Meet Your Tango Instructors

Eric and Karen instruct tango classes at Keating Sports Center on Thursday’s at 7:30 p.m. in Racquetball Court #1. This past week, I asked them for some insight into their teaching.

How long have you been teaching tango?

Eric has been teaching tango for 5 years, Karen has been teaching tango for 9 years.

How long have you been teaching tango at IIT?

We’ve been teaching at IIT since fall 2009.

What do you like about teaching tango here?

The students at IIT are exceptionally bright, and receptive to learning. That makes our job easier. It has been a great opportunity to teach something we are passionate about to the students. It is so rewarding to see students come to our class as non-dancers and to watch them socializing, having a great time, and actually dancing. It gives us both a great sense of achievement.

What are the benefits to taking a tango class?

Dance classes give the students an opportunity to make new friends, break away from their studies, and get some exercise. Tango is not only a physical form of exercise, but it is also very cerebral. A clinical trial was actually conducted on a group of Parkinson’s patients entitled "Effects of tango on Functional Mobility in Parkinson’s Disease." Patients were randomly assigned either to a tango group or to an exercise group. The tango group actually scored higher on their clinical assessments. However, just from my experience as an instructor, I can visibly see that after taking a tango class, students have better posture, balance, coordination and mobility. When it comes to the dance… you’ll learn plenty of moves that can easily be used outside the realm of tango.

How did you get into tango?

Eric:  Karen is the one who got me addicted.

Karen: I used to live and work in Berlin, Germany.  At the time I was a salsa dancer, my office mate was a tango dancer. I tried to convert him to Salsa; he tried to convert me to tango.  Tango ended up winning.

What do you hope to accomplish by teaching tango?

We hope to challenge everyone. Not only are we challenging the students we are teaching, we are also challenging ourselves as instructors. As we work with new students, we are always thinking of improved ways to teach the basic elements of tango. Everyone learns differently, as instructors, we try to work with each student individually. We also expect the students to help and mentor each other by providing feedback. If something doesn’t work we find better ways of explaining it to our students so that they fully understand how to execute each step.

Who was your main influence to begin teaching tango?

Alvin Gates is an instructor in Chicago who not only taught us how to dance but more importantly how to teach tango. It is so important provide the students with a strong knowledge of tango fundamentals. We want to ensure that the students start off with a strong foundation on which to build upon. What we found is that there is more to just showing the students ‘steps,’ we want to educate the students on ‘why’ we do it this way, how their movements effect their partner, and the mechanics behind the moves. We do not want students to mimic or regurgitate information, we really want them to understand the concepts behind the movement.

What days and times are your classes at Keating Sports Center?

For fall 2010/Spring 2011, Thursdays 7:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.