In Tango we take our time… ✨ Why join our 12 week Beginner series? ✨ NEW: Two ways to join us even as an experienced dancer! 🙏🏼

[Isabel Juarez Lopez]

🍁 Dear Tango Friends 🍁

This Thursday, September 4th, we start our 12-week Beginner Tango series. 🙌

Twelve weeks sounds like a lot to some people, and I have been asked why perhaps I couldn't offer shorter sessions, say 4 weeks.

I want to take this chance to explain why the Beginner Series is 12 weeks long, and an idea of what we will be spending our time on. 

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At the end of this email, you will find three ways you can join us in the Beginner Series this Fall. Please feel free to share with anyone you think could be interested in any of these options, and let me know if any questions arise!

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If you have ever tried to learn Tango, you know that it is not an easy task. When we begin to learn to dance, we are asked to turn on our senses, to pay attention to our bodies in very specific ways, to relax, but also engage, to connect but not crowd, to pause but not stop altogether, to listen to the music and flow, but not chase it. All these things must be done simultaneously, while you walk around in a circle, either backwards, or with someone directly in your path, while twenty more people around you try to do the same things, to completely foreign music and lyrics sung dramatically in a foreign language, from scratchy recordings.

Yes, it can be a lot to take in, and it is not easy.

Learning Tango involves the entirety of our physical experience. Of course, our physical bodies need to learn to move in certain patterns (this is a 'mechanical' process of orienting our focus, coordinating our muscles, joints, and extremities, all doing slightly different and often opposing things), but additionally, our senses need to sharpen and open up. We become more sensitive the more we dance, and with this increased sensitivity, we improve our ability to be clear, fluid and precise in our movement. And once our senses are open and engaged, our emotions will not be far behind. When we feel a welcoming embrace, we can begin to feel calm, relaxed. When we receive a hesitant embrace, we can begin to feel apprehensive and nervous. And don't get me started on the music, and the way that listening to it can enrich our experience in such a way, that a simple step can take your breath away. 

This Beginner Series attempts to outline a map of the fundamentals of Tango from this perspective, and to offer something for us to practice that we don't need to remember in the usual sense. I want us not only to be able to recall the patterns, but to become the dancers who dance and enjoy them. We can't rush this process, our bodies have decades of non-Tango patterns embedded in them, and we are creating new pathways. And these pathways take some time to settle in. I can't promise that it will be easy or quick, but my hope is that it will be worth it. 🙏🏼

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Joining me for this series, and supporting our learning process is our dear friend 💕 Kristina Milaj. We both share a deep enchantment with Tango, as well as an obsessive curiosity to discover and understand it. We are excited and looking forward to sharing with you our love for this dance. 

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If you have read this far, you may be in one or more of the following categories. Please read below for some new opportunities to join us in the Beginner Series:

🍁 Beginner Tango Dancer: If you are still considering whether you would like to join the Beginner Series, there is still time to register.  You can email me back with any specific questions you may have. We can't wait to meet you. We begin this Thursday, Sep 4th, and we will be diving right in.  

🍁 Experienced Tango Dancer: If you are curious about this Beginner Series, I have a special offer for you. If you have previous Tango experience, I would like you to have the opportunity to try the lessons without committing to the full series yet. I offer that you join us for the first four lessons of the Beginner Series (all Thursdays in September). Instead of paying the full price of the series, you would only pay $50. Keep in mind that these classes are about fundamentals, so many of the topics will be familiar to you. However, the focus and organization of the lessons is distinct. We will be immersed in the quality of the experience from the start. I am hoping to share foundations for both Leads and Follows that you can rely on and come back to over and over in your Tango journey. To join, fill out this Beginner Series registration form, and just note in the final question that you will be joining the September classes for $50. 

🍁 Experienced Tango Dancers willing to support other dancers: If you have loved your process of learning to dance Tango, and would like to support other dancers in their journey, I invite you to join us as a volunteer during our Beginner Series Practicas (from 8 to 9 pm on Thursdays). It is always exciting to try our new moves with someone who has more experience and can kindly indicate what could be improved. The aim of this Practica time is for beginner dancers to build their skills, and for our community to grow. If you are interested in contributing in this way, you are welcome to join us during the Practica at no cost to you. Of course you are welcome to bring your own learning process into the space, and practice your dance. Just remember that the priority of this space is on foundations. I am open to your questions and suggestions on this topic. Thank you for helping us build each other as dancers.

✨ 🍁 ✨ 💞 ✨ 

✨ 🙌 ✨

This was going to be the end of my email, but if you have read this far, I would love to share this incredible victory dance by the recently crowned Tango World Champions 2025...

Aldana Silveyra y Diego Ortega

dancing La Cumparsita by Juan Darienzo.

As with the best of Tango, there's simply nothing left to be said.

🥹

Isabel

Isabel Juárez López

Tango Infinito 

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