Stone Soup Tango Festival
(2008 dates May 1-4 - details on the site are not yet updated....)
Here's a blog of comments and feedback on this year's events.
concept, lessons, staff, schedule, community, guerilla tango, pricing/registration, housing, questions , or email korey , attendees (see who is coming) , maps, feedback
What is a Stone Soup tango festival? Its a gathering of amazing talent to share, create, and inspire; its a collaborative event including dancing, classes, food, performances, music, and community building; its a new approach to tango gatherings that puts an emphasis on connection and personal development; its about as much tango fun and you can cram into 3 days! The Staff includes Murat & Michele from New YOrk/WashingtonDC, Nick & Tara from Denver, Carlos & Tova from Boston, Evan Griffiths from NYC, and Korey & Mila from Kansas City. This is the most significant concentration of tango talent KC has ever seen and we hope to attract good dancers from all around the region!
With all these great teachers, why not offer a full schedule of classes? We have many such festivals, they are wonderful, but we want to create something different. Something that fosters a group dynamic with room for lots of personal attention and individual agendas. Private study is much more concentrated learning, and the opportunity to follow up with practice time and exchanging ideas with peers and teachers makes this concentrated learning even more effective. We also want to have a time and space where we can all interact together, instead of choosing one class over another. Having lessons in the practice space creates a nice group dynamic and a good working environment for those who want to practice. This year we have added the option of 30 minute lessons with practice time surrounding. See below for pricing or schedule/availability information.
Staff: (Stay tune for updates as the 2008 staff firms up)
Murat & Michelle, New York/DC - this guys are beautiful, gracious, and utterly delightful teachers, dancers and performers.
Carlos & Tova, Boston - Among the warmest most genuine tango people you'll meet. Carlos and Tova have a very musical, grounded, engaging dance style. Equally comfortable with classic and contemporary styles, this young tango couple inspires students with power, grace, and charm.
Korey & Mila - resident teachers in KC and festival hosts, Korey & Mila are building a reputation world-wide as innovative, insightful teachers, and beautiful performers. They balance their time between North America, Europe, Moscow, and Buenos Aires which lends a remarkably international breadth to their teaching, dancing, and tango perspective.
We anticipate the involvement of Sean & Charity, Mitra & Stefan, Adam & Ciko, Ben & Thui....details pending.
Tango Lorca - This KC based ensemble is repsected world-wide as one of the leading contemporary tango groups. Their music can be heard in dance salons around the world and is on the playlists of some of Europe's most respected DJs. Winner of the first annual international tango music competition in New York, this ensemble has won the acclaim of concert and dance audiences alike.
You: smart, diverse, generous, curious, and eager to develop tango in yourself and your community! Each of us has much to offer and much to learn. Let's share!
(in evolution, look for updates...) events to take place in the river market - 114 W. 3rd St. (3rd & Wyandotte, look for the tango signs. ) in the future home of Scott Fitness. Here is a map of the River Market area
In addition to sharing in the dance, and in the kitchen, we want to share ideas and experience to help nurture the development of tango in our region. We will share meals, experience, and ideas for growing tango. Many of our staff, and participants have a great deal of experience in organizing events, and nuturing local communities, and we are delighted to share.
We've been exploring ways to expose more people to Tango, and this weekend we're sharing some of out favorites with you. We're explore a few strategies: hit&run milonga, flash mob, tango parade, in conjunction with one of KC's most intriguing scenes, the first friday art openings in the crossroads gallery district. Past experience has led us to anticipate lots of smiles, some inspiration, and a renewed sense of purpose.... This year we're expanding the tango antics, and have added a rather lavish and theatrical element in the form of a Harley Davidson stretch limo which will provide a mobile tango stage as well as transport for those without cars. The outdoor events will coalesce around 2030 Central where we will have a brief tango exhibition before heading back to festival headquarters for a class and milonga!
we've made every effort to keep this event as affordable as possible, without going broke. The best deal, by far, is the Full Pass. Day passes and tango day include shared meals (see the schedule), if you plan to eat, you should bring food to contribute to the meals.
Menu of possibilities
Payment options: via check to Ko-Arts, 833 W. 39th Terrace, Kansas City, MO 64111. via paypal to korey@ko-arts.com. (please note name, address, and what you are paying for). Questions?
Who is coming....we've recieved confirmations, enrollments, or in some cases, just stated intentions from:
Stone Soup Story: there is a popular folktale that tells of a man who finds his cupboard and his stomach very empty. All he finds in the kitchen is a stone. But, being a clever fellow, he calls his friends and invites them for a special meal: "stone soup." Each friend should bring something to add to the soup. So the friends arrive with carrots, tomatoes, beans, meat, and so forth, and soon there is a delicious soup which they all enjoy together.
In the central region of the US, many of us hunger for tango and find our local resources are meager. But when we gather together and share what we have we discover an abundance of tango joy. We add to this dance feast an opportunity to cooperate in sharing meals, music, inspiration, and guidance from some of the world's most repsected teachers, dancers, musicians and community builders. So if you hunger for tango, or endavor to nourish your local community, come and share with us, together well create something delicious!
There is a website in progress to match visitors with local hosts, currently we ahve about 20 available spaces. If you prefer a hotel here's a list of convenient options:
Don't see your question/answer here? contact us!
1) Where did this idea come from?
Stone Soup is influenced by a format that is becoming popular in Europe. It begins with El Corte, in Nijmegen, Holland which is known around the world for its warm, communal atmosphere, fantastic dancing, and sense of belonging. An organizer in Totnes, England (Ruth Zimmerman) channeled this energy in her "Tango Mango" events featuring 6 days of open dance floor, with the opportunity for private lessons, group meals, and an evening class. The first mangos were completely unstructured in terms of food service, and the cooperative and spontaneous approach to meals proved to be a remarkable asset to the group experience. As the Mangos became more popular, other organizers brought the concept to their home towns. Southampton's TangoTangk, Barcelona's TangoNeta, Devon's TangoTribe, Lillehammer's WinterTango, all grow from this concept. Each community modifies the details to fit the style and priorities of the organizer but the open atmosphere, spontaneity, shared food, and private lessons have proven to be consistent and succesful components. In KC we're adding other elements as our resources allow. We have a slightly bigger staff to generate a lot of social dance energy, there is a strong music component, and since we have all these musicians and dancers gathered, we decieded to do a show to share the talent with a wider audience. But at the core, its still about filling our days with tango and working as a group to enjoy a memorable atmosphere of exploration, cooperation, and collaboration.
2) Why are there so few workshops?
We want to allow lots of time for people to dance, practice, and experiement in their own way. Hopefully the more structured work as a group inspires us to continue with our own experience, and the open time in the afternoon is intended to facilitate that. Is also nice to have the possibilty to involve more people and agendas then a fixed schedule could show. The open schedule also facilitates private lessons with the festival staff in an ideal structure where you can immediately practice and support the work of the lesson. We've seen dancers make tremendous personal progress in a format like this, and that creates a wonderful energy for the group as well.
Participants are asked to bring food to share. There will some help from staff to faciliate, but ultimately its a group event, we are relying on dancers to help prepare, serve, and clean-up. Sharing responsibility for food is another way to involve people in the experience. Insted of handing participants a paper plate and pointing them to the buffet, we want to encourage those attending to create something they will enjoy, to share something with their friends, and to be a part of the experience, instead of just consuming....My own experience at similar events is that the meals become a great asset for the social dynamic of the group, and this in turns lends a nice flavor to the dancing.
Bring something you enjoy, that you'd like to share with the group. Your speciality. This is your opportunity to personalize the event! Our facility has a full kitchen with ovens and stove top, so warming/finishing/even cooking from scratch are possible. If you are visiting from out of town, bring something simple (frozen pizza, quiche, salad ingrediants, dressings, ready-to-eat desserts). This is somewhere between a potluck and culinary experiment. Each meal might feature one or two collaborative dishes, if you have a special idea you'd like to try (a soup, a curry, a pasta dish) we can announce it the day before and ask dancers to bring appropriate supplies. Salad, fruit, freash bread are all easy and versatile contributions.
5) What happens on Friday night?
In between the Friday afternoon seminar and the Friday evening class/milonga, we have the opportunity to explore some guerrilla tango strategies in the crossroads art district of downtown Kansas City. We will do an outdoor "hit & run milonga" which is an unauthorized event, that may be forced to move around the area. The purpose is both to enjoy a little open-air dancing, and to market tango to a group that may find it appealing. We will have flyers on hand and invite passers-by to come check out the evening events. During the evening we also plan to do at least one "flash-mob" performance in an area gallery. The goal of the flash mob is a bit more theatrical, to have a lightening-strike event where tango appears out of thin and and evaporates again at the end of a song. "Strangers" find each other in a croweded room, square, gallery, bus station, etc, and dance a song (to the astonishment of onlookers) and then at the end of the song go back to their "normal" lives. We plan to have a little mini workshop/brainstorm session Friday afternoon to pave the way for our guerilla field experiments.
For those who are less interested in the guerrilla Tango life, the venue for our evening event has a wonderful spanish restaurant downstairs and you might consider having a leisurely dinner before the class (9pm) and dance 10pm...
6) What are the workshop topics/levels?
The daytime classes are intended for experienced dancers. Experienced means something different to each, but in general, you should feel quite confident with the core vocabulary of the dance (walking in both systems, ochos, cross, turns) and have some experience with intermediate vocabulary (sacadas, boleos, paradas). If you are not sure about your level, feel free to ask. The evening classes are aimed at introducing dancers to tango, but will be fun and valuable for dancers of all levels. Each night you will get to see a different couple's version of the tango foundation and a chance to focus on core issues of the dance.
The idea is that musicians of a wide range of levels and knowledge of tango might enjoy creating tango music together. Ben Bogart has hosted Tango Jams in Providence for some time now and has a body of scores available to download. We anticipate help from Tango Lorca, KCs hometown tango band and many of the staff also play an instrument, so these afternoon sessions should be lots of fun. Bring your instrument, check out the music on-line, or just come along to witness this event (or even dance a bit).
