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ABOUT
—The oldguard
| The idea | ||
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TangoDC is a new collective of dancers intent on recruiting youth, cultivating talent, and injecting the DC tango community with a little caffeine.
As teachers and mentors, they focus on technique and ideas to accelerate their students' learning process, so that newcomers to the dance retain more material, enjoy more dances, and get more out of every class—no matter whom they study with. As dancers, they play with as many styles as possible, embracing all doctrines and rejecting all dogmas in the name of artistic variety. As promoters and performers, they take tango to the people rather than waiting for people to come to the tango. Their mission is new exposure, new faces, and new spunk—and they will pursue all leads to reach that goal. |
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| Personnel | ||
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Jake Spatz was an instant tango addict after his first lesson in Brooklyn's Art Land Bar, but was also an instant quitter and an insanely busy fellow. He finally started dancing regularly in Oct. 2004 after moving back to the DC area, and is now an active presence in the DC tango community. Besides dancing socially, teaching, and performing, Jake now translates tango lyrics as well, and recites one every Wednesday night at Divino Lounge (Bethesda, MD).
On the literary/vocal side, Jake's credentials include a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, performances as a theatrical narrator and voiceover artist, and several international publications of his work on Italian poetry (in academic journals and over NPR airwaves). His translations of Dante and Leopardi have been used in undergraduate courses, and he is currently completing his first paper monument, under the working title The Complete Poems of Giacomo Leopardi. Jake's personal website is in perpetual progress at JakeSpatz.com. |
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All contents copyright 2005