"Exploding Patterns"

Recreating Your Tango

Beyond the Numbers ...

... with ...

Debbie Edwards & Stephen Bauer

A 90-Minute Tango Workshop at:

The Haven — 228 Broad Street, Nevada City

Tuesday — July 17, 2012

7:30 - 9:00 pm

All Levels Welcome — $15 / dancer

After the workshop please stay for:

Free Supervised Práctica — 9:00 - 9:30 pm

More on the Workshop + Using "Patterns" in Tango

In our own time, one of the most common ways to introduce newer dancers to Tango is to present them with a pattern of some kind — a pre-determined "routine" or sequence of "steps" to study, memorize, practice and perform.

On the social dance floor, however, the many movements, shapes, and ideas that unfold in Tango are completely fresh and improvised in the moment, giving dancers a rich and dynamic experience of spontanteous co-creation that can have almost no relationship to executing the "little choreography" of a typical pattern.

Indeed, in many instances, it can be difficult, inapporpriate, and even hazardous to try and use a given sequence of "steps" on our smaller, more crowded, and more dynamic dance floors. Yet if this is all that we know how to do, then our reliance on patterns can make Tango frustrating to dance and nearly impossible to enjoy.

In this 90-minute Exploding Patterns workshop, we will take on this thorny "problem" directly and investigate how to:

• Identify the building blocks of a familiar pattern — what its various components are, how it's put together, why it's made the way it is ...

• Propose and explore a number of strategies aimed at overcoming the limitations common to all patterns — how we can extract useful ideas, situations and relationships from a given sequence of "steps," then transform these elements into something new, fresh and original ...

• Find ever more effective ways to absorb, understand and practice the improvisational nature of Tango — a famous and elusive "essence" of the dance that helps make it such a potent and beguiling form of artistic expression.

• Lay claim to more of the underlying Core Principles that make Tango possible on the improvised social dance floor — how to notice what factors are involved, how to make them universal by taking them beyond any local example embedded within a pattern, and how to extend and apply these principles to other Tango situations — helping us to maximize what we already know, to invent and dance new shapes, ideas and arrangements with confidence.

Together, we will seek a place where we are much less beholden to a pre-determined sequence of "steps," no matter what their source, and ever more able to enter, explore and create our own unique and spontaneous expression of Tango — at will, in the moment, freed from the demands and restrictions of any pre-determined pattern or "routine," and more fully engaged in the famous improvisational flow the dance.

After this Tuesday Workshop, please stay for the Practica - 9:00 - 9:30 ...

Deb + Stephen will be on hand to answer your questions about anything Tango

For more Information about Learning + Dancing Tango in Nevada City:

Table Top Tango