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Argentine Tango School

Argentine Tango dancing with Mimi for our beginner class in San Jose

Argentine Tango dancing with Mimi for our beginner class in San Jose

Argentine Tango dancing with Mimi for our beginner class in San Jose

The scientific development of linguistics, rooted in the work of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) “Course in General Linguistics”, has influenced other human studies.

For instance, the structural anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009) and his “structuralists” continuators, who see all human productivity structured as a language.
 
Going further, intellectuals called post-structuralists, understood that this language-shape can be found in realms beyond intentional human activity.
 
Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) saw our nightmares as a language, and generalized the concept of language structure to our sub-conscience.
 
For the artist-philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), language must be considered rooted in the written words, contesting the assumption that language is produced first by spoken words and then “translated” to writing. He said that “there is nothing outside the text”, and sees even natural phenomena expressing itself in this way.
 

A dancer proposes a debate by dancing.

Independently, American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), proposed a semiotic metaphysics. For him, everything -including the human being- is a sign. We are part of a Cosmos in continuous communication.

A dancer proposes a debate by dancing.

There is no more subtle way to communicate and redefine the entire Universe.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and want to learn to dance Tango, you can:

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Learn to dance Argentine Tango

Argentine Tango private lesson with Marcelo Solis

Private lessons

Are the way to learn Argentine Tango

  • At our private lessons we work intensely on foundations, rhythm, musicality and connection with partner. We design a program according to your own goals and requirements.

  • While group classes are necessary to work on the social aspects of this beautiful art form, during private lessons we focus on the specific details of your dance which are important in achieving your goal of being a great dancer, a true milonguera or milonguero.

Book your private lesson

Argentine Tango dancing with Miranda: final review of intermediate class

Argentine Tango dancing with Miranda: final review of intermediate class

Argentine Tango dancing with Miranda: final review of intermediate class

We should, at any point, pause in life, by stepping out of the frantic rhythm we have become accustomed for various reasons (let’s not waste more time trying to list them all.)

Perhaps, in our eager race to reach (where?), we forgot simple things: to breathe, to take a conscious look at our direction, to gauge the way ahead, to prepare our tactics, to develop a strategy, to remember to close our mouth to avoid being misunderstood, or worse, misunderstand ourselves.
 
The time is now. Now is when you woke up. You may choose to get cozy and snooze for a few more years, and on and on for the rest of your life. Time goes either way. 
 
We age; what matters is how: you can improve yourself, becoming a better version of your persona everyday. To pursue this goal (which is never complete) you need to consider your body.
 
At the entrance of the temple of Apollo, in the Oracle of Delphi, it is written “Know thyself”.
 
What you are is placed in your body. Knowing your body is essential to achieve indispensable wisdom.
 
The art of Tango teaches you ways to explore your whole self, assisting you with comprehending your emotions, your quiet thoughts, your unconscious habits interacting with others that often mislead you and make you fall into your own involuntary traps.

Tango helps you acquire a knowledge without which you could one day find yourself to be a stranger.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and want to learn to dance Tango, you can:

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Learn to dance Argentine Tango

Argentine Tango private lesson with Marcelo Solis

Private lessons

Are the way to learn Argentine Tango

  • At our private lessons we work intensely on foundations, rhythm, musicality and connection with partner. We design a program according to your own goals and requirements.

  • While group classes are necessary to work on the social aspects of this beautiful art form, during private lessons we focus on the specific details of your dance which are important in achieving your goal of being a great dancer, a true milonguera or milonguero.

Book your private lesson

Argentine Tango dancing with Miranda: Final review for intermediate class in San Francisco

Argentine Tango dancing with Miranda: Final review for intermediate class in San Francisco

Argentine Tango dancing with Miranda: Final review for intermediate class in San Francisco

A language is a tool of communication.

Its appearance led to improving the means of transmitting information between humans, making it possible to create the civilization we live in.
 

Languages are a framework that makes us free and subjected at the same time.

Languages like English, Spanish, French, Russian, Mandarin or Arabic are also nests in which our culture nurtures us, giving us a framework that makes us free and subjected at the same time.
 
Free, because with languages we are able to move through the hallways of our cultures, developing our lives in accordance with its norms and demands, obtaining the benefits of its riches.
 
Subjected, because these hallways are narrow, and we must comply with expectations that our societies impose on us, through the demands of our families, the requirements of our educators, and the dreams and hopes that seem to belong to us, but often are the result of how, in the way we were raised, we were conditioned.
 
Let’s imagine a time before the appearance of language as we know it today, when we did not receive it from innumerable previous generations, when we were creating it, being the artists of our languages.
 
If you’ve ever written poetry, perhaps you got a glimpse of that experience.
 

If you’ve ever written poetry, perhaps you got a glimpse of that experience.

Still, in these cases (a language being created, a poet producing a verse) the words are byproducts of a process that is the experience of creativity itself. Words are expelled out of our selves, never to return as we delivered them, becoming nodes in a web that tie us to others in cultures, societies and civilizations.
 
Let’s go, then, farther and deeper in this process: we draw, we paint, we dye our hands and decorate the walls of caves. Our creativity transcends the eras.
 
Beyond that, are our bodies. They dance, sing and make music.
 

Beyond that, are our bodies. They dance, sing and make music.

In the XIII century, a particular language was created to translate music to a visual media. Since then we have been able to read music. This is limited: for instance, you may read a tango song from a music sheet, but it won’t really sound like Tango if you had never listened to D’Arienzo, Di Sarli, Troilo or Pugliese (to mention a few orchestras).
 
In the late 1800s the phonograph was invented, and improved by many times until today’s ubiquity of music, and its quality’s decay.
 
Following the phonograph, we soon were able to also record and reproduce images of our living bodies and movements, our environments and the fine details of our existence through photography and videography. 
 

We have everything!

Now you have the ability to search for and watch videos of any kind of dance, accessible on your personal screen. We have everything! 
 

… except the direct presence of a living human being that we trust unconditionally.

That is Tango.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and want to learn to dance Tango, you can:

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Learn to dance Argentine Tango

Argentine Tango private lesson with Marcelo Solis

Private lessons

Are the way to learn Argentine Tango

  • At our private lessons we work intensely on foundations, rhythm, musicality and connection with partner. We design a program according to your own goals and requirements.

  • While group classes are necessary to work on the social aspects of this beautiful art form, during private lessons we focus on the specific details of your dance which are important in achieving your goal of being a great dancer, a true milonguera or milonguero.

Book your private lesson

Marcelo Solis and Mimi dancing Argentine Tango at Lafayette milonga.

Argentine Tango dancing with Mimi at opening of classes for beginners in San Jose

Argentine Tango dancing with Mimi at opening of classes for beginners in San Jose

What “make your life a work of art” means?

It is to choose to be completely aware of your life and to take full responsibility for it.

Often we run without being present here and now, we are anxious and empty our lives towards the expectancy of what could come; or we stuff ourselves with regrets and longings of the past; or sedate our existence, by being neither awake nor asleep.

To do this, you will need to work hard.

Alternatively, you can make yourself stronger, more beautiful, fulfilled, giving yourself purpose.

To do this, you will need to work hard. 

It is not easy. It is not cheap. It is not shallow.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and want to learn to dance Tango, you can:

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Learn to dance Argentine Tango

Argentine Tango private lesson with Marcelo Solis

Private lessons

Are the way to learn Argentine Tango

  • At our private lessons we work intensely on foundations, rhythm, musicality and connection with partner. We design a program according to your own goals and requirements.

  • While group classes are necessary to work on the social aspects of this beautiful art form, during private lessons we focus on the specific details of your dance which are important in achieving your goal of being a great dancer, a true milonguera or milonguero.

Book your private lesson

Argentine Tango dance exercise- dancing with sticks

Argentine Tango dance exercise: dancing with sticks

Argentine Tango dance exercise: dancing with sticks

I want to know if you appreciate/value/care-about Tango.

I want your answer to be not in words but in your acts. When I observe you in class, before giving you corrections I will ask you: are you satisfy with the way you are doing it (your walk, your posture, your technique, etc.)? If you don’t know what to answer, then I will ask you: do you like the way I dance? 

If you still do not have an answer, I will tell you that you need to make up your mind, make more research, find out.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and want to learn to dance Tango, you can:

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Learn to dance Argentine Tango

Argentine Tango private lesson with Marcelo Solis

Private lessons

Are the way to learn Argentine Tango

  • At our private lessons we work intensely on foundations, rhythm, musicality and connection with partner. We design a program according to your own goals and requirements.

  • While group classes are necessary to work on the social aspects of this beautiful art form, during private lessons we focus on the specific details of your dance which are important in achieving your goal of being a great dancer, a true milonguera or milonguero.

Book your private lesson