Past events
Here are some of the events we've hosted in 2011:
Christmas Party
Event description
As another year comes to its wintry close, we'd like to invite you to one last special event: the Rojo y Negro Christmas party!
For this year's Christmas party, we welcome Pastor Jurado with his guitar.
Pastor Jurado
Pastor and Bianca were teaching and dancing together a long time ago (the photo dates back 10 years) before he moved back to Buenos Aires. Pastor is currently in London and it will be great to do something together again and share it with all of you.
Programme
| Time | Description |
|---|---|
| Contact us with any questions about the event or venue. | |
| 7:00-8:00pm | Beginner class, as usual |
| 8:15-9:30pm | Intermediate and advanced workshop with Bianca and Pastor |
| 9:30pm-1:00am | Milonga; dancing until late sweet surprises music with Pastor on guitar, singing performance by Bianca and Pastor best dress award… |
Venue
Dress code: father Christmas!
Special guests: Andres Sautel and Celeste Medina
Event description
Celeste Medina from the world-touring tango show Forever Tango, and Andres Sautel are our special guests this evening at milonga Poema.
They will be teaching this evening's intermediate/advanced class with a twist on giros, with enrosques and adornos. Stay into the evening hours when they perform for us, around 10:30pm.
Programme
| Time | Description |
|---|---|
| Contact us with any questions about the event or venue. | |
| 7:00-8:00pm | Beginner class with Bianca, as usual |
| 8:00-9:30pm | Intermediate class with guest teachers Andres Sautel and Celeste Medina Giros, enrosques and adornos |
| 9:30-12:30am | Milonga, with a performance by Andres and Celeste around 10:30pm |
Venue
Special guest: Diego Calarco
Event description
Diego Calarco, one of our great friends from Argentina, is in London and is our guest, performing at our milonga on Thursday the 27th, followed by three energetic workshops on Sunday the 30th.
Thursday programme: 27th October
| Time | Description |
|---|---|
| Contact us with any questions about the event or venue. | |
| 7:00-8:00pm | Beginners class, with Bianca, as usual |
| 8:15-9:30pm | Special workshop with Bianca and Diego |
| 9:30pm-12:30am | Milonga, with performance by Bianca and Diego around 10:30pm |
Venue
Sunday programme: 30th October
| Time | Description |
|---|---|
| Contact us with any questions about the event or venue. | |
| 2:45-4:00pm | Workshop 1: Milonga Traspié Study of rhythmical structure of milonga and fun rhythmical sequences for dance floor |
| 4:00-5:15pm | Workshop 2: Musicality Analysis of music structure of Tango and developing ability to apply correct rhythm to your sequences and how to be playful with rhythm for both, leaders and followers |
| 5:30-6:45pm | Workshop 3: Mecanica de Ganchos This workshop will start with technique for ganchos and then expand to explore different ways of leading different types of ganchos , from leaders to followers ganchos |
Venue
Day of workshops with Roberto Bolletin
Event description
Roberto Bolletin is our special guest teacher from Argentina this week. Some of you may remember him from one of our previous TangoRojo festivals and other special events. Roberto's speciality is the mesmerising Villa Urquiza style of Tango.
Programme
| Time | Description |
|---|---|
| Contact us with any questions about the event or venue. | |
| 3:00-4:30pm | Workshop 1: Milonga Traspié This workshop is unmissable if you want to improve your musicality/rhythm and learn few milonga tricks from Roberto, who dances it amazingly. |
| 4:45-6:15pm | Workshop 2: Interesting sequences with boleos This workshop will start with boleo technique and then expand on exploring different ways of leading different types of boleos—from traditional to modern. |
| 6:30-8:00pm | Workshop 3: Interesting sequences with ganchos This workshop will start with technique for ganchos and then expand to explore different ways of leading different types of ganchos—from traditional to modern, from ladies' to mens' ganchos. |
Venue
Tango concert with Violentango
Event description
Violentango, a world-renowned Tango band are touring the world. On their way to Glastonbury, they're stopping over at Latvian House for a concert and to present their new album Rock de Nylon, exclusively at Rojo y Negro Tango club.
Do not miss this concert under any circumstances, Tango bands of this calibre don't pass through London every day!
Artist background
Following 16 tours in the last six years and more than 25,000 CDs sold, Violentango continue their world tour to perform in 50 concerts programmed between June and September, including England, where they are invited to play in the famous Glastonbury festival.
The Rock de Nylon concept is based on bringing real and passionately performed Tango to every culture, by setting aside the existing concept of Tourist Tango. Violentango retain the roots and soul of the genre but bring a completely new approach and vision.
This, their 4th album, contains a majority of the band's own compositions and displays an exciting new style of Tango, in which the listeners will find themselves becoming more and more involved.
Violentango. Rock de Nylon. People's music. Mix of cultures. Influenced by immigrant working classes at the end of the nineteenth century. Worker's songs, essentially revolutionary.
- The Band:
- Juan Manuel Lopez / Andres Ortega on guitars
- Adrian Ruggiero on bandoneon and guitar
- Santiago Córdoba on percussion
- Ricardo Jusid on bass
Programme
| Time | Description |
|---|---|
| Contact us with any questions about the event or venue. | |
| 7:00-8:00pm | Beginner class |
| 8:00-9:30pm | Mixed-level class |
| 9:30pm-12:30am | Milonga with live music concert by Violentango |
Venue
Special Guests: Pablo Nievas and Valeria Zunino
Event description
Pablo Nievas and Valeria Zunino are our special guest couple this week. They are with us for only our Thursday evening milonga, and will be running the evening's mixed-level workshop (8:00–9:30pm), followed by a performance later in the evening. If you're not sure how important it is to be there, make sure to read their impressively long CV below.
See a clip of Pablo and Valeria dancing on YouTube.
Artist background
Internationally renowned dancers and teachers, Pablo and Valeria are on of the most solid and attractive couples among the new generation of Tango dancers.
Because of their unequalled artistic interpretation, technical precision and musicality, they have been invited to perform throughout the world, as well as in the most famous milongas of Buenos Aires.
A true educational calling has led them to develop extraordinary teaching skills with an emphasis placed on communicating ideas and concepts with clarity.
Pablo and Valeria are among the best masters and dancers in Milonga Lisa and traspié. Other professional dancers and students look to them for serious improvement of this rhythm.
Amongst their many achievements, they have developed a revolutionary teching technique known as common sense applied to body biomechanics, which summarises their twenty years of exposure to Tango and physical training.
They have performed together with famous orchestras, such as: Color Tango, Sexteto Sur, Narcotango, Los Reyes del Tango, Beba Pugliese orchestra, Quinteto Angel and Silencio orchestra.
They have taught together in many diverse places: Torquato Tasso, Salon Dandi, El Morocco and now they teach in Confiteria Ideal.
They have produced and co-ordinated five instructional DVDs.
Pablo Nievas
Pablo has studied with famous teachers in Buenos Aires, like: Rodolfo y Maria Cieri and the great dancer Pepito Avellaneda.
Pablo was Pepito's assistant for some years, and later, when Pepito died, he assisted Suzuky Avellaneda in her lessons. Ath this moment, he filmed with her the famous video “30 advanced steps to dance milonga” that can be bought on the Internet. Besides this, he studied to be a professor of physical education.
Pablo has been teaching Tango and performing for twenty years.
Valeria Zunino
Valeria started training in classical ballet and flamenco and later she got into the prestigious Esscuela Nacional de Danzas Clasicas de la Republica Argentina.
Valeria is a tireless investigator of the physical training and dancing. That's why she still continues her investigations by studying Pilates and Oriental techniques like Tai Chi Kung and Tai Chi Chuan.
Thursday Programme: 16th June
| Time | Description |
|---|---|
| Contact us with any questions about the event or venue. | |
| 7:00-8:00pm | Beginner lesson, with Bianca, as usual |
| 8:00-9:30pm | Workshop with Pablo and Valeria |
| 9:30pm-12:30am | Milonga with performance by Pablo and Valeria at 10:30pm |
Venue
Sunday Programme: 19th June
| Time | Description |
|---|---|
| Contact us with any questions about the event or venue. | |
| 2:30-3:45pm | Workshop 1: Back enrosques, alternative decorations and pasadas |
| 4:00-5:15pm | Workshop 2: Ganchos and enlazadas |
| 5:30-6:45pm | Workshop 3: Planeos, atrapadas and back sacadas |
| 7:00-8:15pm | Workshop 4: Simultaneous giros, entradas and enrosques |
Venue
TangoRojo 2011
2011 ushers in our 3rd year of the TangoRojo festival. When we launched it back in 2009, it was London's only festival of Tango arts. Not only is it still the only festival that still celebrates and showcases various arts in Tango and beyond, it is bigger and more exciting every year.
We open the festival with a Tango cabaret evening on Wednesday the 18th, enjoyable for everyone, whether you dance the Tango already or not, to come in and enjoy the sophisticated repertoire of our artists, from the recorded medium, through live music, theatricality and naturally, dancing. Come in, enjoy yourself and warm up to a long week of partying. Most important of all, make sure you bring your non-Tango partners, friends and family to enjoy the spectacle and finally share the Tango with you!
With a milonga every evening until late, four evenings of live music, workshops, screenings and performances, there is something that must be seen each day of the festival. Visit the festival pages and find out what's on and when, and book your festival passes.
Tango performers
Anibal and Valeria are this year's gorgeous couple once again. They are quite simply incredible, amazing with their use of speed and dynamism and never stop dancing. Their performances stunning on so many levels, and really must be seen. They will also treat us to a series of workshops throughout the festival.
This year we're happy to receive a Milonguero—Domingo Rey—for a special performance and workshops, giving us a glimpse into a different aspect of Tango than we normally see on the stage.
Musicians and concerts
Once again, we present you with Tango musicians from far and wide. We will have four evenings of late-night milongas with a live band. To list them here as a group would not do their talents justice so we urge you to explore their biographies and personal pages at our festival artist pages.
Featured artist
This year's featured artist is once again Isabel Carafí, an Argentine-born painter. Isabel is quite unlike many artists you've seen; with a visceral, expressive style, she will not be found pigeonholed by any given topic or art movement. Tango forms a part of her world, both as a dancer and an artist. More interested in painting the aboriginal peoples of any given country and situation, not least her Argentina, and erotic nudes, her playfulness with proportion puts them squarely centre-stage, her brush-strokes exaggerating minute details, yet reducing the surroundings, give her subjects a kind of character difficult to see with the naked eye, until all the extraneous detail has been stripped away. The humanity and emotion of her scenes are achieved to spectacular effect—just pay attention to the hands and faces in her paintings. With many of her paintings dwarfing a person, and only coming to the fore in a large, minimalist gallery, Isabel will bring with her a number of her small-format Tango and other paintings.
Film screenings
Ever since we started with our film screenings at previous festivals, we've been feeding an insatiable hunger to learn about many different aspects of Tango lives, not just the dancing and the music. We work hard to discover and bring you the best Tango films and documentaries immortalised on the silver screen, with the real-life plight of the artists we enjoy only through their art. This year, we take an inside look into some of the lives of Tango musicians, a look that, at times voyeuristic, affords us a vicarious sense for the struggles, pain and anguish as well as happiness that have sculpted Tango into the music form we know today.
More information
For a complete guide to the festival, you will really need to visit the official festival web site, where you will find an appropriate description and biography of all the artists, an in-depth description of all the events, a complete programme for the week and your chance to book early and claim the generous advance-booking discounts we're offering.
We look forward to seeing you there!