Tango in Sussex... One: And We're Off

30th May 2011

Tango In Sussex One

Introduction


TangoBootCamp and May Festival, 28th - 30th May 2011.

This was a combined 2-day "Tango Boot Camp" (intensive tango learning sessions) and Festival, held in Haywards Heath (basically between London and Brighton), over the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of May.

So there were a dozen workshops in the Festival, two full Tango BootCamp days, live music and dancing.

I'll do a set of reviews for this - for the classes, the milongas, and the overall impression.

Getting there

The event is held as Ardingly College, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH17 6SQ (map)

It's about an hour and a quarter from North London - most of which time is involved in navigating around London. Compared to the 5-hour schleps to get to the average Devon Tango weekender, it's a welcome relief to have somewhere close. The downside is that coming from North London, I had to use the M25, which was playing its usual silly buggers on the Saturday morning. That said, the whole journey only took 1hr 45mins, so it's not the end of the world.

The venue

The venue itself is a boarding school, set in lovely grounds; it's a lovely set of big buildings. There's plenty of parking on site, also.

Accommodation there is basic - some single rooms, some doubles, some dormitories. But compared to the "sleep on the floor" level of accommodation at (say) Tango Mango, it's luxury. There are also plenty of B&Bs / hotels in the area - that said, on the weekend in question there was some big equestrian event on, so you needed to hunt around for somewhere in advance.

The Classes

The class schedule is busy - 4 workshops a day, for three days.

I attended six workshps, over the course of Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday (with Joel and Alina):

  • Milonga Lisa and Traspie
  • Volcadas/Colgadas

On Sunday (with Alexandra and Stefano):

  • Giros with a difference
  • Tomadas and paradas
  • Dance with Energy + Attitude
  • Tango Ritmico

I'll review the individual classes later.

The teachers

The teachers are:

~ David Bailey, 30th May 2011