922.

That was, precisely, the year José González Castillo truly disembarked in the genre with the lyrics of “Sobre el pucho”, after Sebastián Piana’s music, which was introduced at the talent contest organized by Tango cigarettes.

José Gobello (Crónica general del tango, Editorial Fraterna) stated about this work that, with it «some novelties broke into tango that the tango literary work of Homero Manzi would later turn into true constants. By the way, Pompeya («Un callejón en Pompeya/y un farolito plateando el fango…»); later, the description of the neighborhood and, soon, the enumeration as a descriptive procedure».

But in those lyrics there is something else, metaphor, that springs up in the memory that the malevo devotes to his lost love «…tu inconstancia loca/me arrebató de tu boca/como pucho que se tira/ cuando ya/ni sabor ni aroma da». It is clear that González Castillo was a forerunner, and also that other later lyricists were who deepened those trends.

Read more about José González Castillo at www.todotango.com

Listen and buy:

  • Amazon music

  • iTunes music

  • Spotify

We are happy to have a collaboration with the people from tangotunes.com from whom some of you may have heard, they do high-quality transfers from original tango shellacs.

It is the number 1 source for professional Tango DJs all over the world.

  • Now they started a new project that addresses the dancers and the website is https://en.mytango.online
    You will find two compilations at the beginning, one tango and one vals compilation in amazing quality.
    The price is 50€ each (for 32 songs each compilation) and now the good news!

If you enter the promo code 8343 when you register at this site you will get a 20% discount!

Thanks for supporting this project, you will find other useful information on the site, a great initiative.

Ver este artículo en español

We have lots more music and history

Learn to dance Argentine Tango

Carlos Di Sarli. History of Tango. Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires. Marcelo Solis

“La Trilla” by Carlos Di Sarli y su Orquesta Típica, 1940.

Learn to dance Argentine Tango. Marcelo Solis teaches you at Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires, in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area.Carlos Di Sarli: El Señor del Tango

Pianist, leader and composer

(7 January 1903 – 12 January 1960)

He, as nobody else, knew how to combine the rhythmic cadence of tango with a harmonic structure, apparently simple, but full of nuances and subtleties.

He was not enrolled for any of the two streams of his time. His was neither a traditional orchestra, styled after Roberto Firpo or Francisco Canaro nor a follower of the De Caro renewal.

Di Sarli imposed a seal of his own; a different musical profile, which remained, unaltered throughout his prolonged career.

In the beginning, his sextet reveals us the influence of Osvaldo Fresedo. And certainly, I think there would have never been a Di Sarli had not existed a Fresedo. But, only as necessary forerunner of a style that, with time, would become a pure model with its own and differentiated nature.

He was a talented pianist, maybe one of the most important, who conducted his orchestra from his instrument, with which he mastered the synchrony and the performance of the outfit.

In his orchestral scheme there were not instrumental solos, the bandoneon section sang at times the melody, but it had an essentially rhythmic and danceable role. Only the violin was showcased in an extremely delicate way, on a brief solo or on a counter melody. Continue reading.

Listen and buy:

Download Argentine Tango music fro iTunes Listen on Spotify

We have lots more music and history.

Argentine Tango dance by Blas Catrenau & Enriqueta Kleinman.

Blas Catrenau & Enriqueta Kleinman


Blas Catrenau & Enriqueta Kleinman dancing in Los Angeles, California, 2011.

Blas Catrenau

He started dancing tango in his early youth among other young men at the practice studio of Crisol and Verné. Later he attended several carnival balls organized at local clubs such as San Lorenzo de Almagro.
Since then he never stopped dancing and attending the most important clubs of his time, like Club Unidos de Pompeya, Club Huracán, Club Social y Sportivo Buenos Aires, Club Social Rivadavia, Palacio Rivadavia, Club Almagro, Chacarita, Premier, Editorial Haines, etc. In his youth he often danced at the main tango bars of Buenos Aires, such as Picadilly, Sans Souci, Montecarlo, and many more.
At the early ‘90s, he started organizing “milongas” himself. From 2003 to 2009 he leaded “La Milongüita”, one of the most famous “milongas” in Buenos Aires.
In 2002 he won the First Metropolitan Tango Championship in Buenos Aires.
In 2003 he obtained the Tango Teacher degree released by Buenos Aires City Government. He was then authorized to teach at the Centro Educativo del Tango de Buenos Aires (CETBA), created by Masters and Dancers Gloria and Rodolfo DINZEL.
His passion for dancing as well as the harmony he shares with his partners, and the gracefulness of his movements, capture and celebrate the essence of traditional TANGO.
In 2002, he won first Metropolitan Tango Championship Hall of the City of Buenos Aires.
In 2003 Professor Tango was declared by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires which enabled him to teach in the Education Center of Buenos Aires Tango (CETBA) created by the teachers and dancers Gloria and Rodolfo DINZEL.

Enriqueta Kleinman (1953-2014)

Enriqueta has danced tango for over 17 years. She had taught group and private classes in Buenos Aires and all over the world. She was an expert in Salon Tango – Milonguero Style, Tango Waltz and Milonga. Enriqueta also specialized in teaching technique for women and has led many courses and seminars. She performed at the Third and Fifth Metropolitan Championships in Buenos Aires. She has done a number of performances in Buenos Aires including at Salon Canning, Cachirulo (Maipu 444), and at the Confiteria Ideal at the First Milongueando Festival in Buenos Aires. Enriqueta has taught and performed in many cities of US, Canada. In Europe: Germany,Italy, France, Sweden and Russia. She has also taught and performed at the following Tango Festivals: 2008 May Madness at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; the 2009 Portland Tango Festival; 2009 Tucson Tango Festival; 2009 Chicago Mini Tango Festival; and 2010 May Madness. Also, again Chicago MIni Tango Festival 2011 and 2012. Retiro Festival (Sweden) 2011 and 2012. Enriqueta also speaks English, having lived for several years in New York City. Enriqueta was also an artist by profession.