1011  Michigan Tango Festival

Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2003 15:39:37 -0500
From: Ramu Pyreddy <rpyreddy@EECS.UMICH.EDU>
Subject: Michigan Tango Festival

Trina & Sean, Guy,

Thanks very much for the nice words about the festival.
I have been wanting to do a follow-up on the weekend but
I just could not get to it.

None of us thought that it would be so well attended.
It exceeded the expectations of most of us. It was made
possible by the efforts of many volunteers.
Missing from the list are Dudhi, Avik, Julie, Matt, Chris
Freeman ........ and it is Yelena not Liliana
Many thanks to all the locals who opened their homes for
dancers from out of town - Christos, Kurt&Liliana, Avik,
Julie, Ana, Dudhi, Roseanne, Yelena ....

Ramu Pyreddy
Ann Arbor, MI

Tango in Ann Arbor - check https://www.umich.edu/~umtango

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First Michigan Tango Festival January 24-26, 2003

Thanks to everyone who attended the festival and especially
to all those who helped organize and host out of town
visitors. It was really an intense and fun weekend which
greatly exceeded our expectations. In the end, the whole
weekend was a fantastic party because of your participation.

GENERAL ATTENDANCE:
In all, about 190 people attended the festival. The
welcome milonga on Friday drew an attendance of 120 people.
At 140 dancers, Saturday's milonga had the largest attendance
of all the events. And it was a very pleasant sight indeed
to see about 40 people on the dance floor at 1:30am, still
wanting to dance! Though Sunday's milonga had the smallest
turnout, close to 70 people, the energy on the dance floor
was the most intense of the entire festival. It was more
intimate as, by then, people had gotten to know each other
over the weekend.

The festival workshops were also extremely well-attended.
Saturday's workshops on "Close Embrace Fundamentals"
(workshop A) and "Close Embrace Vocabulary" (workshop B)
drew an attendance of 110. The beginner's lesson on Saturday
had about 80 people which included both beginning and
advanced dancers. The advanced workshops on Sunday
covering "Ochos, Pivots, and the Preparation for the Turn"
(workshop C) and "Explorations of Rhythm in Vals & Milonga"
(workshop D) drew an attendance of about 80 people. Amazingly
enough, the gender balance was almost perfect for all the
workshops!

Not only was the festival well-attended, the participants
came from both near and far! We had about 35 visitors from
out of state:

Cleveland, OH - 8
Columbus, OH - 6
Toledo, OH - 1
Chicago, IL - 3
Urbana-Champaign, IL - 3
Pittsburgh, PA - 4
Morgantown, WV - 1
Houston, TX - 2
Amsterdam, Holland - 1
Ontario, Canada - 5
We might be missing some.

MILONGAS:
The dance energy was very high throughout the weekend. Most
people were dancing the full tandas and there was always a
nice outer lane of dance. Things got a little bit disorderly
in the inner lanes. This is something we all have to work on.

WORKSHOPS/LESSONS:
Tom Stermitz's workshops were extremely well received.
The large attendance made for excellent social energy which
Tom gracefully and expertly utilized. His approach focused
on rhythm and connection, all the while maintaining an
atmosphere which made learning easy and fun. By the milonga
on Saturday night the results of the workshops were already
apparent--many women were seen on the floor, their eyes
closed, dancing with a little smile on their face. Tom's
beginners lesson on Saturday was also inspiring to many
first-time dancers. It was exciting to see their enthusiasm
as many of them stayed after the lesson to dance during the
milonga.