Dancing Soul

Fall classes with Elizabeth Wartluft

All new classes start the week of September 15th.

Beginner/Advanced Beginner Argentine Tango

Thursdays, 7:15 PM
Riverside Performing Arts, 1108 Main St., Vancouver, WA
$72/6 weeks, $60 students, seniors and continuing students

This class will cover: walking, basic salidas, the cruzada, basic turns and front ochos; musicality, navigation, connection, energy, and the embrace. For advanced beginners, I will provide more complex variations and more focus on musicality and connection. As always, my focus is balance, alignment, efficiency of movement, to create an elegant, sensual and playful tango.

Intermediate Argentine Tango

Wednesdays, 8 PM
Dancing Soul, 4315 NE Garfield Ave., Portland, OR (or nearby: I'm in negotiation for a larger space)
$72/6 weeks, $60 students, seniors and continuing students

I design this class to be taken a minimum of three times before advancing to the next level, so I cover different topics each six weeks. We learn the technique from the ground up for paradas, sacadas, ganchos, adornos, quebradas, calesitas, planeos, etc. Continuing from my beginning classes, we will learn harder variations of turns and ochos, combining them with the new repertoire. As always, my focus is balance, alignment, efficiency of movement, to create an elegant, sensual and playful tango.

If you are unsure as to whether you belong in intermediate or advanced, please contact me for an evaluation.

Advanced Argentine Tango

Tuesdays, 7 PM
Dancing Soul, 4315 NE Garfield Ave., Portland, OR (or nearby: I'm in negotiation for a larger space)
$72/6 weeks, $60 students, seniors and continuing students

For those of you who knew my classes in Eugene, this is my Tango 3 class. Pre-requisite: you should already know the technique for the steps listed above in Intermediate class, and be ready to pull out the BIG guns: overturned ganchos, colgadas, volcadas, boleo combinations, shared axis turns, crossed system grapevines, leg wraps, etc. (one of my Eugene students called it "crazy sh**"). The focus will be integration: using these steps on the social dance floor safely and elegantly. Every week, you'll leave class with new material for your dance.

If you sign up with a partner, you may stay with that partner for the class, but you will learn more quickly if you switch around. If you come to the class without a partner, I expect that you will be flexible about dancing with any other member of the class, in order to best learn the material.

Milonga with Robert Hauk and Elizabeth

Wednesdays, 7 PM
Dancing Sould, 4315 NE Garfield Ave., Portland, OR (or nearby: I'm in negotiation for a larger space)
$72/6 weeks

Robert and I will be teaching a milonga class together. We're really excited about it! At this time, the class is full, but we will be able to open it up if we get a larger space, so let me know if you want to be added to the waitlist.

Beginning Salsa

Thursdays, 8:15 PM
Riverside Performing Arts, 1108 Main St., Vancouver, WA
$72/6 weeks, $60/students and seniors

I've been teaching salsa since 1993, but haven't had a chance to teach it in the Portland area yet.  By the end of the six weeks, you'll have enough material to go out and tackle the dance floor! Lead/follow technique, basic moves and improvisational extras will all be covered. Tango folk: come learn a dance that has that same improvisational possibility, but with hips and saucy music!

Private lessons: $50/hr or $200/5 hours

I strongly suggest combining private and group lessons for optimal dance learning. A group setting allows you to practice your technique and meet other dancers socially. A private lesson focuses on technique on a deeper level than a group class allows. Even one private lesson every few months will help your technique. For the serious student, a weekly private lesson plus group classes and/or time on the dance floor, is the most efficient way to learn tango well. If private lessons are not in your budget, consider finding someone to share lessons to split the cost, or contact me re: barter.

"Visualizing Movement Potential" for tango

I'd like to summarize and expand upon another of Irene Dowd's fabulous articles in Taking Root to Fly. Rereading them all these years after my Movement Fundamentals class (thanks Sherrie Barr, my teacher!), I realize how much these ideas have become the basis of my teaching. Irene Dowd credits HER teacher, Dr. Lulu Sweigard with much of the content of this article, so read her work, too!

Her main idea in this article: the nervous system runs all the systems of the human body. Therefore, if we want to change how we move, we need to change the way our nerves and brain interact with the rest of the body: our neurological pathways. We can change these pathways through conscious attention, by changing our movement habits. 

"Dis-ease" or lack of ease, comes from the body being out of balance. The more the muscles are balanced around a joint, the less stress is put on the body to use and maintain that joint. The more the systems of the body are in balance, the easier it is to move in an efficient and pain-free way. Balance does not mean that the body is at rest, but rather that all muscles and systems have moments of rest and moments of movement, so that no part of the body is being constantly used (or constantly relaxed) and thus becoming fatigued, injured, or too weak to use correctly.

Dr. Sweigard taught correct use of the body through VISUALIZING lines of movement through the body in order to repattern how the body used energy.  She used the "constructive rest position" (lying on the floor, with the feet flat on the floor, knees up, hips/back relaxed, and arms out and up, relaxed against the floor. After the person visualized the movement in this position, she gradually transitioned them to visualizing the movement while standing and then moving around:

"Visualizing a line of movement thorugh the body while not moving can change the habitual patterns of messages being sent from the brain through nerve pathways to the muscles. As long as this constructive new thinking pattern is activated during movement, a new pattern of muscle activity is automatically being used to decrease physical stress and maintain a more balanced alignment of skeletal parts. Over a period of time during which there is continual daily attention to new habit patterns in thinking and action, the body's shape will be transformed." (p. 2)

This is what we are doing in my classes: realigning hips, knees, ankles, feet and body for more efficient balance front-back and left-right. Then, for each movement, we are repatterning how the body moves through a step to make it efficient. Each combination of muscles and joints works in balance with the body. Efficiency removes pain and imbalance. If you are in pain, the first step is to alleviate pain through teaching the body and neural pathways a new way of moving.

If something isn't working, don't just continue to repeat that step: "Not even a worm will persist after repeated negative reinforcement. The solution is to go one step back to something you can do, crawling perhaps." That may mean that you have to learn to stand and walk before learning tango. Master the fundamentals before going on so that you experience success. When you can do a movement, or series of movements, correctly, then the neural pathways have learned that and are ready to do more complex repatterning.

Exercise, part I (on the floor in constructive rest position)

• Lie on the floor in constructive rest position.
• Relax your body, either through visualization (sand or water or ? flowing out of your eyes, ears, hands, toes, wherever you have tension, until the body feels relaxed, open and receptive) or by tensing and then releasing each set of muscles until your body feels relaxed throughout.
• Take time to really bring your body to neutral: this relaxation may take quite some time if you are under stress or have chronic pain in your body. If you do not feel receptive and relaxed, you will not be able to visualize new patterns easily.
• First, visualize the basic, fundamental parts of the new movement. For example, if you want to make arm or leg movements that require your center and spine to support them, visualize a long, stable spine, and then do small or easy movements with the limb you want to use.
• Relax again, while you continue to visualize the flow of strength and stability in your spine, lengthening without working your muscles.
• Now visualize the entire movement you want to do, without moving your body. Imagine the sweep of the energy through your body, through each joint that is needed, through the muscles that will be used. Imagine doing it without pain or difficulty. While you are doing this, your new neural pathways are being created.
• Any time you feel the old pattern (or pain or tightness), go back to the relax/go to neutral phase and start over. If you keep trying while it hurts or while you are clenching your body, the new pathways are NOT being formed.
• Only spend 5-10 minutes doing this at a time: staying in one position for a long time is not good for the body: it contracts some muscles constantly, and lets others relax constantly: what we are trying to avoid ;-)

Exercise, part II (warming up, standing)

• Get up off the floor slowly.
• Start doing small movements to warm up the body: leg joints, arm joints, spine, neck, etc.
• When you feel warmed up, move around doing movements you already know, letting your body feel the "rightness" of these motions.
• Only at this point should you try the movement.

Exercise, part III (doing the new motion)

• Do the new movement, focusing on the small, basic parts of the movement first.
• When you do it correctly, no matter how small a part of the movement is right, congratulate yourself! Give yourself positive encouragement. This is an improvement, even if it is small and gradual.
• Repeat the successful movement until it feels more "natural" than "strange" (your body needs to start to feel the rightness of it to memorize it as "the right way").
• Repeat each day: this helps you learn the right movement through it feeling right, and also helps your body develop the new neural pathways more quickly.

Exercise, part IV (let it go)

• Your body works on neural pathways, and on integrating new information, on its own. Let it do the work!
• Go off and do other things; let go of the new information consciously, and come back to it tomorrow.
• Come back to it daily: if you wait too long, you undo the work you did before, and must start over.

Although a teacher can help you learn what motion is correct, and can check in with you to help you adjust the process if it is not working, most of this work is YOU. Focus on the positive: the mind and body are plastic. The human body and mind can learn to do all sorts of movements. YOUR human body can do this. If you can imagine your body doing a motion, you will eventually be able to perform that motion with your body. Irene Dowd says:

"It takes about two months of daily practice from the time you have started to think about your movement differently to the time that your muscles visibly change shape. While sixty days into the future seems like a long time to wait before a new internal balance brings tangible results, it isn't very long at all in comparison to your whole life which you have already spent developing the form you now have." (p. 6)

Off you go now! I need to do my visualizations of the perfect adorno.

Oscar Mandagaran & Georgina Vargas are in Seattle next weekend!

Don't miss this chance to study with Oscar and Georgina if you live near Seattle, WA, or can get yourself up there this coming weekend! I hope to make it for at least one day of workshops and a few private lessons.

They will give group lessons August 7-9, as well as private lessons August 7-12.

Location

Club Sur, 2901 1st Ave. S., Seattle, WA

Contact

Carlos Barrionuevo & Mayte Valdes
tangoearth@yahoo.com
cell: (206) 370 9397

or contact Oscar and Georgina by email: tangodebuenosaires@hotmail.com

or Facebook: Georgina Vargas Oscar Mandagaran

Schedule

Friday, August 7th 

7 to 8:15 pm:   Rhythmic Tango: the porteno style - all levels

Here you will work on the the rhythmic style of Tango danced to the music of Donato, Canaro, D'Arienzo etc. This class is  essential  to give you an understanding of how different styles of music require a different style of tango. You'll find that you really can dance with musicality and style!!

Saturday, August 8th:

4:30 to 5:45pm:  Traspies combinations for Rhythmic Tango and Milonga -all levels 

If you ever go to Buenos Aires you will see that the Traspie' is the most popular movement and with this class you will fin how to create lots of differents conbinations good for rhytmic Tango and milonga!! Came and dance as a porteno!!!

6 to 7:15pm:      Molinetes & Enrosquez and Quebradas Buenos Aires's style - intermediate & up

If you want to add some spice to your dance, learn how to do molinetes & enrosques and quebradas!!

Sunday, August 9th

4:30 to 5:45pm:   Romantic Tango - all levels

This is the sexy, sensuous tango that marks Oscar & Georgina's stunning style. You will dance to the music of the evolutionary orquestras like Pugliese, Di Sarli and you'll refine your musicality, dancing to the phrases within the music. This class is an exellent opportunity for learn about the density and elasticity in your movement!!

6 to 7:15pm:         Sacadas and Boleos Buenos Aires's Style - intermediate & up
This is one of the steps that you have always wanted to do at the milonga, ver elegant and lovely. However you must realize that you are sharing the floor with many other people. So be prepared to challenge yourself and learn how to do Sacadas and Boleos buenos Aires's style!!  

Cost

$25 Each Class or $100 Full package (5 Classes)

Instructional DVDs available

Oscar and Georgina's instrucitonal DVDs will be available to purchase at these workshops. They are wonderful, beautifully produced DVDs that cover many of the same topics they will teach in their workshops, and are a great way to practice at home. The DVDs are also available at Oscar and Georgina's website, http://www.tangodebuenosaires.com/

Rhythmic Style Tango: Learn to dance in the style of portenos (Buenos Aires style) to the music of the traditional orchestras like Canaro, D'Arienzo, Tanturi, etc.

Romantic Style Tango: Learn to dance in the style of the evolutionary orchestras like Pugliese and Di Sarli, etc.

An excerpt from a lesson on the DVDs

Oscar and Georgina's Tango Secrets, Instructional Technique DVD 1 & 2

With these two DVDs you will really have the opportunity to create the quality in your Tango movements, give density and elasticity to your dance, add a variety of differents adornments...it's your chance to "magnetize" your tango!

An excerpt from a lesson the the Tango Secret DVDs 

Teaching biographies

Oscar Mandagaran starred on Broadway in Forever Tango and toured with the show for 7 years.  He danced with the Forever Tango cast in the show Malambo, in the Carlos Saura film Tango, and has performed in major cities all over the world.  One of the superstar international teachers, Oscar is beloved for his ability to teach the passion and emotion of the tango and for his ability to impart the "keys" or secrets of tango that help each student discover their own unique quality as a dancer.

Georgina Vargas has performed in major tango shows in Argentina, Italy and Japan, and has taught around the world.  She founded the company "Con Sabor a Tango" which toured Europe, Japan and Asia.  She produced and performed in Noches Argentino in Tokyo,  Japan, for which she was awarded special recognition by the Argentine Embassy in honor of her spectacular performance and role in presenting tango to the world.  Also a professional singer, Georgina's CD, Por Aquells Tango was released in 2006.

Together since 2006, Oscar and Georgina are one of the most exciting, sensual and passionate couples in Argentine tango today.  Highly sought after as performers and teachers, they are regular guest artists at the Esquina Carlos Gardel, home of the most prestigious tango show in Buenos Aires, and spend 8-9 months of every year traveling, teaching and performing around the world.

Check out these great performances!

• Romantic Tango in San Francisco

• Rhythmic Tango in Tokyo  

• Performance at Nora's Tango Week

• Another performance at Nora's Tango Week

• Dancing to Gallo Ciego at the Esquina Carlos Gardel in Buenos Aires

• Tango show at the Esquina Carlos Gardel

• Dancing to Derecho Viejo at Portland Tango Festival
• Milonga