Susana Miller will be returning to Chicago in 2009, the week of July 4-11, 2009. Workshops will be planned for June 5-7, 2009. Further details will be provided in 2009. To get on the mailing list, please send an email to Ray Barbosa at [email protected]
SUSANA MILLER BIO Susana Miller is the most prominent teacher in the world today 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 a strictly social style that emphasizes musicality and the connection between partners. Susana has researched and studied the dancing of the older milongueros, each of whom has created a unique way to tango. She has been able to decipher their distinct vocabularies and choreographic combinations, and found a way to transmit these to students. 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. 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 is a native of Buenos Aires and has been dancing and teaching tango since the late 1980s revival of social tango. She founded and operates her own tango academy in Buenos Aires, and is the owner of one of B.A.'s most popular tango clubs, El Beso. She has made annual teaching tours to the United States and Europe since 1994. She will help students improve 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 classes will emphasize step quality and rhythm. Rather than predetermined patterns, she will impart a basic choreographic vocabulary that allows dancers to creatively shape their own language.
