Scouting tour notes (May 29-June 4)

Monday, June 2 Tango Con*Fusion fundraiser milonga @ La Cumparsita @ Slovenian Hall. This event was extremely well attended, which gave practicing/executing the steps Maestra Chelsea taught during the lesson quite challenging. The topic was changes of direction and the sequence was a linear, opened up molinete or grapevineish step, then a stop (with follower embellishment), then linked with a pivoted catch step to turn it around to face the other direction (toward the inside or facing the outside). The tango boutique was a blast, with lots of fun dance clothes, tango shoes mostly from Artesanal and NeoTango in sizes 8 & 9, CDs, books, jewelry and various other tango-themed items. The event raised enough for 2.5 airline tickets for the troop to attend the Queer Tango Festival; another event will be held later this year, likely in the East Bay. It was great to see everyone come out (especially the other maestros) and support this worthy cause. If you missed it, you can still donate $$ or miles.

Wednesday, June 4 Sacada and Volcada workshop with David Cadiz and Mayumi Fujio Morrow @ La Pista. We began with simple sacadas of various displacements of follower's left and right feet from basic open and close positions whereby leader walks into her space, and after which follower does low floor boleo (foot needs to be on the ground, no flying out--it looks bad). The small volcada we did was one that built on this, where leader leads follower's right leg to hook back behind her left leg, which causes left leg to pop forward. He then leads her left leg to step back out to resolution. Lots of technical discussion. Maestra emphasized the importance of core (abdominal) strength when doing the volcada, and the strength in the follower's left arm to push down on leader's right. We also did some volcada trust exercises (falling/leaning). Next two classes in this series are on June 11 and 25 (no class June 18).

Come join me:

Saturday, June 7 Arona Primalani & Rosa Corisco women's technique workshop on expressive feet.

Mark your calendars!

June 13-24 Omar Vega is coming to town! If you are a man, you should take his Men's Technique class (June 13 & 20). If you like his teaching style, you should go to the rest of his workshops (especially milonga). See the complete schedule at
http://omarvegasf.googlepages.com/omarvega_sf
and be sure to preregister if you can.

June 18-22 SFTX -- all sold out, but I was lucky to snag a spot. But wait!!! Many of the milongas are open to the public! Come check them out (see www.tangomango.org), especially the space milonga @ Cellspace.