Post 2010 Festival Thoughts

The festival proved this statement to be true:

What do you get when you have a milonga full of salon, milonguero and nuevo dancers?

A community!

The 2010 Tucson Tango Festival just ended for the community at 12:30 AM on March 9th. For Joanne and I it will end tomorrow afternoon… then we will sleep all day Wednesday.

I learned some very valuable things this year:

• Say Yes!
  If I had not said yest to so many peripheral and last minute ideas, this festival would not have been such a success.
• Delegation works!
  I used a different tact this year, I said, “Do you understand?” they said, “Yes.” I said, “Good because I won’t check on this. It is all up to you to make it happen and I walked away.” 99% of what I asked happened!
• Listen!
  Sometimes I knew the answer before the question was even asked. But it aways helped to hear the answer and the proposed solution – it makes everyone feel better… and I did so happen to learn a thing or two.
• Give love first!
  As Murat said at the round table on opening night: It is easy to be bad or mean. It takes effort to be virtuous. He is right. I gave a special effort to be kind, thoughtful and loving through out the festival and it seems to have worked! And the reward I have received are ten times the amount of effort it took.

Thanks to everyone for all of your love support and help!

Love & Gratitude,
Rusty

Arizona Daily Star Helps Announce Festival!!

Thanks to Natalia Lopera (and Judy Miller) at the Arizona Daily Star we are getting lots of inquiries and interest in tango…

Only two more weeks and we will be in full swing at the Tucson Tango Festival.

See you all soon!
Love-Light-Gratitude,
Rusty

Latest Tucson Tango Festival Updates 2010

Remember the Early Bird Discount expires on February 18th!

Winter Showers bring Spring Flowers!!
Tucson is getting rain right now! Rain in January and February is always followed by the wonders of a desert in bloom. This means you can expect the gardens at the Tucson Tango Festival Venue to be a heavenly bouquet of sweet citrus fragrances! Nothing beats the aroma of blooming grapefruit and orange trees!!
The temperature is predicted to be 72° to 75° F
While the music, tandas and abrazos promise to be a blazing 98.6° F
Remember the Early Bird Discount expires on February 18th!
Book Your Rooms Now as the Room Block Discount is Expiring Today!!!

Gender Balance: Leaders 47% Followers: 53% not too bad!! – Bring on the men ladies!!!
Come guys, climb aboard! (I listed this backward last time, this time it is accurate)

The Tucson Tango Festival is excited to announce a high energy performance by:
Vladamir Estrin and Meng Wang
This Hilarious Male Duo will tickle your funny bone. You may run out and buy the latest copy of “Tango Dog and Pony Tricks” and begin to practice immediately!
Seriously, this partnership cannot be taken seriously!
All in good fun with blazingly hilarious technique, this uproarious performance is sure to bring a smile to your face and light to your heart!
Saturday Night at the Gran Milonga
Meng, Vladamir and Varo tell me they are being followed to Tucson by an outstanding Los Angeles tango contingent!!!

World Class Guitarist: Gabriel Ayala Live at the Tucson Tango Festival!
Gabriel Ayala will play three songs for us at eh afternoon milonga between 3-7:PM on opening day Thursday, March 4th. This is a must hear artists! A real treat for our festival guests!

Tango Rapper: Momo Smitt performs at the alternative milonga:
Momo was recently smitten by the tango bug, so it overlapped into his singing and writing career as a rapper. Momo has recently wowed them in Portland, Austin and Houston tango festivals. Now he will grace the alternative milonga at the Tucson Tango Festival with a couple of his own compositions of “tango rap”… you gotta catch this outrageous performance! P.S. Momo is learning tango and he will be studying tango at the workshop classes.

Tucson Ambassador Program is in Full Swing:
When you arrive in Tucson expect to be greeted by any one of our scores of local ambassadors. We are here to make you feel at home. Our local tango community have all pulled together to make sure you have help if you need it. If you need information, dinner rides or even a tanda, you will be greeted and treated like a welcome guest!

Master’s Round Table Discussion – invitation only:
We have invited every instructor in Arizona to join us in a discussion of tango community building and instruction.
In hopes of helping local instructors improve their local tango education, we posed these topics to the master instructors:

• Top five essential tango techniques that should always be taught!
• Foundational tango techniques you commonly find missing in the tango communities you visit? This is an opportunity to say: I really wish more local tango instructors addressed “this or that” – share with us deficits you find in outlying tango communities.
• Any ideas and advice to increase tango growth and comprehension.
• What percentage of instruction should be patterns or figuras verses technique and musicality?
• Share with us your pet peeves in social tango.

Joining us at the round table will be the master instructors at this year’s festival:

• Oscar Casas
• Mary Ann Henderson
• Murat Erdemsel
• Michelle Erdemsel
• Daniela Pucci
• Luis Bianchi
• PLUS: Clay Nelson of Ashland Tango Festival, Tangofest & Valentango in Portland
• All of our Spotlight Instructors: Varo Boyajyan, Jay Abling, Amanda Archuleta and Daniela Borgialli
• Arizona’s Tango Instructors, Organizers and Community Builders

Any Instructor at the festival that wants to participate – just drop us an email.
If you are a community builder, organizer or instructor and would like to attend send us an email to get your invitation.

The Guerrilla Milonga is SOLD OUT!

We are ready now and awaiting your arrival. We have almost everything done, Joanne and I plan on being able to dance more at this year’s festival – Hey what’s the point in having a festival on our own door step if we can’t dance, too? Save us a tanda!!! See you in three weeks!!!

Lovingly Lit,
Rusty
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness. – Bertrand Russell
We have visitors from:

Albuquerque, NM
Asheville, NC
Ashland, OR
Aurora, CO
Austin, TX
Basalt, CO
Berkeley, CA
Beverly Hills, CA
Boston, MA
Boulder, CO
Buenos Aires, AR
Carefree, AZ
Cave Creek, AZ
Centennial, CO
Chandler, AZ
Chicago, IL
Deerfield, WI
Denver, CO
Elfin Forest, CA
Encinitas, CA
Englewood, CO
Eugene, OR
Evanston, IL
Flagstaff, AZ
Fountain Hills, AZ
Glendale, AZ
Glendale, CA
Hailey, ID
Hollywood, CA
Henderson, NV
Houston, TX
Lafayette, CA
Las Cruces, NM
Little Rock, AR
Littleton, CO
Los Angeles, CA
Madison, WI
Mesilla, NM
New York, NY
Palm Springs, CA
Paradise Valley, AZ
Pasadena, CA
Parkville, MD
Phoenix, AZ
Portland, OR
Roseville, CA
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA
Sandia Park, NM
Santa Fe, NM
Scottsdale, AZ
Sedona, AZ
Spokane Valle, WA
Takoma Park, MD
Tempe, AZ
Toms River, NJ
Tucson, AZ
Twentynine Palms, CA
Washington DC
Westminster, CO
Whitney, TX
Williamstown, MA

Virginia Gift & Maria Finn Book Signing

Virginia Gift author of Tango – A history of Obsession will be at the Tucson Tango Festival signing her book for the attendees! This is a fantastic read with great histories of the music and songs we all dance to.