Tango-Laboratory:

In the Tango Lab we want to provide a platform for exchange between all participants. So, let's practice and experience together, ask any stupid or intelligent question and show your opinion! The Tango Lab will be moderated by experienced tangueros and tangueras.

We are also interested in your suggestions. Therefore, if you think it's time to convey your very own tango philosophy, to reveal your latest trick or just to talk about your favorite tango, email us!

We're simply looking forward to our lab moderators and their interesting ideas!

Saturday, 19 July 2008
The Art of Improvisation Eric & Jantje
In the tango, we're always experimeting with the unknown. How will the next dance be? Will my vis-a-vis-partner get involved with me? What are we going to sense in both the music and the movement?
Tango is more than mere steps, that's as clear as mud.. Yet, sometimes it seems to be amazingly difficult to change or even omit wellknown movements. But is that the key? We need a structure within which we can find the space for development. In this lab we playfully want to explore how much space feels comfy for us, how we can extend it if necessary adding more improvised elegance to our dancing.
Eric Rainer (Berlin) Kontakt & Info
We're glad to have Eric again as a lab moderator! He had already surprised us at the past two camps with his unorthodox approach to teaching tango.
He's been dancing tango for eight years, and runs his own, successful studio Berlin-Kreuzberg (Studio 35). This year he organizes the regular open-air milonga 'La GloriBeta', every Saturday in Berlin, where he's also a sensitive and passionate DJ. His friendly and free-spirited personality made him an well-acknowledged and widely known figure of tango community. His lab will be the first one at the camp and we are also looking forward to see him again on Friday as part of the lab duo Eric and Hagen (on Saturday). Fun guaranteed....
Jantje Blatt(Berlin)Kontakt & Info
Jantje usually beams with joy which she radiates to all people around her. Having quickly become a well-known figure in Berlin's tango community, she teaches in different venues (e.g. at the Studio35). She keeps eagerly learning all techniques linked with tango, such as yoga, meditation as well as African dance. At the 2006 Phantastango she was just at the right place (in 2007 stay in Tanzania) - this year she also wants to give something new to the tango crowd. Jantje is convinced that a successful improvisation is not only a question of good leading... What secret will she reveal to us?
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Sunday, 20 July 2008
Mirjam / Bernd (Halle - Bremen)
In Argentina Chacarera is undoubtedly the No 1 of all folk dances. It's being danced in pairs in two facing rows, it's hilarious and funny with slight references towards wild Flamenco and the raging bulls of the Pampa.... (Download the choreography) Bernd Laudowicz (Bremen) is not only the funniest (and sometimes loudest) member of our team, but he's also been dancing all sorts of folklore. He has acquired a profound knowledge of it, which was even more deepened during his last six-month stay in Argentina.
Mirjam Trepte (Halle) simply loves Chacarera since she saw it on a milonga for the first time. Since then she hasn't missed a chance to get in on it...Kontakt & Info
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Monday, 21 July 2008
MilongueroJorga / Madleine (Berlin)
Heart to heart. Sometimes it takes a time to find the right position. It's well worth allowing on it. Changing roles builds up trust and understanding - then we can give weight. The number of possibilites evolving from that seems indefinite using the most simple steps. To warm ourselves up, we listen to the music as well as to our limps.. Once our body is awake and our soul linked with our pulse via the music, we connect our heart with our partner's.
Madeleine and Jorga are nomads in both tango and life. Voluntary gypsies as they are, they do not like the tango but also Flamenco. Their dance also incorporates the wisdom and beauty of Far-eastern art like Qu Gong and Kung Fu. You can look forward to an energetic and bright couple with a very particular expression in their dance.
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> Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Anti-AutomatismSabine Zubarik/ Devin McMahan (Erfurt/ Grandada Hills-USA)
If conditions in tango are not ideal (unknown partner, crowded dancefloor, stress...), we're tempted to quickly escape into automatized movements promising certainty, but also sometimes a feeling of boredom. Creative dancing doesn't only depend on the number of steps and figures we know, but more on how we can manage, combine, vary and interrupt the things we've learned. In this lab you'll have to master simple but nevertheless exercises, which should break your maybe all-too-fix tango patterns.
Sabine Zubarik (Erfurt) is a Tango-Junkie since 2005 and teaches at the Tango Argentino e.V. Erfurt and other places.Kontakt & Info
Devin McMahan (Los Angeles) lives and teaches in Los Angeles
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Wednesday , 23 July 2008
Effortless and Light DancingJohann Humbert (Bremerhaven)
Slowly I'm realizing that I grow older, but I still want to be able to dance for an evening once I turn seventy or eighty.
I'm convinced - no matter it's dancing in close or wide embrace, Neo or Milonguero style - that we can dance effortlessly using hardly any energy. I'd like to provide you with some tricks and exercises that should enable you to rampage floatingly with your partner through the tango.
Johann Humbert (Bremerhaven) dances since 1994 Tango, started to learn with Michael Domke and Gerrit Schüler, later with .... many different teachers. Teaches tango himself together with Heike Uffenbrink in Bremerhaven for five years. Kontakt & Info
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Thursday, 24 July 2008
DetoursDevin McMahan/ Sabine Zubarik (USA/ Erfurt)
Interestingly, some aspects of the dance can be taken in much more easily if you don't concentrate on them explicitly, but approch them on a slight detour. Let yourself surprise by a playfull approach to learning tango which might allow you new insights you wouldn't have discovered on a direct way.
Friday, 25 July 2008
Grounded Steps - Dancing Below the SurfaceEric Rainer Vehrs (Berlin)
This is the first part of the double lab: Grounded & Flying Steps.
We want to explore playfully how deep the tango can go... But be careful! This could develop to a bottomless pit! Grounded dancing has many facets. How can you connect yourself with Mother Earth and at the same time with the rest of the universe? Where does the energy for the dance come from and how does it flow through your body? Why do we need a good basis in order to detach ourselves from it? Where should the dance lead us to, or do we only wish to come back to ourselves. The turn is circular, a dance usually lasts for more than 90 seconds. So far everything is clear - all the rest is mere theory.....
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Saturday, 26 July 2008
Flying Steps - Flying instead of JumpingHagen Schröter (Loft Berlin)
This is the second part of the double lab. Based on the 'good' grounding as showed by Eric, we want to try whether we can take off a little bit without having the wax melt on our wings...
Hagen Schröter (Berlin) Kontakt & Info
After spoiling us with a mainly classical tango sound as a DJ on Thursday, he would like to prove now that this is absolutely not due to his rejecting of new ideas.
Hage has been dancing for more than eight years on an almost daily basis and for the past three years he deals with it 'fulltime'. Despite that teaching for him is not a job but a passion. His teaching is shaped by a sound knowledge of the body and its ways to move as well as the abiltity to explain very complex aspects using easily graspable images.
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