Click here for the full 2025 Denver Close Encounters Schedule. This include early arrival events on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday. As some times or details might change, please wait until the final week before printing out a hard-copy.

Welcome to an intensive workshop weekend with Carolina del Rivero and Ricardo Biggeri in Denver. Five Tango Classes plus a milonga February 21, 22 & 23, 2025. Reserve your space by registering below. Location: Casa Anita

The tango CDs listed below are selected from the Golden Era of tango dance orchestras. They include many popular tangos that you would hear in a typical tango dance in Buenos Aires. I suggest choosing a few albums (D'Arienzo, Canaro, Di Sarli) from this list, and putting them on rotation while commuting, walking, or doing chores. Start with the more straightforward styles I've labeled rhythmic, walking or romantic rather than complex ones with lots of syncopation.

Tom & Analii Stermitz perform a social style tango dance at Denver Does Tango.

We style the Denver Close Encounters event in the tradition of the classic Buenos Aires milongas of the 1940s, 1990s and 2000s. This means we strive to follow the historic customs of good navigation and lanes, using the cabaceo to request a dance, and walking the followers back to their tables. This festival is for you if you love Buenos Aires style social dancing, and are good at navigating in a close embrace.

May 2025 Tango weekend blending an Encuentro, a Marathon and the excitement of the Milongas of Buenos Aires. Four days of tango with one group of fellow tango fanatics. The emphasis is on Close-embrace dancing and traditional social codes. Top DJs are selected for their sensitivity to the passion and energy of the dancers and their love of the famous Golden Era orchestras.

Argentine Tango as a dance and musical form developed in Buenos Aires at the end of the 19th Century, and arrived in Europe and then the US in the first decades of the 1900s. This is the mode of dance that evolved into Ballroom tango. Meanwhile, Tango continued to evolve until the "Golden Era", the 1930s-1950s.

As you may know, the 8-Count Basic was invented more-or-less in the 1960s by Juan Carlos Copes (or perhaps Todaro?). The 8CB is useful because it provides a method for creating stage choreography. Before the 8CB, there were other basic methods for teaching tango, including Mingo's 8-Count Molinete.

In your present life experience, I am absolutely sure that you have already achieved zen-like mastery with certain basic things. For example, everyone can stride confidently down the street, with their feet slapping the pavement on time. You can dodge pedestrians on the sidewalk without thinking about it. You can sing or at least hum along to a popular song.

When I first went to Argentina in about 1997, I saw the dancing at the salon Almagro, and was amazed by the crowded dance floor and the skill with which the leaders navigated the floor. I also realized (1) I did not learn that style and (2) I didn't really know ANYTHING about tango. I spent the next few years paying attention to how tango was danced in Argentina and trying to learn how to succeed on the dance floors in Buenos Aires.