Tango and Transformation is a five-week exploration of the history, choreography, and energetics of tango. You’ll learn the origins and basic steps of a dance transformed across time and geographies, and learn how to dance your own iteration, informed by the many meanings tango has held across time and space. 

This class blends academic seminars with hands-on dance training, concluding in an improvisational, mixed-style milonga informed by the dance's history and techniques.

In addition to group discussions and dance classes, we’ll also hold space for reflective writing, where you’ll narrate your own personal transformation(s) using the archetypes of tango as a framework. In this hybrid format, you’ll uncover how the energetics of tango can be applied to your own lived, embodied experience. 
 

Open to folks of all genders and any age, you may feel drawn to this experience if you’re a:

*Beginner dancer seeking an inclusive, accessible way to explore partner dance for the first time.

*Experienced dancer looking to learn a new style, or with particular interest in the lineage of tango.

*Spiritually inclined seeker interested in movement as a path to self-discovery.

*Curious intellectual intrigued by the union between theoretical study and hands-on experience.

 

This is a 5-week course, not a series of drop-in classes. Please sign up in advance to participate in Tango and Transformation, which will be held on the following dates:
 

Class 1: July 28 (6:30-8:30pm) -- Seminar - The Origins and Tropes of Tango

Class 2: August 4 (6:30-8:30pm) -- Dance Class - Tango Foundations

Class 3: August 11 (6:30-8:30pm) -- Seminar - Tango Across Continents

Class 4: August 18 (6:30-8:30pm) -- Dance Class - Tango Basics

Class 5: August 25 (6:30-9:30pm) -- Hybrid Class (3 hours) - The Future of Tango and Closing Celebration

 

About Our Instructor:

Katya Borkov is a writer, artist, and facilitator leading interdisciplinary workshops and community events as Everything Spills Studio. She has taught at The Foundry, Performance Space New York, Sapphic House, and beyond, receiving support from Poets & Writers/NYSCA for her workshop series, "Written Women".

After a decade of training, competing and teaching as a semi-professional, Dancesport-style ballroom dancer, Borkov traveled to Buenos Aires to study the tango’s Rioplatense origins, tracing the dance’s absorption into European culture, transmission across the iron curtain into the Soviet Union, and eventual transformation into a cornerstone style of Russian-American dance culture. 

Today, her facilitation of movement practices like Tango and Transformation, Waltzing with the Waves, and Queering Partner Dance is driven by the belief that dance should be shared not as a competitive sport, but as a creative birthright: a path to connection that everybody has access to. You can learn more about her multifaceted creative practice on instagram @everything.spills, or via her website www.everythingspills.studio.