Tuesday 4 August 2009

Good news!

I've just spotted that Andreas Wichter and Monica Lopez will be teaching at Carablanca on August 21 and August 28 (the updated programme).

While we've struggled to dance like Tango por Dos in London, our friends on the continent have been getting on with social dancing. Andreas Wichter is now based in Totnes, and I think this is his first teaching in London. I hope there will be much more. It's getting harder all the time to get social dancers from Buenos Aires: they are the old masters, but they are old now, not so many of them ever spoke English, and enforcing UK immigration policy occupies so much more of the time of our border authorities that recently they failed to spot an illegal immigrant who entered the country underneath their bus as they returned from France. He ran off in Folkstone and hasn't been seen since. It's unlikely that he was a milonguero desperate to get here to teach us.

Fortunately there are now good dancers and teachers of tango salon on the continent. Andreas Wichter doesn't boast of years spent with Tango por Dos, nor of having choreographed Broadway tango shows. He says: 'We are salón dancers and teachers, not show dancers. So you will see neither choreography nor open embrace figures in these videos. We just dance pretty much as we would in an (uncrowded) milonga.' It's got to be a refreshing change of emphasis.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

so where can i learn to do close embrace in london?

every teacher i try is doing big open things?

Anonymous said...

If you like this, keep a look out for Andreas' colleagues Melina Sedo and Detlef Engel wwho are teaching at the September SuperTangk at Bramshaw. More details on tangoUK.co.uk.

Tangocommuter said...

@ Anonymous, it looks like Carablanca on August 21 and 28 is your answer. But Leandro and Romina of Tangosoul encourage close embrace dancing in their classes.

And @ Anonymous: thanks, and I hope they'll visit London too.

Andreas said...

Thanks for the kind words, TC. It is indeed the first time I'll be teaching in London, and I am very much looking forward to it. I will also be DJing on the 21st, and Chris Jordan will be the DJ on the 28th.
Melina & Detlef teaching in London this time around doesn't seem likely at the moment, but that is really up to the London organizers. You might want to at least go to the main SuperTangk milonga to see them dance.
And @Anonymous #1, I teach "Salón in a Nutshell" at Carablanca, so there you go: close embrace, the basic elements, tango for the milonga.

msHedgehog said...

@Andreas, Nice title.