Thank You Everyone!!!

This festival was bigger than all of us! To say it was a success is not only redundant it is incomplete.

Thank you everyone!!!

The Tucson Tango Festival this year was a milestone, a landmark and a benchmark for what tango is, will be and always has been:
The best partner dance on the planet!
It will go forward for many of you (as well as us) as a touchstone and reminder of what tango truly is! We saw some lights go on for many of you demonstrating that you really GOT IT!! Isn’t that grand!

To say thank you feels contrite and ineloquent and yet, what else can we say? To thank each of you individually will take a lifetime. To thank you all now is paramount in our mind… so we must say a few by name really quick:
Thank you…
Judy Miller for all the media exposure and for filling the TTS beginner’s classes. They were an obvious success!
Sally Allison for giving us an Oscar at last nights hangover milonga and the flowers were beautiful.

Thank you to the volunteers and staff:
Class Hosts:
Summer, Sal and Fran
The registration desk:
Christine C, Arlene, Keith G, Joella, Ran, Richard C, Susan L, Joyce, Sally, Fran, Donna, Robin & Andi, Ashley
Absolute Beginners Classes:
Rommel Oramas, TTS Volunteers
Thanks to Daniella Borgialli for helping involve the ASU tango club!
Seminars:
Juan C. Lopez Tonazzi, Clay Nelson (Portland)
Door monitors:
Pablo, Kate, Andi, Keith, Robin, Joel, Richard C, Susan L, Donna, Arlene, Ran, Shey, Niki, Joyce
Floors:
David K, Miguel B, Brick, Frank
Monday Night Rides:
Mara Concordia, Arlene, Jane
Room Details:
Nick
Food and Errand Help:
Judy, Robin & Andi, Ashley
Monday Night Milonga Set Up:
Ron Terrazas, Reta
Musicality FREE Seminar:
Murat Erdemsel
Scholarship:
Patty & Jim Miller
Monday night Instructor BBQ
A special thanks to Robin and Andi (YOU ROCK) for taking over the cooking when things got overly hectic at the Instructors BBQ.
Another special thanks to Skip (from San Diego) for making an emergency trip to get a propane bottle that actually had propane in it.
Thanks to all for handing our fliers and letting us put them on tables at milongas and festivals all over the country!

Thank you Tucson Tango Society Board and Members for your support and involvement. We are tickled that the beginners classes were able to help raise funds. We look forward to future on-going collaborations for the benefit of the Arizona tango community.

Love, Light & Gratitude,
Rusty & Jo

Post 2010 Festival Thoughts

The festival proved this statement to be true:

What do you get when you have a room 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