[Tango-L] Call for Papers/Presentations for a Tango Academic Conference: (Part 1)"The Tango360(tm) Experience" July 14-17, 2011 in Boulder, Colorado

[Brian Dunn]

Dear Tango Aficionados,

If you’ve been dancing tango for more than a few months, you are probably
aware of the many tango festivals scattered thickly around the country.

Most tango festivals in the USA worth packing your bags for go something
like this:
1) Welcome Milonga
2) Classes with a teacher or teachers one hopes to  learn from
3) Practicas, maybe (hopefully with people you just met in classes, and
other new friends)
4) Milongas with good music, maybe performances (more dancing with old & new
partners)
5) Sleep/Shower/Eat, maybe in the company of some of your fellow dancers ;)
                Repeat for two or more days

In the United States (except for tango-every-night communities like NYC, SF,
Portland, etc.), events like these form the ephemeral central nervous system
of the dispersed contemporary culture of tango – people converge and meet,
form and renew connections, learn, dance, then disperse again, posting the
fresh “group memories” on Facebook/YouTube after everyone goes home.

The powerful experiences that these festival-type events provide, so
different from so many other aspects of mainstream contemporary USA culture,
keep tango aficionados returning at a steady and perhaps accelerating rate. 
The sheer number of these events, and their rate of increase, makes for a
remarkable story.

After many years of participating in this festival-driven culture (and
getting our hearts and minds blown open in the process!) some of us are
wanting to create some additional dimensions to these tango experiences, in
a way that embraces and extends the current festival-based cultural
experience, but in a transcend-and-include fashion that is designed to
foster durable, measurable ongoing cultural progress in tango’s shared
development, while still offering the classic “festival high”, i.e.,
fleeting elusive glimpses of tango heaven, followed immediately by an urgent
search for “yet another hit”, until finally it’s time for the early
bus/train/cab to the airport.  

A festival organizer recently recommended to me, “Put on the event that YOU
would like to attend”.  With that in mind, what we are proposing is an event
in mid-July 2011 in Boulder, Colorado which will be a blend of a tango
festival and a tango “academic conference”. We are soliciting your
participation.


The “Festival portion” of the event will include: 
- Milongas with Grade-A  DJ’s in palatial social dance settings, like the
majestic Avalon Ballroom, and delightfully funky ones like Boulder’s Pearl
Street Studio and PreEminence Hall

- World-Class intensive tango training with acclaimed Argentine maestro
LUCIANA VALLE, among others, combined with structured practicas for
reinforcing your learning

- Beautiful physical settings in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain foothills

- Many opportunities for socializing with tango friends old and new


So we’ll still have a familiar-feeling “tango festival” – milongas, lessons,
practicas, etc. – but the festival will be surrounded and contained by a
“tango academic conference” that will have as part of its focus some
interesting and provocative aspects of the USA festival-based culture of
tango itself.  

We invite serious tango-lovers, current and aspiring tango professionals,
and experienced tango dancing/performing/teaching/organizing veterans who
wish to share the fruits of their work with their colleagues and peers to
“SAVE THE DATE!!” and to respond by e-mail to connect with us as we flesh
out the conference side of the event.

(continued in Part 2 following)