My first tango festival: Falling head-over-heels in love with Tango Feast

My first tango festival was supposed to have been in the spring of 2020 – and we all know how that went! It was some 18 months later when I had the opportunity to finally participate in one. Steph said that The Feast was a very friendly one, so off we went to a very soggy Devon, sharing a residential caravan with Einat of Balanceo shoes fame, and Bridgitta.

It was such a magical event that nothing I could write would do it justice. Plus my sleep-deprived brain likely can’t even remember all the highlights, so view this blog post as just a very inadequate taster …

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Transforming London milongas, part 3: Creating more leaders

In part one of this series of thoughts on how we make London milongas a friendlier and more welcoming place, I invited leaders to make a habit of dancing one tanda with a stranger.

The reason I made this suggestion to leaders specifically is, of course, due to the imbalance between leaders and followers. So part three comprises my thoughts on how we might change this …

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Transforming London milongas, part 2: Dealing with perceptions of cliqueness

Some London milongas are perceived to be ‘cliquey.’ That may be one of those irregular verbs, depending on one’s relationship to the milonga in question, from first-time visitor to fixture: I have good friends; you’re a bit snobby about dance partners; they are a clique.

What I’m going to do here is look at what might lead people to feel that way, and some steps we can take to address it. There are a couple of things I think we can all do, and three steps I think milonga organisers can take …

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Transforming London milongas, part 1: The magic of the unknown dance partner

There’s a blog post I’ve been struggling to write for some weeks now, communicating some thoughts about issues on the London tango scene, and how we might address them.

The reason for the struggle is two-fold. First, and more trivially, it might be felt presumptuous for a three-year dancer to think he understands the problems, let alone has any idea how to solve them …

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