Sohum Sutras: 2nd Delhi Tango Festival

Tango Fireworks- Three days of passion in mystic India.

Hey Delhi people! Are you gearing up for this super exciting Tango festival happening in your very own Dilli? Whether you are dancing/learning tango or you are a beginner, do not miss this opportunity to take lessons and be a part of this fun filled 3 day festival.

Tango festival coming up- 26th Feb-28th Feb2016

You can see the pictures of the first festival in the gallery.

Roberto Massis and Elise Audras

Roberto Massis is an Argentinian. He started dancing since 1977. After he discovered his immense attraction for dancing, Roberto emerged in dancing as his passion and professional career.

Elise Audras is born in a little village named Etoile sur Rhone (Etoile means “star’ in French) in France in 1974. She started Classical Ballet in 1979, and moved to Modern Jazz and Contemporary in 1990.

Roberto and Elise met in Jordan. The beautiful connection between Roberto and Elise incited them to share their passion for dancing.

Elise joined Roberto as his Dance partner, both in Latin dances and Argentinian Tango.

Roberto and Elise teach and perform in Europe. They are both passionate about teaching and performing.

Students of their classes enjoy learning about musicality and music interpretation. They fully understand how to create the connection with the partner, deeply feel how their own body works, and achieve movements in a smooth and fluid way. They know how to create variations around a step, how to manage the space on the dance floor and improvise, while being able interpreting the Tango music more easily for a joyful moment of dance.

Students can expect detailed information about Tango technique, encouragement to exceed their own limits and personalised feedbacks, in a welcoming, enthusiastic and friendly environment.

Roberto established Argentine Tango in Jordan in 1998 and in Palestine in 2010.

He founded Roberto Dance Academy in 2009 in Amman.

Jorge Richards

Jorge Richards is a musician and tango instructor from Panama City, Panama. He started his musical studies as a young teenager with classical guitar. Tango came in the late 2010 to Jorge’s life by the hand from a devoted teacher that had just returned from Buenos Aires to reunite with her family, and quickly became a long life passion.

While working and studying a engineering degree Jorge had to strive to fulfil a strange calling that arouse from the Tango classes, and finally visited Buenos Aires in the year 2013 to know the real milonga landscape and study Tango guitar from the original source. Upon returning to Panama Jorge got together with some friends to start the TEP (Trio Experimental Panameño) to perform live tango in the Panamanian milongas in order to bring more people interested in dancing.

After many years of dedication, Jorge’s tango teacher had to leave to country in 2014 and he took the responsibility of keeping the tango community alive and sharing the knowledge of empowering people through Tango in a country in which not tango, but Salsa is the mainstream social dance. However Jorge’s cultural heritage could not be avoided the tango and salsa dancing got mixed up into a new and playful Salsango style that is fun and easy to grasp, given that you know Salsa and Tango.

After many years living in Panama, Jorge left the country to travel to Europe and India, looking for new adventures.

Oscar Wright

BOYHOOD RECOLLECTIONS OF TANGO MUSIC

Oscar Wright recalls as a boy, a great aunt in Mexico who would recount, with sweet nostalgia and glazed eyes, while listening to scratchy 33 LPs, the tango dances she attended in the 40s, “those days were magical...the elegance, the music”., she would muse

It is here that he began to love tango

Back in Texas, his father would take the family to Spanish language outdoor cinemas and among that potpourri of films were included some of the classic Argentina tango films.

At the age of 16 years he eagerly awaited every Thursdays at 7:00 PM for his favorite radio program being broadcast from a super station in Mexico called, “Reminiscencias Del Tango”

He would watch as his mother engaged in mesmerizing solo improvised tango dances

UNIVERSITY DAYS - INTRODUCTION TO ZEN

It was at the University of Texas that he began to study yoga and had his first exposure to Zen Buddhism. He engaged in a study of various dances. He eventually received a degree in Philosophy with a concentration in Epistemology.

Many years later, following a lifelong dream, he moved to Florence Italy where he finally began a serious study of tango with Argentines Igancio Elisari and Luciana Andres. He continued his studies in private lessons with competent teachers in France, Germany, Italy as well as other teachers from Argentina including some of the renown names customarily cited for credibility, i.e., Pablo Veron, Gustavo Naveira, Ricardo Barrios, Luis Castro. However, he eventually crossed paths with Mariachiara Michelli who would be his most influential teacher

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Mr. Wright began teaching in 1998 in Florence, Italy...he later taught in a number of cities in Italy including Milano and Rome….Later he returned to the United States where he taught in a number of cities including Austin, San Antonio, San Marcos and New Braunfells

He has taken his Zen Tango seminars to United States, Denmark, Romania, Germany and France, New Dehli India, Tuscany

LOVES TO DANCE !

But his success as a teacher is almost exclusively the result of lots and lots of dancing in milongas with dance partners of different sizes, ages, types, styles and abilities and applying classical methods of analysis,

“what makes a good dancer”,

“how do people learn”,

“what is the main problem in learning to dance tango”,

“what are the psychological impediments to learning to dance”,

“what is the essence of dance”,

“what is the essence of movement”...

PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING

He began to apply various psychological methodologies to help students overcome mental blocks in learning to dance especially the classical “performance anxiety”.

To this key problem he began to reflect on how certain psychological approaches might assist in this endeavor; in particular those of Carl Jung and Rudolf Steiner.

PRINCIPLES OF ZEN TO ASSIST IN LEARNING

He began to apply certain principles of Zen Buddhism like breathing and visualization, being in the present, meditation.

Eventually, these studies and reflections evolved into Zen Tango including key axioms like:

“you are already a dancer inside”,

“each dance step is in perfect equilibrium, in the present, in a pause”,

“your body is like the fine brush of an artist and in its movement you create colors”

EINSTEIN’S THEORY OF RELATIVITY

Mr. Wright reflected on how key concepts of physics might explain and assist in attaining excellence in tango movement. This included Einstein’s theory of relativity, both the special theory and the general theory to give insight into a tango movement in a period of space and time.

My Wright combined this with classical American principles of motivation in particular those of Zig Zieglar whose seminars he attended

WELL BEING THROUGH TANGO

Mr. Wright began to reflect on how these concepts might help turn tango into a whole system of mental well being reflecting on the nature of:

“what does it mean to be happy”,

“what does it mean to be serene”,

“how does one attain self confidence”.

Over the years, his Zen Tango evolved into a successful method eliciting comment like, “I had tried a number of times to learn tango with other teachers finally succeeding only with you”..

.He applied his method in teaching tango to people with Parkinson’s Disease

INVITED TO TEATRO COLON

In the fall of 2013, while dancing at a milonga in Rome, in the audience happened to be the reknown Argentinean orchestra leader and composer Armando Kreiger (friend and acquaintance to some of the legends of tango like Astor Piazzolla).

They soon became friends and Maestro Kreiger invited him to do a series of performances with the dance company of Arena of Verona and eventually (c. spring of 2015) to do a performance at the legendary Teatro Colon of Buenos Aires of which he is musical director.

In May of 2015 Maestro Krieger invited Mr. Wright to do a performance for the Embassy of Argentina at a major event at the Country Club Gandolfo near Rome

Maestro Krieger has invited Mr. Wright to dance with his orchestra in a forthcoming tour of various cities in the world

ONGOING STUDIES

Mr. Wright continues his studies through observation and reflection on the nature of tango and dancing and body movement; on the power of tango to ascertain:

ever more effective methods, principles expressed in metaphors to bring out the maximum excellence in a tango dancer

One major key is understanding human nature and how to motivate

Workshops with Roberto Massis & Elise Audras

Jorge Richards

Oscar Wright/ Zen Oscar Tango

Schedule:

Day 1. 26th Feb

Time 3.30-5 pm

Oscar Wright/ Zen Oscar Tango

1. Zen and Tango *(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWNJ6YBywZs)

Ikebana as a metaphor….Essentialness, Simplicity, Elegance, Power

Breathing and Visualization in Tango

powerful technique to help us become better dancers

Being in the present...dancing in the present moment

We speak about and concentrate on a precise point on the forefoot

….here we seek perfect equilibrium

……..”there is no future, there is no past”

The physiological aspects of body movement

it is in the human DNA
learning body movement

we are already dancers inside….
the therapeutic power in rhythmic body movement (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuFjzXMpRhY)

Perfect Equilibrium/Balance

perfect equilibrium on the outside *( leg supporting weight) and inside *(psychological….serenity, self assuredness)

renders power and flexibility in dance

Dancing The Stillness - (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OA0GWaiO9c)

Create colors as you dance (

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ITajvIaZI)

5-6.30pm, 6.30-8pm

Roberto Massis

2. Understanding Milonguero, Salon and Nuevo Styles

Technique and Musicality in Milonguero Style - Emphasis on Rhythmic Tangos employing turns.
Technique and Musicality in Salon Style - Emphasis on Romantic Tangos and the quality of the pause.
Technique and Musicality in Nuevo Style - Emphasis on Dramatic and Modern tango with possibilities of style mixing.

3. Musicality/Fast and slow dynamic. Management of orchestras.

Understand & Feeling of the music & its Melody.
Align your emotions & energy with the music rhythm.
Exploring the possibilities that different orchestras offer.

8-9.30 pm

Jorge Richards

4. From Gross to Subtle

Action from beginning to end, the purpose of this class is to develop awareness about the movement of energy in the tango dance. Many partners exercises, games and sequences designed to increase perception and sensitivity and apply it to the Tango Dance.

Day 2. 27th Feb

Time 3.30-5pm

Oscar Wright

1. The Power of The Tango Walk

*(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtwPLzlTLYo)

Changing of Weight

the leg that sustains the weight is in the present

the free leg moves first with maximum extension

then we move the torso - perpendicular: clean movement, essential…always seeking that magical perfect equilibrium.

The Tango Embrace - a defined and secure structure

tight and secure

in the present moment

united with the soul of your dance partner…”the soul of your dance partner is your shadow”
Hand Clasp - "Your soft hand is a woman of itself,/And mine the man’s bared breast she curls inside." *(Robert Browning)

Walking - The Powerful Use of Empty Space

Discover who you are inside - (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9bfugvrCG0)

body perpendicular….essential...simple...transparent...
with each step we seek the pause….” the pause is magical...feel the scent of life”

The Tango Walk With Your Partner (the power and the magic !)

Simple….Essential...comprised of two important elements...the pause and the present…
With a tight and secure embrace
- you lead with the proper psychological attitude….like actors on stage...the script says, “you are a tango dancer and you don’t doubt it”
- you must enter into role and character of being a tango dancer
- you lead by listening to the music..by immersing you soul in the music…in the present

Learning to give without expecting anything in return…”The Key To Real Love” *(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emCEFdq78Js)

5-6.30pm, 6.30-8pm

Roberto Massis

2.Volcada.

Effortless Volgadas: All Secrets of Volcada Technique
Connection with partner & embrace.
Mixing Volcadas, reverse Volcada with Ganchos & lifts

3. Vals musicality & dynamic.

Musicality and Dynamic Turns for Vals.
Spicing Up Your Vals: Creating Contrasts with Different Qualities of Movement.
Challenging Rhythms, Syncopation and Beyond.

8-9.30 pm

Jorge Richards

4.Crash course on Tango Music Theory and how to use it in our Dance.

Basic knowledge about music theory and the Tango Music. This class is focused on recognizing musical patterns as means to improve the interpretation and musicality of the dance.

Day 3. 28th Feb

Time: 1-2.30pm

Oscar Wright

Day 3 - COMMUNICATION

1. Relaxed and a rigid structure are both present in the same moment

Heraclitus - ”all existing entities are characterized by pairs of contrary properties"

Exercises to increase awareness of your partner

Interpreting the music through delicious pauses….”Possibility In Immobility”

Understanding your partner...listening to your partner *(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FOVivh8baY)

Overcoming fear and doubt

Dancing in Milonga….A Spiritual Exercise *(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIFyrGIceGg)

above all we teach people to dance in a manner which is essential, transparent, powerful
The essential steps and figures necessary to dance in a milonga…

practical suggestions for having success in a milonga...Proper Etiquette

How to ask someone to dance….how to accept...how to refuse...proper conduct….how to dress...how to overcome doubt...how to attain self confidence...how to be successful in a milonga

2.30-4pm

Jorge Richards

2. Tango Meditation. A touch of Yoga to our Tango practice, or backwards?

A workshop aimed at consolidating the knowledge of the previous classes in an attempt to experiece union and intimate conection in the tango embrace. How can it feel like to have 4 legs?

Time 4-5.30pm. 5.30-7pm

Roberto Massis

3. Colgada.