Tonight's Mondays at Mariposa features 2 very special events: a workshop by Susana Miller & Maria Plazaola and then a newly created milonga: Flores Fresca.
The workshop, from 8:00-9:30 p, features Little Steps and Keys to develop or enhance your choreography for leaders, including embellishments for followers. 'Choreography' in Susana's language should be interpreted as 'the means to successfully and comfortably navigate a crowded dance floor' and is in no way intended to be related to performances. Susana & Maria's focus is on social dancing, as experienced in the salons of Bueons Aires. The cost for the workshop will be $30; $25 for attendees of any other event at the extremely successful Chicago Tango Mini-Festival. Kudos to Ray Barbosa and Marco Mambelli, in conjunction with the University of Chicago Argentine Tango Club, for sponsoring and hosting an incredible weekend of workshops, dancing and shopping (shoes anyone from Kathleen??). There were over 200 people at the first milonga Saturday night at UofC and many of them danced until dawn at American Tango Institute! Following the workshop, Phoebe J. Grant will be the hostess and DJ for Milonga Flores Fresca beginning at 9:30 p and continuing until at least 12:30 a and longer if our feet permit! Milonga Flores Fresca will feature classic Argentine tangos, milongas and valses by contemporary orchestras and cantors (Los Tauras, El Arranque, Conjuncto Berretin, Adriana Varela, Che Trio, Julia Zenko, Otros Aires, ); fresh tangoesqe music from South America and Europe (Tanghetto, UltraTango, Caceres, malevo sound project, Trio Pantango, Paulinho Garcia ); and, for dancing after 11:30 pm, a mix of alternative music to inspire your tango spirit (Sting, Kirk Whalem, Luis Miguel, Daniel Garcia Quinteto, Zucchero & Co., Andrea Bocelli ). Don Lavin recently posted to Tango Talk, "For those of you who have not had the experience of attending a milonga or practica where Phoebe was the DJ, this will be a great opportunity to find out why many of us consider her to be among the best DJs in the Chicago area ... . She has a wonderful ear for music and her selections pull you out of your seats and make you want to dance, be it through traditional or modern orchestras. So if you have any energy left after the weekend at the Uo C, do come out to the Monday milonga on Byron and see the new facility, which is outstanding, and hear Phoebe in her element." Cover for any Monday milonga at Mariposa is $10. Tonight it will be $8 for Special Workshop participants; in other words, the workshop by itself is $30 (or $25 if you attended any part of the mini-festival at UofC this past weekend); the milonga by itself is $10; if you attend the workshop AND the milonga, it's $38 (or $33 if you attended the mini-festival). We will provide fresh spring snacks and soft beverages; byob. For those of you whom have not yet experienced the incredible instruction provided by Susana & Maria, this workshop would be an excellent opportunity to benefit from their detailed yet casual approach to the world of the milonguero style of tango or what Argentines call apilado. This style is danced in the crowded clubs of central Buenos Aires. It is strictly a social style that emphasizes musicality and the connectin between partners. Susana has researched and studied the dancing of the older milongueros, each of whom has created their unique style of tango. She has been able to decipher their distinct vocablularies ad choreographic combinations, and is gifted n her ability to convey these to students. Clarin, the major Buenos Aires daily paper, called her one of the four most important influences on contemporary tango, along with Miguel Angel Zotto, Gustavo Naveira and Gerardo Portalea.Susana encourages students to employ more rhythm in their dance, to discover their own dance vocabularies, and to learn how to shape and shrink these in space. For women, she encourages active following, in which the woman interprets the messages that the leader's body and the spirit are sending. She will facilitate students' improvement of posture, axis, grounding, breathing, balance and sensitivity to the lead and follow roles. She aims to encourage dancers to develop their own unique improvisational styles through knowledge of the music, space and body. Her class will emphasize step quality and rhythm. Rather than predetermined patterns, she will impart a vocabulary that allows dancers to creatively shape their own language. Maria Plazaola is one of the best young female dancers on the world circuit. Since 2000 she has worked jointly with Susana Miller since 2000; together they she own El Beso in Buenos Aires. She danced professionally with Carlos Gavito from March 2002. With Gavito she participated and performed in numerous international festivals and tours. Since beginning tango 1993, Maria has continued dancing in the milongas of Buenos Aires with the best milongueros from whom she learns everything that she teaches. Maria's teaching is recognized for contributing as much to the man as to the woman the necessary resources to dance tango on the dance floors of Buenos Aires. She rescues the choreographies that are carried out intuitively by the milongueros as determined by the space and the music. Her movements are calm, pure and soft. She gives herself away to the music and her partner and her dancing is graceful and ethereal. In the workshops she pays special attention to enrich the intimacy of the tango embrace for the dancers. More information about Susana and Maria can be found at http://www.chicagotangofestival.com/Instructors.php
