:: FESTIVAL TEACHERS 2023 ::



We are finishing the teacher, musicians and artist line-up for 2023 at the moment. Stay tuned and we publish all vitas of our confirmed artist also until end of april 2023!!

➜ Ezgi Turmus (Turkey) & Kat Gorsuch (Berlin)
➜ Leonardo Sardella (NYC/BA)
➜ Astrid Weiske (Berlin)
➜ Brigitta Winkler (Berlin/NYC)
➜ Art Klints & Esteban Sabaria (BA)
➜ Dawid Belach & Tomasz Sepowicz(Poznan/Poland)
➜ Mila Morandi Maiorelli (Rome)

Ezgi Turmus
Kat Gorsuch


:: Ezgi Turmus(Turkey) ::

Ezgi Turmus started to tango in Istanbul University Dance Club in 2004. She worked with many diffrent tango teachers. She was interested in both roles of tango and she performed in many organization. After graduate she came back to Samsun and founded her own comunity which called TangoSam and started to teach. Than she went to Buenos Aires for a while and countinued to improve herself and again came back to Samsun for teaching.

:: Kathrine Gorsuch (Berlin) ::

Kat (Katherine) is a trained stage dancer and tango dancer from the USA. She teaches in Berlin in ″Tango tanzen macht schön″ and is a very experienced tango teacher who has been teaching all over the world for many years.

Katherine Gorsuch′s hybrid expression of movement derives from the many dance influences in her life. She received her dance training at the Ballet Hispanico in New York City. She graduated from Hunter College with a BA in Anthropology and Linguistics: a degree that filled her with wanderlust, a desire to learn more languages, and a desire to engage with different cultures in the way that comes most naturally to her: through dance. Her travels allowed her to study flamenco in Madrid, tango in Buenos Aires, and aerial art in Brazil. She currently lives in Berlin.

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Leonardo Sardella


:: Leonardo Sardella (NYC/BA) ::

Leonardo Sardella began to dance tango Tango at the young age of 8 in his native Buenos Aires, and he has trained with renowned tango instructors.

Leonardo has performed in the best stages of Argentina with several dance companies. He dancing on the stages of the Teatro Colon and Teatro Cervantes among others.

He moved to New York City in 2011 when he co-founded the Malevaje dance company. And then Friends of Argentine Tango. A non-profit organization that provides free shows and classes to seniors and children. With this organization he had the pleasure of presenting a show on the renowned City Center stage in New York City.

Leonardo has participated in International Tango Festivals worldwide and has performed in the main cities of the United States and in England, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Latvia, Canada, Russia, Greece, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Bolivia and Argentina.

Chosen by the great teachers and dancers Leonardo had the pleasure of accompanying and working with Graciela Gonzalez, Johana Copes, Milena Plebs, Elina Roldan, Lorena Ermocida, Maria Ines Bogado, Analia Centurion, Carla Marano, Noelia Barsi, Maria Blanco among others.

He ranks very high on the list of the world's leading Argentine tango dancers who are able to fluidly and creatively interchange the roles of leader and follower.

He has served as a judge in many Tango competitions around the world, and organizes the New York Queer Tango Festival.

For the past two years he has also been part of Lincoln Center Midsummer Night Swing in New York, teaching and performing with renowned Argentine electronic tango band Tanghetto and typical Messies.

Alistair Macauley of the New York Times said of his dancing:

″Elegance, musicality, romance, wit and serious glamour.″

www.friendsofargentinetango.org/

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Astrid Weiske

:: Astrid Weiske (Berlin) ::

For more than 25 years Astrid has been dancing Tango Argentino and is well known and respected in the tango communities worldwide as an excellent leading woman and excellent teacher. She has developed strong sensitivity in leading, great creativity in improvisation and playful musicality which stand out as key elements in her dance. But Astrid is recognized also for her skills as a follower which greatly expands her knowledge and understanding of the dance.

Since 2005 she has been teaching in Berlin at "PHYNIXtanzt" Studio, traveling as a guest teacher since many years and accepting invitations to Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and also abroad to Argentina, US and Canada. She has received invitations to teach and perform at several Festivals such as Queertangofestival Copenhagen, Phantastango Festival (Germany) or Queertango Festival Buenos Aires. In 2011 she founded the 1st. intern. Queer Tango Festival in Berlin which was a great success and has since earned an international reputation.

Her teaching is based on awareness and analysis of natural movement in combination with her profound knowledge of technique, structure of the dance and connection between the couple. This creates a constant dialogue between leaders and followers who share the responsibility of listening and responding to each other, based on a strong connection to the music.

Her exploration of the many techniques of tango, from the very classical to the very experimental, leading and following and other dance forms like contact improvisation or modern dance make her believe that there is no "one" Tango. She believes in a creative, liberating variety and connection of ideas, movements and technique by rsepecting the roots of Argentine Tango. She promotes that fusion to reduce borders, allowing people to find their own expression in the dance.

www.queertango-berlin.de

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Brigitta Winkler

:: Brigitta Winkler (Berlin/NYC) ::

Brigitta (Berlin/NYC) is one of the world's most renowned teachers and innovative dancers of tango, inspiring legions of dancers worldwide with her creative approach and musical esthetics. She founded or co-founded the internationally acclaimed Tanzart and PHYNIXtanzt schools in Berlin, TangoMujer, and the Tango Teacher Training Network in North America. Brigitta discovered tango in 1980. In Buenos Aires, she studied with legendary dancers, including Juan Carlos Copes, Antonio Todaro, Pepito Avellaneda, Gustavo Naveira and Eduardo Arquimbau. She was among the first to teach tango in both Europe and the United States during tango's current revival. Brigitta co-founded the highly respected Tanzart studio in Berlin in 1987, the internationally acclaimed performance company Tango Mujer in 1996, and co-created the Teacher Training Network with Tomas Howlin in 2008. In between world travels, Brigitta teaches regularly in NYC and PHYNIXtanzt in Berlin.

Brigitta combines over 30 years of international experience in tango dance, instruction and performance with techniques of Body Mind Centering. She is an equally gifted resource for both close embrace and open style tango. Her workshops are insightful, creative, and incredibly fun!

"I do know that tango wouldn't be what it is in the United States and Europe without her. I do know that she is relevant to women like me right now. She advocates for women to dance on their own terms. We must lead and follow, and we must build a sisterhood in tango. She has participated in and created tango retreats just for women like Tango Donna."

www.brigittatango.de

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Art Klints & Esteban Sabaria (BA)

:: Art Klints & Esteban Sabaria (BA) ::

Arts is from Latvia; he has been living in Buenos Aires and dancing Tango since 2008. In Buenos Aires he studied in the National University of Arts which he graduated with the degree of Tango Interpreter in 2018 and with the degree of Licentiate in Folklore, majoring in Tango in 2021.

Esteban is from Esquel, Argentina where he started dancing Tango and Argentine folklore since high school; he moved to Buenos Aires and started to dance Tango professionally since 2017.

They have been taking classes with best Argentinian maestros like Jesus Velazquez, Augusto Balizano, Martin Ojeda, Leonardo Cuello, Claudio Gonzales, Alejandra Gutty, Gabriela Elias, Raul Bravo, Andres Cejas. We dance tango salon and tango escenario, as well as Argentinian folklore.

Arts and Esteban have been dancing and giving tango and folklore classes together professionally since 2018. We have had presentations / classes in different milongas in Buenos Aires, Berlin, Riga, Vilnius and Kaunas. In 2019 and 2022 we participated in the Tango Queer Festival of Buenos Aires. They communicate and teach classes in English, Spanish, Russian and Latvian.

As a Tango DJ Arts Klints has been performing at various milongas in Buenos Aires since 2012: resident TDJ in La Marshall, La Furiosa, El Chamuyo, Milonga de Yuri Yuri, Milonga Simple and multiple times as an invited TDJ in several other milongas. Since 2014 Arts has been an invited TDJ of the International Tango Queer Festival of Buenos Aires. Outside Argentina Arts has been TDJ in several milongas in Latvia, Paris and Berlin, as well as in Tango Wagner House marathon in Riga.

While selecting tango music, Arts mostly pays attention to the Golden Age orchestras with some additions of contemporary danceable orchestras with traditional sound.

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Dawid Belach & Tomasz Sepowicz(Poznan/Poland)

:: Dawid Belach & Tomasz Sepowicz(Poznan/Poland) ::

Dawid Belach dances since 1990, starting as a child with ballroom dances. When he came across argentinian tango, he immediately fell in love. He teaches in his own dance school in Pozna? called Pozna?ska Akademia Ta?ca. The main goal of his tango is to understand movement by consciously using the body and in the result achieving the quality of the motion. He loves dancing to Piazzolla, D'Agostino and Pugliese, and very spicy food. Well... and Ben & Jerry ice cream as well!

Tomek S?powicz has been dancing tango since 2014. His favourite tango piece is "Desde el alma" vals by Pugliese. Although he got his majors in Linguistics and works as export manager, tango is what won the most important part of his life. When dancing he focuses on the presence and connection, gentle but steady movements rooted in melody.

Apart from tango, the love of their life are their two cats Carlos and Rey (yeah, you know who they are named after! ;-).

Dawid & Tomek dance together since 2019, promoting queer and double role tango in Poland.

www.akademia-tanca.pl/

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Mila Morandi Maiorelli (Rome)

:: Mila Morandi Maiorelli (Rome) ::

Dance therapist. Dancer and Choreographer. Mindfulness Trainer. Research member in ARPA-Roma, association for research in analytical psychology. Trainer of body expression workshops for performers, trainers, art therapists and educators.

Mila has taught at La Sapienza University of Rome in the Master in Social Theatre and Dramatherapy and has been Coordinator of the La Sapienza University project, Sociology of Culture: Queer: between theory, body and media.

Trained in contemporary dance, release technique, contact improvisation, dance theatre, she uses all as an artistic language for personal development.

Mila holds a Master in NLP, Master in Dance Therapy (DMT), and in Mindfullness Coaching (MBSR).
At the Casa Internazionale delle Donne-Rome, she coordinated the Social Arts Group -Tango Fem, which organises projects, research, workshops, events and performances about the topics of gender interculture, education to differences and women's empowerment.

She has conceived and coordinated performance research events in collaboration with Auditorium Roma Santa Cecilia, MAXXI Roma in collaboration with the associations Orma Fluens and Kantor Atelier. Phd in Anthropology and Sociobiology, Trainer in group management, stress and conflict management in different Italian and international contexts.

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