Welcome to Detlef and Melina's classes at

Festivalito Rural 2014

The classes

Friday: The elegance of the Caminar in crossed & parallel system 

Duration: 1.5h

Tango is walking. During this workshop we’ll work on different aspects of the movement: dissociation, relaxation, changing the length of your steps, smooth changes to the outer lanes and — most importantly — on our well-being in a relaxed embrace. We will then change into the crossed system, a unique Tango-concept, and we’ll discover its mechanisms and possibilities. Our focus is on developing a natural elegance that allows us to express the music through the simplest and at the same time the most challenging movement of all.

Saturday: Linear and turned variations of the Ocho Cortado 

Duration: 2 x 1.5h

We’ll show and then vary the traditional Ocho Cortado in a lot of interesting new ways, musically, by using means of repetitions and by finding new exits. This will enhance your improvisational skills a lot and break up fixed patterns. In the second half of the class, we‘ll develop turned variations of the movement. These will allow you to use little space to navigate on the dancefloor and spice up your dance. 

Sunday: Hidden Habanera and more mysteries

Duration: 2 x 1.5h

In this class, we‘ll examine the Habanera structure and track its way through Milonga and Tango music. We‘ll find that variations of this rhythmical pattern can be found everywhere. It‘s great fun to detect and integrate them in your movements. We will then move on to other rhythmical structures, that you might have heard of, but never dared to dance. Let‘s take up the challenge!

The rules ;-)

Register in a couple. You want to work with someone you like, right?

You can only register for the whole day. In other words, the double classes offered on Saturday and Sunday can only be booked as a block (of a 3h duration). We want you to get to know the teachers and the teachers to get to know you! This way you will get the most out of the experience.

Register for more than one day ;-) We'd really like that! Actually, we're sure you will like it, too ;-)

Don't be an absolute beginner! Sorry, but at least some dancing experience is required to attend the classes.

Register early! The number of participants is limited. Really.

About Detlef & Melina

We are proud to have Melina Sedó and Detlef Engel teaching at Festivalito Rural. Again. Here's some basic information about them, copied from their webpage:

Stylistically, they are at home in the traditional tango de salón, as it is danced in Buenos Aires, and which they interpret in a very personal and modern way. Their dance captivates through its intimate embrace, playful musicality and an almost puristic elegance: a sensual interplay of man and woman without cliché or superficial effect. Thus, their tango is newly created in every single moment, and does not just express the music, but genuine feeling.

At the core of their lessons, which are always geared towards improvisational capability, are intensive body work and analysis of tango´s structures. But „technical“ understanding is just a means to concentrate better on the essential: developing one´s own style and relishing the embrace in unison with the music.

If you need proof that they are welcome in many places around the world, take a look at their references.

If you like to read, check out Melina's blog. In there, you'll find her opinion on almost anything … also on Festivalito Rural ;-)

Finally, if you're more of a visual type, here's a starting point for browsing YouTube: Detlef and Melina dancing to Tormenta of Carlos di Sarli at the Festival de Kerallic in France. Watching the video you will surely realise why a blog linking to this video calls them those masters of control ;-)