Here in Canberra we just had a fantastic tango event, and I'm wondering if anyone is doing similar events around the world.
The basic idea for the festival was that it was all about social dancing. There were no workshops, no performances, just four days of social dancing. The event kicked off Friday evening with the showing of a short film, "Si Sos Brujo: Una Historia Tango", which, as a musician, I found very interesting. Then there was a welcoming milonga from 8pm until midnight. Saturday we had an Asado (Argentine BBQ) at lunch time, immediately followed by our club's regular Saturday afternoon practica. Then from 9pm until 2am was "Tango til two", the Saturday milonga. Sunday afternoon in Old Parliament House there was a short lecture by Dr Daniel Martin: "Tragedy, hopelessness, unrequited love", which looked at the demographic roots of tango and how they affected its development. This was followed by a short milonguita on a very small and quite crowded dance floor. Sunday evening, again from 9pm to 2am, was "Tango til two - the sequel". Monday was a public holiday in most of Australia, so the festival wrapped up with an afternoon milonga from 2-6pm. There was a lot of great DJing, with well-grouped tandas and nice transitions. The atmosphere throughout the festival was absolutely fantastic, everyone was kept in a good mood, and the numbers barely dwindled until the closing of each milonga. At each of the three evening milongas, seating was arranged, with everyone being escorted to their table, and the tables were mixed up, attempting to get everyone sitting with people from different cities. But the best thing for me was that there was no cliques; everyone danced with everyone, or so it seemed. So, is anyone else doing events like this, social mixer festivals with no workshops, no performances, and no "Big Name" identified people? If not, I can heartily recommend that people try it out as an event format. It's really great to be able to dance with people from all over when they aren't exhausted after nine hours of classes. _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
