TangoIntensivo™ Session FAQ
Accommodations & Training Facility Location in Buenos Aires
A: Of course most students prefer booking accommodations close to the training facility to minimize daily commute time. We are excited to confirm we’re returning to the fabulous Velasco Fabrica Studio for the October/November 2024 Sessions, located at Juan Ramirez de Velasco 1481 in the Villa Crespo district of Buenos Aires. In general, the most convenient neighborhoods within easy walking distance to our sessions: Villa Crespo, Palermo Soho, Palermo Viejo and Palermo Hollywood.
Q: Do you have suggestions about where to stay? What milongas to attend? Restaurant recommendations?
A: Yes to all of the above! Directly following completion of tuition payment, we initiate an e-registration process tailored for each registered student. These e-registration messages, in addition to serving as your receipt, contain vital details about the session/s (confirmed studio location, daily training schedules, additional announcements, etc.). We also provide a document, accessible to registered students only, that contains an orientation section with a list of Buenos Aires resources to assist students with trip planning (for example: navigating air and ground travel, exchanging money, suggested practicas, milongas, shoe-shopping, restaurants, scenic tours, museums, galleries, artisanal fairs, bookshops, cafes, theater, etc.).
Q: Can you help us find a guest house in a nice district?
A: Tuition does not cover professional travel assistance, but as described above and in the “Travel Information” question below, registered students receive access to travel resources as an added benefit.
Travel Information
Q: What other travel info do you provide?
A: Once you become a registered student, expect to receive e-mailed communications providing payment confirmation, updates and alerts plus access to our exclusive “required reading” Orientation Info section for registered students only. Following the Required Reading section, we include other useful details.
Skill Level for our TangoIntensivo™ sessions
We recommend that, at minimum, leader students can execute/lead and follower students can respond/follow:
- walking in and/or transitioning between the two systems (parallel and cross)
- lead/follow the walk to the cross (la cruzada)
- lead/follow front and back ochos
- lead/follow full and/or partial turns (giros/molinete’s)
- dancing in and transitioning to/from open to close embrace
- safely lead/follow this vocabulary on a typical milonga floor following line-of-dance etiquette
We’ll be glad to assist you personally in determining if our sessions are appropriate for your level. We’re happy to prepare you in advance for getting the most out of our TangoIntensivo™ sessions, including following up after you’ve attended our sessions to help you retain and integrate all you’ve learned. We’re available in our private lesson studios – Luciana Valle in Buenos Aires at lv@lucianavalle.com and/or Deb & Brian in Boulder, Colorado at tangolessons@danceoftheheart.com.
For students at a more advanced level (i.e., teachers/teachers-in-training, veteran social or stage dancers), regardless of your tango prowess, prepare to grow in every way – with respect to your understanding of both the lead and follow tango roles, increasing your grasp of vocabulary, improvisational possibilities, quality of musicality/connection/movement/dynamics/range etc.
What to Expect
A: Because students are partnering with and rotating to ONLY our trained staff, as a customer you can expect to receive better than 1 on 1 attention. That is NOT a typo! We also place a limit on the number of students we admit per session to avoid over-crowding and to place the focus on YOUR improvement.
Benefits of our approach:
1) The level and quality of instruction from Luciana.
2) The skilled dancers we hire to partner with you so you can work at YOUR highest level.
3) the sessions are staged in Buenos Aires where students can soak in the culture/language/milieu that gave birth to the tango as a musical and social art form,
4) for the price of one airline ticket you can opt to take 2 sessions in a condensed 2 week period for maximum immersion,
5) you’re away from your local life/work/tango communities and partners!
Q: Does the partnering change through the week? Or are you with the same person for the whole week?
A: In the morning session of each training day, we set up a systematic rotation structure where students rotate sequentially among the assistants present that day. Every two songs, you will rotate to another professional staff partner.
A: Our inspiration for developing this program was based on our own desire to continue pursuing our fullest potential as dancers and teachers. We figured that, by training with dancers better than us under the instruction of the best teachers in the Argentine tango world (…and if you don’t know yet, you’ll understand SOON why Luciana Valle is among the best of the VERY best), we would break through to another level in our dancing – and our hopes have been fulfilled beyond our wildest expectations not just for us but for all our students!
It’s hard to describe until you experience it for yourself, but for most of our students, it’s a tango-dream-come-true situation.
Q: How many hours total can we count on? What is the session schedule on a daily basis?
A: Each session delivers 20 hours total, Monday through Friday, morning sessions from 11am to 1pm, afternoon sessions from 2 to 4pm.
Q: What is the difference between the sessions?
A: Luciana retains control over the specific content of a given session, and often varies it somewhat from previous iterations. Her decades of high-level teaching experience and superlative mastery of the art of tango teaching leads us to trust her judgement in this area.
Generally, material within two adjacent sessions (e.g., May/Jume or Oct/Nov) is integrated into a harmonic whole while still allowing for each session to stand on its own. In any case, the level is the same (intermediate to advanced) in all sessions. Most of our students value the sessions so highly that they tend to not care whether the material in a given class matched exactly with a previous iteration of the class.
Q: Will we be attending milongas in the evenings or shopping or sharing meals as a group?
A: Organizing social activities is not covered in the cost of your tuition. You are free to use your non-class time (early mornings and late afternoons/evenings) as you wish. It’s common practice for fellow students to make informal plans together post-class to share city tours, museum and gallery hopping, shopping adventures, restaurants, or attending practicas/milongas/other classes. There is something of a tradition (totally optional, of course!) of attending Luciana’s acclaimed El Motivo Practica (now in its 20th year!) on Monday nights.
Q: What are chances of a program being cancelled?
A: In the dozens of sessions delivered since February 2005, we have had only one cancellation. In that unusual case (Luciana was pregnant!), all registered students were alerted 6+ months in advance and refunded fully. Our refund policy in the event of a cancellation is listed on our registration page as follows: “In the unlikely event of cancellation of any TangoIntensivo™ session, registration fees will be refunded in full.”
Registration Details
A: Our reimbursement policy is likewise on our registration page under the PayPal buttons as follows:
“Refund Policy: Fifty percent of the Registration Fee will be refunded if a refund request is received by four weeks before the start of the first day of a given session. No refund requests will be accepted after this deadline. However, if you find your own replacement or if we are able to fill your spot from a waiting list, refund requests (less $40 administrative fees) will be honored at any time. Refunds will not be generated until AFTER payment from your replacement has been confirmed. In ALL refund cases, PayPal or any bank fees are not refundable after your initial payment has cleared.”
We STRONGLY urge students to protect their travel-cost investment by securing travel insurance to mitigate expenses due to an unexpected trip cancellation.
A: Full tuition payment is required to reserve your place in any given session. While Luciana is delighted when students contact her to register, she sends everyone to this website and/or to inquire directly with Brian and/or Deb at Dance of the Heart (DoTH). TangoIntensivo(TM) Session registration is ALWAYS handled through our DoTH offices in Boulder, Colorado, USA. While an email or phone call is useful to express your intentions, we cannot confirm or hold a place in any given session until we receive full tuition payment. The exception is an email announcing your registration, sent to us AFTER mailing your snail-mail check; we’ll hold your reservation for a grace period of a few days while your check is in transit.
The most popular payment options include snail-mailing a personal US check through the US post (least expensive) or by paying on-line at our website utilizing our PayPal buttons (most convenient and fastest). Some students (outside the USA, for example), often request bank transfers which we are happy to arrange by request. After we receive payment, we respond typically within 24 hours to confirm. If we’re sold out, your payment will be refunded in full (minus PayPal or associated bank transfer fees).
A: Registration Instructions are below for both options.
Option #1: Pay for your tuition by personal USA-based check (steps 1 through 5):
Step 1: To send payment via personal check:
- make your (USA-based) check out to “DoTH LLC” or “Dance of the Heart LLC”
- To qualify for our early bird discount on your tuition, please adhere to pricing and date deadlines on our registration page at: https://danceoftheheart.com/tangointensivo-registration/
Step 2: In your envelope, please include a note along with your check containing the following “student info” details:
- identify which session/s you are paying tuition to attend
- full name (first & last) and email address
- identify which role you plan to study – lead or follow (choose only one)
Step 3: Mail your check and “student info” note (see Step 2) to:
- TangoIntensivo™ Sessions
- Dance of the Heart LLC
- 2890 Shadow Creek Drive #E-304
- Boulder, CO 80303
Step 4: Before sealing/dropping the envelope in a mailbox, please note scams are up where snail mailing of checks is concerned. To maximize a secure arrival, make ABSOLUTELY certain your check is not visible or obvious, that the envelope is securely sealed, that the check is made out correctly (“DoTH LLC” or “Dance of the Heart LLC”), that YOUR addres information is correct and easy to read, and that OUR address is correct, especially the “Apt. #304” designation. AFTER dropping your envelope in the mailbox, please send an email to tangolessons@danceoftheheart.com informing us that your check is in the (snail)mail. Upon receipt of this email, we will reserve an available space in your selected program for you in anticipation of receiving your check (via snail mail).
Step 5: When we receive your check, we’ll send an e-confirm notifying you that your e-registration process is initiated.
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Option #2: Pay for your tuition by credit card via PayPal (steps 1-4):
- Step 1: Log onto our registration page: https://danceoftheheart.com/tangointensivo-registration/
- Step 2: Select the appropriate PayPal button. If you are new to PayPal, this may require additional steps. If you are purchasing more than one session, simply select the appropriate PayPal button and repeat the process for each individual session you wish to purchase.
- Step 3: Once payment is accomplished, PayPal will generate and send an e-confirmation to you and to our USA Dance of the Heart office. Please note PayPal will charge you a non-refundable fee above the cost of our tuition.
- Step 4: We’ll confirm by separate email that we received PayPal’s e-notice, at which point we’ll proceed with your e-registration process.