Keywords
Communication, performances, attitudes, body language, emotions, team building, laughter, role-play
For you
More than showing what we can do, we want to know who you are. All our programs are uniquely tailored for the recipients, created with your unique needs and characteristics in mind.
What is tango?
Tango is an improvised dance where every movement is felt, communicated, and discussed by the dancers in the moment. The image of two becoming as one might be a cliché but it is true in this case. Tango demands cooperation. As dancers we mostly focus on the physical sense but communication takes place on many levels. Each partner must be cooperating and communicating with their entire self. Tango dancers are constantly listening, responding, and adjusting with their senses and emotions.
What can tango do for you?
When we engage people through dance we always place relationships, identity, and listening at the forefront. Every dancer is beautiful and different, and with our pedagogy all dancers will receive tools with which to express their personality. Tango gives us the tools to try out new ways of being and to relate to others in all sorts of social settings. Tango is useful in teaching people to get to know others or to see them in a new light. It allows us to challenge our limits, establish boundaries, gain new perspectives on communication, expand concepts of creativity, provide tools for relaxation, and much more.
What we can do as tango dancers
The most obvious is to give us an opportunity to dance. Our performances are always about much more than just the dance. How we choose to dance is dependent on who we are dancing for, and we like to talk to our audience about what is at stake in our performances.
What else?
Watching a tango performance can be a powerful experience. It moves us because we are witnessing two people have a physical conversation about life. Through teaching tango we can help people see each other, we can challenge their identities and their ingrained stereotypes. We help you and your team develop new communication skills and allow strangers to laugh and get to know each other in a more exciting way than the typical “… so what do you do at the company?” We use tango to break the ice and cause laughter and fun. In playing with tango we can ask questions and raise issues that may be perceived as sensitive otherwise. It is wonderful that all this can happen in the arms of another person.
Who could benefit from tango?
Absolutely all! Anyone who responds to energy and beauty will find joy in our performances and tango. The techniques we use to engage and inspire others draws on our knowledge of tango but don’t require that you have any previous experience with the dance, or the “perfect” body, clothes, age, etc. (you are already perfect). Our goal is to meet people where they are, literally as well as spiritually.
Tango is applicable in any setting. Whether it’s a construction company or a hospital, law firm or school, dance is helpful for everyone. Our focus is to get people to talk together in new ways. Our techniques are not related to gender, age, size, ability or background.
Everyone can benefit and remember that we always create a unique program specifically for you. Because our program can be challenging (in a good way!) for the participants, we are extremely careful to develop a safe and supportive environment. It is our responsibility to provide a framework and structure so that participants respect each other and can fully engage in the activities.
Our experience and background:
Most important is obviously our expertise and collaboration as tango dancers since 2007. In addition we have a wide array of interests, both professionally and personally. Our portfolio of knowledge and experience spans the following:
- A doctorate in music (history/philosophy)
- Psychodrama/psychotherapy training
- A Pilates teacher
- A career as a professional pianist
- Lectured for several different courses at universities and colleges as well as in non academic settings
- Experience with a variety of other dances
- The practice of meditation for many years
- Taught as part of all our work
- University Studies in Social Anthropology and Aesthetics
- Many late nights in the company of Beckett, Joyce, Strindberg, Tolstoy and Askildsen
How we have used tango:
- “I feel like I can communicate better with my dog,” said one of our participants after we taught tango for the blind. As we’ve said, tango is certainly about much more than a dance.
- We’ve worked with music researchers to actually feel the musical principles they were used to interacting with only in their texts.
- We have “entertained” students through discussing how tango philosophically sheds light on the limits of verbal language, as they drink been a late Friday night.
- We have investigated the tango, creativity and language and published our work at international conferences.
- We have worked with roles and identity in countless situations. Perhaps most notably is our work with and support for Queer tango.
- We have taught physical therapists about their body and we have made shrinks dance aspects of their relationships.
