Monday, April 12, 2010

Connections


I've heard it said there are 4 connections involved when dancing Tango. There's the connection to your partner, the connection to the music, the connection to the floor and the connection to the other dancers. We got to practice all these connections when we went to an Argentine Tango workshop at Glen Echo Park held by Sharna Fabiano and Korey Ireland of Tango Mercurio.

We made a day of it with our friends, Janet and Jeff. We went to brunch at the Ft Belvoir Officers Club. We usually go there to dance. It is a little hard to do on a Sunday when they put the steam tables on the dance floor. I hope they get up the syrup I spilled before Wednesday. (Just kidding. I have more respect for a dance floor than that.)

We had our lessons in the Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo Park. The weather was perfect and the Spanish Ballroom has one of the best floors around. There was a Basics for Elegant Tangos lesson at 1:00. This was followed by a Variations for Playful Tangos at 2:00. They had a Pre-dance Intro Lesson at 3:00 with a Milonga at 3:30. All in all, we got about 4 hours of Tango in. The lessons were great. They really emphasized the musicality of dancing Tango and the connections. I think the thing that I enjoyed the most was that they brought their own orchestra. The Community Tango Orchestra is a volunteer organization lead by Korey Ireland who is not only a tango instructor but also an accomplished musician and the orchestra's director. The beautiful music, great instruction and wonderful venue really made the day something to remember.

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