Dance partners opening tango school in Boulder

BOULDER – Dancer-choreographer Martha Graham defined dance as the hidden language of the soul. From ballet to hip hop, the activity of dance crosses cultural boundaries with a twirl, a dip and an embrace.

“Dance itself is a communication system,” said Gustavo Naveira, speaking of the dance for which he and his partner, Giselle Anne, have become internationally known: the tango.

“It’s not like going to school, learning a syllabus, taking an exam and getting licensed,” he said, describing the process of learning the form. “The tango has no limits. You can go on learning and discovering all the time through it.”

The dance partners – a couple in dance and in life, as Naveira says – have offered Argentine tango lessons and dance space at Boulder’s Pearl Street Studio for years. They’re now in the final stages of bringing the area a bigger taste of the dance by opening the Boulder Tango School in January.

For most people, tango is considered a fundamental expression of Argentina. During the Golden Age of Argentina – spanning the 1930s through the 1950s – tango flourished. Once conservative political repression put a damper on the passionate dance style, it went underground.

“There was a 20-year break, and it nearly disappeared,” Naveira said. “Orchestras dissolved. There were no more than 10 professional dancers in Buenos Aries, and there were no local public places to dance anywhere.”

In the ’80s, tango came back. Naveira was part of a group who started to dance again and is credited with developing what’s today called neuvo tango – a new twist on the traditional form.

“This new generation of Argentine tango was developed and became rich in terms of choreography and artistic possibility,” he said. “People started coming from other countries to Buenos Aires to hire teachers to teach in Europe, South America and Japan.

“It’s been growing ever since. No one expected it to get as big as it has in the last 30 years.”

Naveira has been studying tango for 34 years, having started in Buenos Aires and working with a professional dancer.

“In 1991 I started to travel and teach and perform in festivals and shows and milongas (where tango is danced). My partner started earlier. She was in Japan doing a tango show and was a professional dancer then as well.”

Both Gustavo and Giselle have appeared in shows and films that include “Tango Argentino” and “The Tango Lesson.”

For those who hide a secret passion for tango but hold back learning it because it looks intimidating, Naveira has some tips.

“A lot of people have the impression that it’s so difficult and so complex,” he said. “When you learn the system, however, you can control that complexity. It gives a person great satisfaction to control that.”

He describes the form as a world of improvisation.

“Every tango you dance is like a new adventure,” he said. “You communicate with each other through movement. You create your own way and develop your own style and then you can dance with anyone from any part of the world and move through any cultural barrier.”

The Boulder Tango School will fill 4,200 square feet at 6185 Arapahoe Ave. Ongoing as well as drop-in classes will be available. Cost per class still is in the works.

“We have a plan of training teachers later,” Naveira said. “It’s very challenging. Some schools are trying to do it, but I don’t think anyone really is right now.”

The difficulty of teaching teachers is that the dance is so individual. Finding common points to teach is the plan.

Startup costs for this new endeavor are in the $200,000 range and are self-funded.

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