A t its best Argentine Tango is a trance, danced so closely that you feel your partner's heart beat and share the rhythm of their breathing. Tango looks complex, but you can succeed more easily if you approach tango as an improvised, rhythmic walk not a lot of memorized patterns.
Our classes are designed to have you up and dancing social-style Argentine Tango as quickly as possible. We're very effective at helping the men to feel confident, to hear the beat, and to achieve mastery with the intricate steps of tango.
Classes are taught with a progressive curriculum. We start with fundamentals, emphasizing improvisation, rhythm, music, heart & soul, and especially the connection between the leader and follower.
T eaching in Boulder & Denver since 1996, Tom is a specialist in the rhythmic, close-embrace social style of tango typical of many clubs in Buenos Aires. This specialty has earned him invitations to workshops and Tango Festivals around the US and abroad, including Berlin, Moscow, Ann Arbor, St Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Portland, San Francisco, Champaign/Urbana, Hawaii, and elswhere.
Tom is the Artistic Director and Producer of the Denver Tango Festivals over the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends, and also of the San Diego Tango Festival. These are three of the top tango festivals in the US, drawing 400 - 500 of the best dancers in the country. The Denver Tango Festivals originated the slogan Festival by dancers, for dancers.
Mel is Tom's Partner in Life and Tango. In a former life, she was a professional ballet dancer for Colorado Ballet. Mel has spent time on the dance floors of Buenos Aires, dancing with the older, master dancers of the "milongas", developing her social tango skills with the goal of "not looking like a ballerina imitating tango".
Testimonials
Please contact me directly if you want us to teach in your city. Here is a Testimonial from one of my workshops.
[My partner] and I would like to thank you once again for the first rate instruction in workshops and private lessons we experienced with you in St Louis this past weekend. We attended the workshops because we wanted to learn about close embrace tango and have had very little instruction in this style of tango. We expected it to be interesting and educational, but we never expected that we would come away from the trip with a new and refreshing view of tango. All of our previous exposures to milonguero/club-style tango have been built around the salida - cruzada - resolucion structure, and very little musicality was emphasized. You changed out view of tango structure, partner connection, and musicality. Thus, our expectations were greatly exceeded, something that is rare indeed. We had almost given up interest in attending workshops because most we have attended have been step catalogues (little of which we have retained). Yours were so different. [St Louis, MO]
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