Argentine Tango School

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Juan Carlos Bazan, Argentine Tango musician and composer.

“La Chiflada” by Ángel D’Agostino y su Orquesta Típica, 1942.

Juan Carlos Bazán

Argentine-Tango-classes-san-francisco-bay-areaStout, rather fat, and a good guy is the description with which those who knew him and gave us their testimony coincided.

In his youth, a waiter of a Japanese barroom located on 25 de Mayo Street a few meters from Corrientes, had told him that on several occasions he had seen that on the corner of the street people used to crowd together to listen to some music.

Eager to know, one day he went closer and, in the middle of that occasional audience, he saw Fat Bazán playing a long brass trumpet from which a cloth banner with golden letters was hanging.

It was the advertisement of Kalisay, an aperitif of that time, which included the classic boy doll with a large head that represented an old man… Continue reading at www.todotango.com...

Here you can see Juan Carlos Bazán playing his clarinet, next to his life long friend “El Pibe” Ernesto Ponzio, and “El Cachafaz” and Carmencita Calderón dancing, in this scene from the first sound film made in Argentina, “Tango!”, of 1933.

From “History of Tango – Part 3: La Guardia Vieja” and “History of Tango – Part 8: Roberto Firpo and the acceptance of the piano in the Orquesta Típica” (read more, click here).

Argentine Tango dance classes for beginners, intermediate and advanced level. Argentine Tango dance Private lessons. one to one Argentine dance lessons. Argentine Tango dance lessons for couples. Argentine Tango Milongas and workshops. San Francisco, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Orinda, Danville, San Jose, Cupertino, Campbell, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Milpitas.

Tango is Life

This article continues a previous article.

Milongas San Francisco Bay AreaDancing Tango is not only about you and you-and-your-partner. It is also a social event and a culture.

It involves more than two: those present at the milonga (tango dance party) in which you assist, and also all those who are intimately related to Tango, at your present time, in the past and in the future (other dancers, the composers of the songs that you dance to, the musicians who recorded the songs, all the people who were passionate about Tango throughout the history of this manifestation of our very unique nature as humans, and those, in the future, who will inherit it after us).

The dance party where you came to dance is a society, with its own culture and its own sets of codes which make possible, and structure, its existence, nurturing and favoring creativity, the behaviors that support the coexistence of all the artists on the dance floor, the milongueros, respect for all manifestations of this Art, not in words, but in actions, in dance. Continue reading at Medium.com.

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Marcelo Solis dancing Argentine Tango with Sofia

Tango is a walking social partner’s dance

Marcelo Solis dancing Argentine Tango with SofiaTango is a social and partner dance that originated in the city of Buenos Aires, where, together with its music, poetry and culture, the population consider it their identity.

To learn it, you will embrace not only your partner, but Tango itself, its music, culture, and home city.

In my classes, I will guide you into the beauty of Tango music, how to interpret this music with your body, how to enter the dance floor and stay there while you dance. I am going to guide you into the embrace of your partner, into the society of the milonga (Tango dance party), into the culture of Tango, and into the city of Buenos Aires.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, when Tango appeared for the first time, the main social dance was the waltz.  Tango continues and intensifies many of the elements already present in the waltz, for example, taking the proximity between partners to the limit and making them dance in close embrace. Another element already in the waltz is the line of dance, in which all the couples on the dance floor circulate in a counterclockwise direction. Tango also incorporated this, but now the couples do not have to be continuously moving. Now, dancing Tango, they have more freedom and more creative use of the space.

In order to make you understand “with your body” these characteristics of Tango, and educate your sensitivity in regard to these and many other elements that shape Tango to be what it is: “A unique manifestation of the human potential”, I will train you with exercises and concepts.

If you have the desire, the passion, the stamina, the perseverance, and the necessary patience, I will help you be a part of Tango, to be Tango yourself, to be a “milonguero” or “milonguera”.

In response to those who get disappointed because I insist on improving our walk and ask me with a disappointed tone:  Is then Tango “JUST” walking?

Yes! If you got nothing inside you:  no emotions, no passion, no feelings, if you are an empty shell, if you are a robot that only works and tries to take advantage of everybody… yes… it’s “JUST” walking, as you expressed.

But, if you are a HUMAN BEING, with capital letters, is not.

Your walk is yourself. The way you walk expresses who you are.

If your walk is only utilitarian, your whole life probably is the life of a tool.

Tango challenges you to make your walk -and your entire life- a work of Art. Learn to dance!!!

Osvaldo y Coca Cartery. Maestros milongueros. Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires.

Culture, Buenos Aires and why Tango

Osvaldo y Coca Cartery. Maestros milongueros. Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires.Let’s say you’re in Buenos Aires and you’re looking for a class or milonga.

Typically, you might do some research using the internet or follow the advice of someone you don’t know that well, which could lead you to missing out on what only Buenos Aires has to offer in relation to Tango.

This is because Tango is not a commodity.

Tango is an apprenticeship. You do not get Tango the way you get gasoline. It’s not like you can go to any place, or the cheapest place, pay, fill up, and leave having acquired Tango.

You learn Tango from a “Maestro”.

The responsibility of your Tango teacher is to be the bridge between your life before Tango and your transformation into a milonguera or milonguero.

You also have a responsibility on your journey, which will require passion, courage, commitment, discipline, stamina, focus and patience. You must be willing to jump wholeheartedly into Tango.

You want to learn to dance Tango.

Why? Because you are meant to do it.

The rest is either preparation or avoidance of it.

If you were in a place affected by war, you would either drop out by hiding away, or escaping; or you would choose a side and fight.

In peace we are able to be good and beautiful, and we should choose to be as such.

Tango is a language that allows you to speak with your whole being.

Your entire body is talking, in verses, or in a poetic prose, with an everyday colloquial conversational style that can speak in very deep and charming phrases.

Why should we choose to be charming?

As well as we are always learning, we are always educating others.

It is inherent to our human nature.

We must charm to bring others into the task of making this world the way we can be proud of it.

Why are we so insecure when we start dancing for the first time?

Because we are exposing ourselves.

We realize how transparent we become when dancing.

We could hide who we are to others by not dancing, even by learning and rehearsing a choreography, perhaps.

We can hide ourselves to others by acting as a character instead of being who we are.

But Tango is improvised. It requires spontaneity.

Tango is a way to educate you on how to be more like yourself, being proud of it, building on the pieces which are often ignored at work, at the gym, at the bar…

By exposing your weaknesses, you can begin to work on them objectively and improve.

Learning to be a milonguera or milonguero requires a sensitivity to its inherent value.

This is another area where a Maestro can be valuable.

Right now, Buenos Aires is the only city in the world in which there are certain milongas where this system of ethics and aesthetics is the norm accepted by all the participants. It starts with the hosts, the DJs, the wait staff, the regulars and all others who attend.

Are you willing to miss out?

Learn to dance Argentine Tango: make your life a work of Art…

Geometry of Argentine Tango

Musicality

Geometry of Argentine Tango - Artist Emma KunzOften people get attracted to Tango first by what they see.

Then, to be able to reproduce the beauty they had seen, they need to realize that it is not rooted in the geometry of the figures.

Furthermore, the music that is danced shapes the proportions of this geometry.

If the initial energy that makes us dance comes from our passion, the music is what channels and shapes that energy.