Iceland Tango Events
Tango Adventure plans workshops with visiting instructors in both tango and salsa and also announces other tango events in Iceland. New special events are posted on the homepage, and see the calendar for what's on at a glance. On this page we've listed some past events Tango Adventure has sponsored.
Past Tango Adventure Guests
2009
Helen "La Vikinga"
Helen "La Vikinga" is one of Iceland's own, but has been living and teaching in Sweden and more recently in Buenos Aires for the past 15 years. As well as running a milonga and tango school in Buenos Aires, Helen is also a designer of her own line of "La Vikinga" tango shoes. She visited us in June with workshops in tango, milonga and the Argentine folk dance, chacerera.
Read more about Helen and her activities on her website.
Özgur Demir
Özgür Demir is from Turkey where he started his tango training 8 years ago. Since then he moved to Buenos Aires to study with the masters and has earned an international teaching certificate from Acosiacion de Maestros, bailarines y coreografos de tango Argentino.
Özgur was here in Iceland for 3 months holding regular classes as well as weekend workshops. His emphasis was on promoting tango as a social dance that is comfortable and accessible to everyone.
See more information on Özgur's own website.
2008
Matias Facio and Claudia Rogowski
Matias Facio and Claudia Rogowski are familiar names in the tango world. Matias is from Argentina and has been performing and teaching in many prestigious festivals, including Tangomagia in Amsterdam and Siracusa in Italy. Claudia organizes a yearly tango marathon in Berlin, which is attended by high level dancers from Europe and beyond. Matias and Claudia were well received in Iceland and gave us a performance at the elegant Hotel Borg Golden Hall and taught several workshops during the week they were here.
Here you can see some videos of Matias and Claudia dancing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1apJHhvORU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySScraJa6T8&feature=related
Marcelo Gutiérrez "El Chino"
Marcelo, better known as El Chino, is a well known as a performer and teacher both in his home town of Buenos Aires as well as in Europe. His unique teaching style emphasizes the "feel" of tango, and the impression of this writer is that he has an uncanny ability to impart his knowledge to his students without complicated explanations. The theme of several of his workshops was simply "quality of movement" and this is a much needed subject that is often overlooked by dancers eager only to add more steps to their repertoire.
See more about El Chino on his website.
2007
Alejandro "Lucho" Lucero
Lucho is a respected up and coming dancer and teacher from Mar del Plata, Argentina, which is popular with tourists for its beaches and tango. It is near enough to Buenos Aires that Lucho has had the opportunity to study with the tango greats - Mariano "Chicho" Frumboli, Fabian Salas, Sebastian Arce and Gustavo Naveira - as well as local tango artists from Mar del Plata. Read more about Lucho on his website.
Lucho visited in December with workshops in a variety of techniques, including tomadas and sacadas, colgadas and volcadas and men's and women's adornments.
Kamila Jezierska & Kamila Romana Jankowska
We were so lucky to have 2 surprise guest instructors from Poland, Kamila Jezierska & Kamila Jankowska, who offered classes in contact improvisation during the weekend that Lucho visited. As tango is also an improvisational dance, many modern tango dancers are discovering the benefits of practicing contact improvisation, and we were happy to be able to offer this to our students.
Svana Valsdóttir
Svana
is an Icelander who caught the tango bacteria 6 years ago while living in
Copenhagen. Since then, she has spent several months of each year in the heartland
of tango, Buenos Aires, studying with various tango teachers and dancers.
Most notably, she has been learning the past 3 years with tango maestro Gustavo
Naveira and his partner, Giselle Anne, who are among the most respected tango
teachers and dancers worldwide. Svana led the workshop and practica at Næsti
Bar during them months of September and October.
Moneir Bardai
Tango dancer and multi-discipline performance artist Moneir Bardai from Amsterdam visited Iceland in August for a performance and a workshop in Milonguero and Tango Nuevo. His performance, on Reykjavík's Culture Night - Menningarnótt, is called My Name is Tango, about a storyteller who sings and dances his way through the evolution of tango. See more info about Moneir on his website.
Per Berséus
Per Berséus was in Iceland for most of July and part of August, and initiated a number of tango events with Maria Shanko during that time. Together, they hosted a weekly workshop and guided practica, as well as introducing the concept of Queer Tango to Iceland, where everyone switches roles between leading and following. In addition, they performed and instructed at several special cultural events both in Reykjavík and in some small villages around Iceland.
Per teaches tango at Tangokompaniet in Sweden, and also maintins his own website, tango conTacto. Here is a bit about Per's background.
Dirk Apitz
Tango dancer and instructor Dirk Apitz visited Iceland from Bonn, Germany and offered a series of classes during the first 5 days of June. Dirk is well known in the tango festival scene in Europe, and has studied tango with some of the best teachers in Buenos Aires during his long stay there.
In Iceland, he focussed on musicality, and was especially appreciated for helping us practice our basic technique. His course on Women's Technique was very popular and we all came away feeling like better dancers!
Daniel Carlsson
Daniel Carlsson is one of the most experienced tango teachers in Scandinavia and has been teaching and dancing tango for 13 years in 9 countires with his base in Öresund. Daniel's tango is playful and this is something he wants to let others try. See his website here: www.tangokompaniet.com and more information in English here.
Daniel visited Tango Adventure on the weekend of May 11-13 and lead several workshops in musicality, neuvo style, and other techniques.
Luca Lamberti
Tango dancer, teacher and DJ Luca Lamberti from Rome paid us a visit March 3-10. During that time he held workshops in tecnica for all levels, as well as workshops in volcadas, tango vals, and a free introduction to tango workshop. Luca also perfomed for an event with Maria Shanko, who also assisted him in the workshops. As Luca is a regular DJ in Rome and a guest DJ in other cities, he provided the music for us at a milonga at Hotel Borg. During his visits to the milongas throughout the week, he was very generous with helping the other dancers, both male and female, and we are very grateful for that!
For more information about Luca, visit his website or check out his CV in Icelandic or Italian.
2006
Tango/Salsa with Ehsan Shariati
Ehsan Shariati was the first guest teacher invited to Iceland by Tango Adventure, in December 2006. He held workshops in tango, milonga con traspie and salsa, and we had tango/salsa parties two nights in a row to celebrate.
Ehsan is the main teacher at Studio-K in Uppsala, Sweden. When he visited Iceland, he had just returned from Buenos Aires and Cuba and we appreciated his sharing his inspiration with us.