Charlotte Rivero (Stockholm)

Charlotte is the founder of queer tango in Sweden. She started with same sex courses 2000 with exchange of roles & partners. These courses were later 2005 connected to queer theory and named queer tango. The first official queer tango course in Sweden was given 2005.

She presented her concept of queer tango pedagogy/teaching at the international dance research conference NOFOD, Stockholm Jan 2006. She runs a queer tango school, Tangoverkstan - Roles in Motion, in Stockholm and organizes the annual Stockholm International Queer Tango Festival since 2007, the second queer tango festival in the world.

Charlotte has also been teaching/performing/giving talks at different parts of Sweden and abroad both in straight and queer communities in: Russia, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Argentina, England & Germany and the queer tango festivals in Hamburg, Copenhagen, Buenos Aires and San Francisco.

Her work with developing queer tango/gender/ norm critical pedagogy is acknowledged by official institutions in Sweden. She works as an invited guest teacher with tango & queer/gender theory at the University of Lund: Malmö Theatre Academy, University of Gothenburg: Academy of Music and Drama, Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts, Stockholm University of Dance and Circus and The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR).

The emphasis in teaching is based on dynamic movements, musicality & improvisation, presence in the moment, connection & communication with awareness of power relations and gender structures. In the teaching exploration and play with roles is essential: from clear roles, clear exchanges of roles to more sliding/open/improvised roles.

The pedagogy is based on gender/queer theory, norm critcal thinking, problem based learning and empowerment.
Tangoverkstan

Sabine Berge (Stockholm)

Sabine, originally from Germany, started her leading experiences very early. She knows both roles, loves to dance in a close embrace and to music with energy. When a milonga is up she likes to lead! Sabine is very much inspired by Susanna Miller´s teaching of Milonguero style. She has been teaching together with Charlotte Rivero on several occasions since 2001. They have been teaching/performing at Stockholm Queer Tango Festival and Copenhagen Queer Tango Festival and at Stockholm Pride Festivals. Sabine is since a long time an appreciated instructor and well known tango profile in Stockholm and world wide visiting International Tango Festivals. Her focus in teaching is connection, embrace, quality of movements, feeling and flow.

Adriana Pegorer (United Kingdom)

Adriana Pegorer is an independent dance artist based in London interested in the interweaving of forms. She graduated in Dance & Related Arts from Chichester University (2001). She started with Contact Improvisation in 1996 and has been teaching and performing Tango Argentino since 1998. Adriana is interested in a fusion of tango and contact improviation. Adriana's experience of contact improvisation runs parallel to tango and for her they are inseparable. Her approach is based on many years spent dancing at milongas and contact impro jams, and her dream is to find a point/space between these two. Contact Improvisation is a playful duet form where both partners initiate and respond to each other often by sharing weight and momentum. She would like to bring into tango its egalitarian concept and its anatomical awareness.
Adriana is interested in empowering the women's voice in dance within the queer community and beyond. She won the Lea Anderson Choreographic Award for the Tango based dancefilm Double One and has performed in Marta Savigliano's Wallflowers and Femme Fatales at the International Tango Conference at Harvard University, Boston. She also wrote the paper Performing gender in milongas of Buenos Aires.
Website

Tobias Funke and Natascha Russo (Germany)

Tobias and Natascha love to dance and teach tango focusing on improvisation and musicality.

In their lessons Tobias and Natasha start with elements of bodywork and Contact Improvisation to create a good understanding of movements. This helps to release patterns and figures and become more open for the partner, music and space. They always come back to clear Tango movements suitable for social dance in the Milonga and joy.

Natascha made a classic actor and dance education in Moscow and Hamburg. She works as a trainer and coach for actors and now spends every free minute on Tango.

Tobias lives in Bremen and gives regular "Contango" lessons together with Markus Hoft and Stephanie Adler where Contact-Improvisation and Tango inspire each other. Together with other dancers he created the tango marathon Tangosause.
www.contact-tango.de
www.tangosause.de