Book review: the Tango Effect

The Tango Effect front cover

If you read my newsletter, or follow me on Twitter, you might remember me mentioning Kate Swindlehurst’s “The Tango Effect: Parkinson’s and the healing power of dance”, when it was still crowdfunding on Unbound. I received my copy back in March, just before lockdown started and it’s been a while now that I have wanted to share my thoughts about it. The book is part personal memoir, as the author...

Under a sky of stars – tango in Nice

Nice at night

There’s something about dancing outside. When I go to an indoor milonga, I often feel as if I am stepping into another world. Outdoors it’s there, beside everyday life, often surrounded by non-dancers who watch or are simply going about their daily life. In an open square, in a park, or as I experienced when I was in Nice, under an arcade and outside a museum. Maybe I think it’s...

Thoughts on dancing tango in Buenos Aires

Subte station with Jacaranda, Buenos Aires

I bought my first pair of tango shoes in Buenos Aires, black and silver with the smallest heels they had at Flabella on Suipacha street. I danced my first tango in my new shoes on my last night at Maldita Milonga in the dimly lit Buenos Ayres Club on Peru street. Earlier that day, I had seen El Afronte playing at the San Telmo Market and when I bought their...

Three milongas in Montevideo

While many will argue that the tango was born in Buenos Aires, there is a quite a bit to suggest that its roots can also be traced back to the other side of the Rio de la Plata, in Montevideo. The world’s most famous tango, La Cumparsita, was composed by a Uruguayan. There is a week long festival in Montevideo every year to commemorate it and next year will be...

So many milongas, so little time: a Berlin tango diary

I am posting this MUCH later than expected but it is also the longest post I’ve written here so far. It is difficult to do justice in words and pictures to the many wonderful moments I experienced during ten intense days and nights of dancing tango in Berlin but I will try by sharing some of them with you below …...