Oxygen Dancers Perform & Keep it Real

by Holly Darling

Our school philosophy is that preparing for public presentations is a great way to energize your practice in a way that improves the quality of your social dancing. Dancers in recital-oriented programs this term put in hours and hours of focused work in class and at Practica. Sergul, for instance, hit 133 class hours! Johnny didn’t miss a practica for 3 months! This dedication glowed when they danced with their partners.

What moves me the most is that these dancers are focused on all the right things — the process, the quality of their partners’ experiences, the success of the whole team.  There is a sense that we all know how much we have yet to learn! Congratulations to the achievements, humility, and devotion of Team 2R1, the newest Tango Challenge Alumni!

Sergul Aydore, Bruce Blair, John Murray, & Johnny Nguyen

The song they chose, "Buscandote" of Fresedo, was a warm and lovely piece and they evoked its sweetness with their parnters Hector, Katya, and Caelyn. I personally loved witnessing the dancers’ sophisticated musical debate during the week, over the final song selection!

Thank you for working hard and making such a contribution to the Tango community through your process and your dancing. It has been an honor for Oxygen to play a part in your path.

Beginning dancers weren’t the only ones who worked hard this term. In the school’s first Mini-Apprenticeship, fourteen dancers trained in traditional Salon style with our resident Salon champions, Brian and Yuliana.

In Monday night’s presentation of their work, it was touching for me to see a dancer who only months before had confessed to me he felt he would never find a partner, embrace his partner and share a beautiful, connected, musical performance.

We held a friendly competition for an opportunity to perform at December's Oxygen Milonga and I’m thrilled to announce that the class will be represented by Joan Shum & Charles Lucas

The Mini-Apprenticeship involved learning 9 historical figures, signature moves that represent 9 different Tango dancers from Argentine Tango’s history.

In addition to learning traditional roles, Yukiko Sato & Devin McMahan learned all the moves in their non-traditional roles too, and performed both ways. It was thrilling to see Yukiko lead Devin so skillfully AND hit a fabulous musical variacion! With Yukiko as leader, Yukiko and Devin scored 2nd highest in the class and will perform publicly at Practica Libertad on December 23rd!

Applause also to Reza & Yulia, Vincent & Shasha, Alex & Katya, Eva, Rose, and Steve & Anna for all the effort, practice, curiosity, youtube research, support of one another, and attention to detail these weeks!

If you want to find out how you can be a part of the Oxygen Tango Challenge or Brian & Yuliana’s USA Championship Class please visit our website!