Nóra and Botond
Hungary
Botond and Nóra as key members of the Hungarian tango community and representatives of Club Tango Infusion have been dancing tango for 14 years together. Both of them started dancing in the Hungarian Argentine Tango Dance Theater and participated in several dance shows such as Tango Express, Soul Strings, Seasons in Buenos Aires, Tango Like!, Flavors and Colors, Donna Lucretia’s House, Contangos, Tango No Tango. The former ballet dancer Nora’s lightness well fits to Botond’s dynamism which is well integrated with his prior contemporary dance studies, music play experiences and martial art skills. Continuity, flow, constant perception of each other’s movement, awareness, saving style and crossing borders of traditions: these are the main features of Botond and Nora’s dance. Their charming improvisation is highly innovative, tender and harmonic. They use electronic, and sometimes hard rock/heavy metal songs for their shows, which are considered difficult to dance to by others.
Irena and Uroš
Slovenia
Uroš Andič and Irena Čugalj are passionate teachers. Their lessons are profound and creative in many ways, guiding dancers to think out of the box, try new things and experiment. They focus on organic movement and clear communication, to make the movements safe and easy. These technics lead dancers to harmonized tango improvisation.
Uroš started to teach tango 22 years ago after he returned from his overseas practice and later opened an Institute of dancing arts Vija Vaja in Ljubljana. Irena started to dance tango fifteen years ago.
They are both deeply dedicated to this dance for its limitless creativity and enthusiastic to share their knowledge with care and attention to individuals, in order to make the difference in your dance.
Rebeka and Hrvoje
Croatia
Rebeka has been dancing for as far as she can remember.
Her formal dance education started when she was 8, at a social dance school. Very soon she started competing and winning awards with her partner at various dance competitions. Her new dance adventure started when she enrolled at the Contemporary Dance School Ana Maletić in Zagreb.
In the next 5 years she was growing as a dancer and dance pedagogue through various workshops of contemporary dance techniques, ballet, dance methods...
After finishing her secondary school of contemporary dance she studied psychology, and led dance and rhythmic classes for children, danced for the Youth Ensemble of the Contemporary Dance Studio, danced Khatak (traditional Indian dance), riverdance and salsa.
Somewhere in that period, she started flirting with the Argentine tango, which grew into a true love affair 4 years ago, in the Zagreb Libertango dance club. Being an experienced contemporary dancer, she was immediately attracted to neo/contemporary tango. Today she is running tango classes at the Tango Experiential Club, organizing neolongas and Tango Experiential Festival. Her desire is to connect her two great loves - dance and psychology.
Hrvoje started dancing in 2004, with Latin and standard dances. Many years of competing in these sport dances created the basis in which he incorporated elements of salsa, jazz dance, ballet... and tango.
He started dancing tango in Italy in 2009. His dancing style was most strongly developed in Great Britain where he was influenced by contemporary/neo tango and Argentinian teachers. In his dancing style, you can see all the dances he got in touch with.
Together with his friends, he started Tango Experiential Club in 2014 in Zagreb, within which he has been running dance courses, organizing dance evenings and Tango Experiential Festival.
Of all of his teachers, he has the greatest appreciation for his dancing partners who had enough patience for his novel ideas and mistakes.
He plays neo-tango music on the regular neolongas in Zagreb as well as on some international marathons.
Apart from dance, as of 1999 Hrvoje has been engaged in various self-development disciplines, which you can taste at the Tango Experiential Festival.
Jeanette and Leszek
United Kingdom
Jeanette Williams comes from Wales in the UK and has been dancing since a child, with her first training in ballet to a Professional/Teaching level. With extensive training in other genres, Jet travelled the world working as a Dancer and Showgirl in both TV and Theatre. She owns her own International Company employing dancers and placing Production Shows all over the Globe. She currently teaches tango in the UK. We are delighted to have her at our festival to share her innovative, elegant and intriguing moves with us :).
Leszek J Smolarek has been taught by various Argentine tango maestros during his 15 years in development. He helped establish Tango de la Rosa in Bristol, Bradford on Avon and Bath UK. Assisting the teaching of classes gave a deeper understanding of the art of tango. Opening Leszes Tango school was the natural progression, opened in Bath UK in 2015. He organizes a regular Monthly Milonga in Bath UK with occasional live bands. Lesz’s aim is to simplify the learning path for students perfecting in technique and musicality. To introduce fun in learning Argentine tango for leaders and followers with no added pressure, individual attention whenever possible. Lesz has been dancing Argentine tango since 2003, takes the lead role in the class. He has danced in Buenos Aires, Italy, France Poland & Canada.
Isabelle and Thierry
France
Isabelle and Thierry are dancers with a large dancing background, mainly in swing dances (lindy hop, balboa, charleston, shag), blues - both traditional and alternative (fusion music, ...) , tango (both traditional and neo), and salsa...
When dancing neo-tango, they like above all enriching their dance with whatever body move or dancing steps, coming from another dance universe - especially from blues dancing, each time the music calls for it.
At Tango Experiential Festival they will lead a blues workshop. The objective for this taster is to open neo-tango dancers' minds to blues moves and make them understand how the blues connection works so that they can start using it in their tango dance.
Michal
Czech Republic
Michal started with Argentine tango by accident about seven years ago when he has been attended to improvising theatre where the tango was used as a means of communication between the actors. This experience characterizes his dancing style that is energic and expressive, like acting. In the course of time, he expanded his dancing experiences mainly for Brazilian Zouk which he is used to mixing together with tango because some Zouk elements enriching the Tango by some fluent body moves, waves, and shapes that perfectly fits a large variety of modern music. In "traditionalist" Prague he belongs to few "black sheeps" that organize neo-tango events or parties focused on zouk-tango fusion.
Urša
Slovenia
Urša dances tango for ten years and founds it as a great form of dancing, yet also as a base for a further experiment, especially combined with Contact impro. She has a rich dance background as a contemporary dancer and long term experience in aerial silk performing and teaching. Over 20Y she develops her own unique design trademark Dilight (also tango clothes). This year she organized first Contact tango event with Argentinian CT teacher Lucho in Ljubljana.
https://www.facebook.com/events/2217903521669435/. In the near future, she would like to organize a contact-tango meeting in Slovenia and Croatia also.
Sebastian Mayer
Germany
Was a freestyle and Contact Dancer most of his life until his two best girlfriends forced him to learn Tango Argentino. After some years of suffering it became partly pleasant and after few more years even joyful. What excites him most is to play and explore with his dance partner into unknown fields interpreting the music and human connection. His background of teaching is being a Feldenkrais Trainer for more than 25 years. He is the organizer and teacher of the ContacTango Summercamp in Tuscany and Munich Contactango Festival.
Max Herzog
Germany
Max discovered his passion for Tango in his mid-20's (so not too long ago... ;)). Having a background in ballroom dancing and Rock'n'Roll, he found a profundity coupled with technical intricacy in the Tango that was lacking in other types of dance. Leaning more towards the "freer" end of the Tango-spectrum, i.e. Neo-/Non, elements of Contact Impro proved to both supplement and enrich his 'take' on dancing.
You can find him on Milongas in Tübingen and Stuttgart as well as on (Neo-)Marathons all over Germany and Central Europe.
Ralph Byrszel
Germany
Ralph is in charge of a drum session. He has been dancing tango for 14 years, playing the guitar for 47 years, drum and percussion for 35 years. You are invited to experience a slice of his wide knowledge and bring your own energy and inspiration.