Tango Intervention

Are you ready for the Tango Intervention? Tiger is! It's coming to New York on September 16. I'm already signed up with my partner and ready to dance across the Williamsburgh Bridge. That's right. This is an amazing art installation called "Tango Dérive, Williamsburg Bridge". The event is being organized by artist and tanguero Robert Lawrence. Here is the invitation as appears on Robert's website:

You are invited to a very special and unique Milonga.

On Sunday afternoon, September 16, a gathering of brave and spirited tangueros will dance across the East River on the Willamsburg Bridge. There is no charge and everyone is invited. I hope you can join us.

Let me put this in context. I am a tanguero, but I am also an artist by profession. I am working on a series of performances across the country that involve Argentine Tango. The project is called “Tango Intervention”. It involves dancing tango where tango is not expected. In the public realm this acts as a gentle intervention, a brief interruption in the normal business of life. It confuses and amuses people and generally leaves them with a smile. I ask for nothing from the public, and the only thing I give (other than the joy of tango) is the web address (www.tangointervention.org). On the web the performance is re-contextualized in a framework relative to the history/sociology of the specific geographic place where the dance took place, and also related to the history/sociology of tango. In this way the project has two very different sides, one on the street and one on the web. It is multifaceted – like tango.

I have done 5 tango interventions so far, in Tampa, Chicago, and Seattle. They all went very well and were great fun for the participants and for the public. Now I’m doing a Tango Intervention in my old hometown and I would love to have you participate.

The Tango Intervention in New York will be from 12noon to 2pm. It is an official part of Conflux, a performance art festival that the Village Voice called a “network of maverick artists and unorthodox urban investigators…making fresh, if underground, contributions to pedestrian life in New York City, and upping the ante on today’s fight for the soul of high-density metropolises.”

The Tango Intervention for Conflux will consist of a band of tangueuros dancing from the Tenement Museum on the lower East Side across the Williamsburg Bridge to Conflux headquarters at Luna Lounge in Williamsburg - where I will be buying the first round of drinks.

On the web site the action will be contextualized within the history of immigrant re-migration from the crowded tenements of Manhattan to the green fields of Brooklyn when the bridge opened in 1903. The web site will also make a nod to the migration of artists and others from Manhattan to Brooklyn in more recent times. Like tango itself, this project asks questions about ‘place’ and belonging and longing and fulfillment. On the street (or the bridge) however, it will basically be a crazy mobile milonga moving through the air above the East River.

If you are at all interested I invite to explore this website. If you would like to participate or just want more information please click here for more details. If you still have questions please email me at tangointervention@gmail.com, or call me at 813 843 4921.

Having danced often in New York, I know there are a lot of great dancers in this city who also happen to be just crazy enough to enjoy something like this. I look forward to hearing from you and dancing with you!

Embrazos,
Robert

Tiger is so excited to be participating in this amazing event! Please check out the Tango Intervention website and Tangueros, join us for a mobile milonga across the East River on Sunday September 16th.
Your participation is requested! Click here for more info.

The site says that Volunteers are also needed!
So if you are interested in this project but are not an Argentine Tango dancer, you can still be involved. Please contact: tangointervention@gmail.com

Nos vemos at this very special milonga!