• About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • New to Tango?

SF Loves Tango

Insider’s guide to Argentine Tango in the San Francisco Bay Area

  • Home
  • Learn
    • Tango Instructors
    • Senior Tango
    • Queer Tango
  • Dance
    • Monday
    • Tuesday
    • Wednesday
    • Thursday
    • Friday
    • Saturday
    • Sunday
  • Wear
    • Tango Shoes
    • Tango Clothes
  • Live Music
  • Festivals
  • Music & Books
    • Tango Music

Dance and Creativity with Sharna Fabiano

February 19, 2015

There are a few people that can be credited with influencing and growing Tango in the US, and Sharna Fabiano is one of them. Not only does Sharna have a profound understanding of Argentine Tango from years of experience and exploration but also an inquisitive mind bent on understanding tango’s deeper meaning and relevance.  Sharna will be offering workshops here in the Bay Area this coming weekend, an appropriate time to learn more about her thoughts on Tango, Dance and Creativity.

Sharna is a lifelong dancer with a background in ballet, contemporary technique, yoga, and improvisation. She discovered Tango in 1997 while working in Boston as a graphic designer. In the years that followed, she made six journeys to Buenos Aires. Both in Argentina and elsewhere, she studied authentic Argentine Tango improvisation from some of the greatest names in the modern Tango Renaissance.

From 1998-2002, Sharna worked in Boston as a member of the innovative company Bridge to the Tango, founded by tango historian and revivalist Daniel Trenner.  In 2003, Sharna joined the internationally acclaimed TangoMujer, the first all-woman tango company in the world. She created three original works of choreography, including a solo commissioned by the Auros Group for New Music. She performed with TangoMujer between 2003-2006 at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and at theaters in NYC, DC, San Francisco, Berlin, Dusseldorf, and Hamburg, Germany. During these years, she also began teaching regularly in Europe.

Re-locating to Washington, DC, she was invited to dance at the Argentine Embassy and contribute work to the Dance DC Festival, DC Improv Festival, and Hispanic Festival. Between 2006 and 2010, she created three evening-length performances at Dance Place, supported in part by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities. Her collaborative work, “Uno”, with composer Glover Gill, was selected for the Festival Cambalache in Buenos Aires, an international festival featuring artists blending the disciplines of tango, theater, and contemporary dance.

Sharna currently lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the Departments of Theater and World Arts and Cultures/Dance at UCLA and at Oxygen Tango.

Obviously, much has been written about Sharna, and she herself has done much writing on the topic of Tango. I decided to find out more about her Annual Women’s Tango Retreats, her experiences dancing with TangoMujer and her plans for the future now that she has an MFA in Dance from UCLA.

Sharna Fabiano ad Aja Fenn
Sharna Fabiano ad Aja Fenn, photo by Isaac Oboka 2011

SF Loves Tango:  You co-host an annual Women’s Tango Retreat. Can you discuss your motivation for creating events for women only?

Sharna: Looking back, I think it was my very early experiences with social tango that set the stage for my work with women. I was only 22 years old when I started, and I had that familiar experience that gets discussed a lot now on tango blogs, where the young beginner gals get asked to dance constantly by all the men while the more skilled and more mature women sit and watch. The community was quite small in 1997, so I felt this phenomenon very acutely, and I saw that it isolated me from the other women, and the whole situation really bothered me. I also was not at all comfortable with the attention I was getting simply for being young and female, but I didn’t know what to do about it. All I remember, now, is that it was extremely stressful to navigate that territory, and it was interfering with my creative enjoyment of the dancing.

I might have dropped out, eventually, but then I had the great fortune to study with a series of teachers who advocated the dancing of both roles (Daniel Trenner, Brigitta Winkler, Nil Disco and Esse Dijks). In particular, seeing women dance together was mind-altering for me. I had studied contemporary dance in college and so, in that moment, it just sort of clicked in my head that tango was another form of Dance, with a capital D, and suddenly it seemed like the most natural thing in the world for me to learn both parts and to be able to dance with anyone, just as a contemporary dancer can perform a duet with anyone, change position, or learn someone else’s part.

This re-orientation toward tango roles immediately connected me with other women in the community, because I could dance with them, and my doing that diminished a lot of the competitiveness that had been there before. That, I actually found kind of revelatory, and the women that I practiced leading with became my closest friends.

Later as a professional instructor and organizer, I saw the same story repeating itself in countless variations, so based on my own experience, the response was pretty clear for me: make classes and workshops for women to learn to lead together. I would say it’s a kind of community building, and it helps to neutralize that competitive tendency that exists in social tango, especially when there are more women than men, which is often the case. There are millions of other reasons why leading is a good thing for women to do, but I’ll leave that for another article!

SF Loves Tango: Can you talk about your experience with the all-woman company TangoMujer?

Sharna: The women of TangoMujer were early role models for me. I still remember seeing a postcard of Rebecca Shulman and Brigitta Winkler, barefoot, turning around each other in some strange yet still tango-esque position, and I thought, “YES! These women are wild and crazy, this is the tango I need in my life!” It was such a sharp contrast from the broadway show Forever Tango, which I couldn’t relate to at all. So initially, I didn’t even know them personally, I was just insanely inspired by the existence of such a company. The fact that they were women was part of it, but even more than that was the way they were mixing genres of performance. It was tango, but also something else that I didn’t yet know how to describe. They danced solos, they danced quartets, they turned tango upside down and backwards. It was amazingly beautiful to me.

Rebecca Shulman and Brigitta Winkler, courtesy TangoMujer, ca. 1998
Rebecca Shulman and Brigitta Winkler, courtesy TangoMujer, ca. 1998

The company performed from 1996-2006, and I had the honor of collaborating with them for the last three of those years. I learned a lot, and made tons of mistakes. It was my first experience in a professional dance company, trudging through the endless blood, sweat and tears that it requires to get a show up on stage, and at the same time feeling so much urgency and excitement around doing it. Then there was the tremendous fear of messing up in front of all of these women I had looked up to for so long. And of course I messed up all the time.

Somehow, though, I made a long piece with them that was very modern, influenced by my contemporary dance background. It was my first big departure from classical tango. Then I made a solo, and a more traditional tango duet, and I learned some of the repertory pieces that the others had made in previous years. All of that was super influential in the formation of my own choreographic identity. It’s always a little embarrassing though, for me to reflect on past work. I see where I was then and all that I didn’t know and I sort of cringe… But, if I hadn’t done that work, I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing now. That period of time set me on the path of becoming a choreographer. After TangoMujer, I ran my own company in DC for four years, and got accepted to graduate school in LA in 2011.

SF Loves Tango:  Can you share with us your own future goals in regard to dance and Tango?

Sharna: Well, I think I am just now starting to figure that out. I was in graduate school from 2011-2014, which is kind of like being in a really uncomfortable cocoon. Post-degree, I’ve discovered that I enjoy teaching in a university setting – it’s a valuable and rare chance to discuss dance and movement not only as recreational activities, but as essential ways to know ourselves as human beings. And that feels really important to me, especially as the digital world expands.

My choreographic work now tends to address what I see as the underlying themes of tango, ideas like partnership, isolation, and longing, but it doesn’t really LOOK like tango much at all in terms of its form or shape. Grad school forced me to do this. Do I really care that much about a boleo? Turns out, I don’t. I care more about the experience of loneliness. I care more about the desire for freedom. I care more about the inner demons who try to control everything, and about our deep impulses to change and transform.

Sharna Fabiano and Peter Haffner, photo by Isaac Oboka 2014
Sharna Fabiano and Peter Haffner, photo by Isaac Oboka 2014

In tango, most of this is felt, not seen, so working directly with the themes themselves gives me a lot more freedom in how I choose to reveal them for an audience. And it makes collaborations with artists of different disciplines more intuitive, so I guess right now I feel curious to keep expanding the ways that I make choreography, and seeking out new collaborations.

I think social tango at its best provides the feeling of connection and belonging, but it often delivers the opposite of that. There’s plenty of confusion and disappointment floating around, so as much as I can, I want to give my energy to projects and teaching opportunities that will be creative and uplifting, or at least give people tools to have more deliberate control over their own experience of social dancing.  

Sharna is teaching two workshops here in the Bay Area this coming weekend:

Sat Feb 21, 2015 – Stanford Tango Club Workshops: Exploring Tango Performance
Time: 3:15-6:45, milonga follows from 8:30-midnight

Sunday – Feb 22nd – Queer Tango Workshop at the Finish Hall in Berkeley
Time: 3:30 – 7pm

 

Filed Under: Learning Tango, Special Events, Visiting teachers Tagged With: Argentine Tango, Bay Area Tango, QueerTango, San Francisco Tango, Sharna Fabiano, TangoMujer

Tango scenes in SF

sflovestango

Celebrate #bayareatango community, support everyone involved & share ♥️ of #tango with San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

sflovestango
🧨 New year, new beginnings! One happened yester 🧨 New year, new beginnings! One happened yesterday at @thetangodome – first Women's Gathering hosted by @ayano.yoneda.tango, including folks who identify as women.

Part clothing & shoe swap, and part cultivating a safe space to be vulnerable, be generous, be supportive, and be real with each other.

Looking forward to more of this and building a community that keeps involving what tango events can be beyond the dance! 🙌 
.
.
.
#tango #argentinetango #tangoargentino #tangolovers #womenintango #bayareatango #sisterhood #beyondthedance
As the year-end approaches, many SF local tango ev As the year-end approaches, many SF local tango events have had or will have their last event of 2022 to wrap things up. This year's last Milonga Rubia al Sur happened this past Sunday, Dec 18 with DJ @ayano.yoneda.tango and special performance with visiting artist, @martinalmironartist, and milonga host, Lisette @passion4tango. 

With the holidays coming up and Argentina winning the world cup, dancing tango all night long around Lisette's very own flower arrangements was just the appropriate celebration people needed.

Hosted by Lisette Perelle, Milonga Rubia is held every 1st & 3rd Sunday of the month, with current location at Just Dance Ballroom (2500 Embarcadero) in Oakland and a different DJ for each event.

✨ Fun fact - how Milonga Rubia got its name... ✨

Lisette's Argentine friends have always been calling her 'Rubia' because of her blonde hair. One day about 6 years ago, when she was discussing naming this new milonga with @julian_tangosf, he said, “Why not just call it Milonga Rubia?" That's how Milonga Rubia got its name! The event once was in a venue in Emeryville/Richmond. Once Lisette changed venues to a more southern location (Just Dance Ballroom in Oakland), the event's name was changed to 'Milonga Rubia al Sur' accordingly.
.
.
.
#tango #tangoargentino #argentinetango #tangoevent #sundayfunday #milonga #milonganight #socialdancing #bailemos #embrace #tangodancers #bayareatango #oakland #keepdancing #dancingislife #weekendrecap
Last Saturday, Saturday Dec 17, @abrazoqueertango Last Saturday, Saturday Dec 17, @abrazoqueertango hosted their Holiday Bash with performances by @mirabtango and Miranda at @tangodome, a cool art gallery and dance space at 951 62nd St in Oakland.

🏳️‍🌈 Abrazo Queer Tangois a volunteer-run organization, and after expenses, all funds are used to pay for their events and offer discounts to students and folks short on cash. To help the org break even in 2022 and fund its 2023 programs, last Saturday's event was positioned as a fundraiser with a sliding scale $20-$40 for folks to choose how they'd like to show their support, offering a sweet night of performance, community and great music in a magical location. 

Missed the event yet still would like to support Queer Tango? Donations always totally work! Please write *donation* in the comment via your favorite method:
Venmo ➡️ abrazo-tango (Karen Curtis)
Paypal ➡️ abrazoqueertango@gmail.com
.
.
.
#tango #tangoargentino #argentinetango #tangoevent #specialevents #milonga #saturdayvibe #socialdancing #bailemos #embrace #tangodancers #bayareatango #queertango #oakland #keepdancing #dancingislife #weekendrecap
💫 #motivationmonday is not over yet so here is 💫 #motivationmonday is not over yet so here is a quick recap of the International Day of Tango at @greatnorthernsf last night! 💫 Milonga hosted by @julian_tangosf with DJ @loco_chung. 
.
.
.
#diadeltango #tango #tangoargentino #argentinetango #tangoevent #specialevents #milonga #sundayfunday #socialdancing #bailemos #embrace #tangodancers #bayareatango #sanfrancisco #keepdancing #dancingislife #weekendrecap
This Friday night in the heart of San Francisco, t This Friday night in the heart of San Francisco, tango dancers and the public who are curious art lovers had a unique experience with live music performed by local tango musicians and the strategic mix of TANGO • VALS • MILONGA • ALTERNATIVE music by DJ @jonas.aqui of @jxtango at @drawingroomsf_annex, an art • gallery • studio in the Mission district – a free event by the collaboration of @chetangosf, @drawingroomsf and @artistmigration. 

Artists featured:
Sumi Lee (piano) @sfsumi
J Ramada (bass)
Basma Edrees (violin) @basmaedreesviolin
Verónica Freidkes (vocal) @veroverofreidkes

Check out our stories and story highlights for snippets of the performances and tango dancing around art pieces!
.
..
.
❣️ about Che! Tango SF❣️

All events created by Ramada Salieri and Elaine Chiu are dedicated to providing an inclusive and friendly dancing and learning environment in San Francisco and the Bay Area regardless of gender, age, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion, or any other characteristic or trait.

ONGOING EVENTS
Che! Milonga: Every 1st and 2nd Saturday of the month 
Che! Música + Milonga: Once every quarter on a 2nd Saturday
Milonga Uno: 3rd Saturday of every other month
.
..
.
❣️ about The Drawing Room SF ❣️

MISSION
The Drawing Room connects community through art to help improve the overall human condition by making art accessible and part of the daily fabric of our lives. 
.
..
.
❣️about Artist Migration❣️

ANTI CAPITALIST ART
Artist-led curatorial project providing performance and exhibition opportunities to international artists.
.
.
.
#tango #tangoargentino #argentinetango #concert #milonga #specialevent #onenightonly #livemusic #fridaynights #art #tangomusic #contemporarymusic #contemporarytango #womenintango #womeninmusic #artislife  #tangomusicians #musiciansofinstagram #sanfrancisco #california #bayareatango #sflovestango #jxtango
Those who came out to @tangolabruja last night had Those who came out to @tangolabruja last night had an epic evening of dancing and live music with three highly skillful tango musicians’ improvised music – Trio Tangazo, a dynamite tango trio made up of Sascha Jacobsen (bass), Seth Asarnow (piano), and Adrian Jost (bandoneon). 

~~Fun fact~~
Sascha, Seth and Adrian all performed at La Bruja previously - either with other tango ensembles or in duo - but it was the first time all three of them taking the stage together!

📍 @berkeleycityclub 
.
.
.
#tango #concert #milonga #milonganight #specialevent #onenightonly #tangomusic #improvisation #travelingmusician #musiciansofinstagram #california #berkeley #bayareatango #tangomusicians #tangodancers #socialdance #dancingislife #sflovestango
🥧 Tomorrow is Thanksgiving so @milongamalevaje 🥧 Tomorrow is Thanksgiving so @milongamalevaje is closed for that matter, but here is something different & fun from last Thursday 😉 with DJ @jonas.aqui, courtesy of hosts @tanguera_e, Ramada Salieri and Adolfo Caszarry.

Have a wonderful holiday everyone!
.
.
.
#tango #tangoargentino #argentinetango #milonga #milonganight #tangoevent #tangoalternativo #alternativetango #tangonuevo #embrace #bailar #bailemos #socialdance #partnerdance #tangodancers #dancingislife #bayareatango #sanfrancisco #sflovestango
✨ FRIDAY NIGHT TANGO ✨ It’s been awhile sin ✨ FRIDAY NIGHT TANGO ✨

It’s been awhile since Milonga La Genesis (hosted by @julian_tangosf) has live tango music. Last night LEO TANGASSO QUARTET was in the house, featuring @leogassomusic from Montevideo, Uruguay on bandoneon,  @smurfetteshum on piano, Stella Bonilla on violin,  @digsmahler on double bass.

(🎥 @tangonnection, edited by @sflovestango)
.
.
.
#tango #argentinetango #tangoargentino #specialevent #bayareatango #tangomusic #livemusic #tangomusicians #bandoneon #piano #doublebass #violin #quartet #onenightonly #milonganight #sanfrancisco #sflovestango
👏 The all-female tango ensemble, 𝙇𝙖𝙨 𝘼𝙡𝙢𝙖𝙨, wrapped up their 2022 concert tour at @alameda_elks1015, playing for a full house of guests at the @housetango Community Milonga.

𝙇𝙖𝙨 𝘼𝙡𝙢𝙖𝙨 is a collaboration between powerhouse female tango musicians @sfsumi (piano), @heynisolera (bandoneon), and @teagbby (violin). Their concert on Sunday featured guest bassist @fabricanfabricant and vocalist @teresatam.sing.

~~.~~.~~.
The mission of 𝙇𝙖𝙨 𝘼𝙡𝙢𝙖𝙨 is to present contemporary Argentine tango through virtuosic artistic performance and educational events.  Sumi, Heyni, and Teagan originally bonded in Buenos Aires, drawn by a mutual love of tango music, as well as by a realization of the inequality of professional opportunity for women in the tango genre. They studied under the same maestros and performed with prestigious tango orchestras in Buenos Aires.  They now frequently perform around the world, including in their respective adopted cities of San Francisco (Sumi), Washington, DC (Heyni), and NYC (Teagan). All of the musicians also produce their own music. 
~~.~~.~~.
.
.
.
#tango #concert #milonga #specialevent #onenightonly #tangomusic #contemporarymusic #contemporarytango #womenintango #womeninmusic #travelingmusician #heynibando #tour #beautifulwomen #musiciansofinstagram #sanfrancisco #california #berkeley #oakland #bayareatango #tangomusicians
🎉 Saturday, October 22 marked the grand re-open 🎉 Saturday, October 22 marked the grand re-opening of Vecher Tango at the Russian Center of SF!

After a long pause of two and a half year, the magnificent grand ballroom was filled with tango energy again. What made the occasion extra special was the incredible performances by another visiting master couple @javierchikk & @moiracastellano. To top it off, @virginiaychristian "Los Totis" joined Javier & Moira on the floor for a mixed maestros dance!

Shout-out to our dearest friend Davood Yazdani, Julia Schiptsova of Tango Element, and all the local organizers for making this weekend feel like a mini tango festival in San Francisco!
.
.
.
#tango #argentinetango #argentinetango♥️ #tangoargentino #milonganight #tangoperformance #bailar #bailemos #bailando #tangoshow #tangoevent #tangodancer #tangocouple #specialevent #onenightonly #tangophoto
✨It's a star-struck tango week in SF!!✨ @vir ✨It's a star-struck tango week in SF!!✨ 

@virginiaychristian "Los Totis" have been teaching in San Francisco (brought to you by our very own Davood Yazdani who's in collaboration with Julia Schiptsova of Tango Element!) And we were mesmerized by their fantastic performances last night at the special edition of @milongamalevaje at @verdiclubsf ! 🤩👏
.
.
. 
#tango #argentinetango #argentinetango♥️ #tangoargentino  #tangoperformance #bailar 
#bailemos #bailando #tangoshow  #tangoevent #tangoperformance #tangodancer #tangocouple #specialevent #onenightonly #tangophoto
💫 Exactly a year later, 𝙇𝙖𝙨 𝘼𝙡𝙢𝙖𝙨, an all-female tango musician collaboration, has returned to the SF Bay Area!! 

Last night they took the audience on a magical journey to Buenos Aires with a concert-milonga at @tangolabruja in Berkeley. Check out our stories to see more snippets of their performance!

𝙇𝙖𝙨 𝘼𝙡𝙢𝙖𝙨 is a collaboration between powerhouse female tango musicians @sfsumi (piano), @heynisolera (bandoneon), and @teagbby (violin). The concert last night featured guest singer @veroverofreidkes.

The mission of 𝙇𝙖𝙨 𝘼𝙡𝙢𝙖𝙨 is to present contemporary Argentine tango through virtuosic artistic performance and educational events. Sumi Lee, Heyni Solera, and Teagan Faran originally bonded in Buenos Aires, drawn by a mutual love of tango music, as well as by a realization of the inequality of professional opportunity for women in the tango genre. They studied under the same maestros and performed with prestigious tango orchestras in Buenos Aires.  They now frequently perform around the world, including in their respective adopted cities of San Francisco (Sumi), Washington, DC (Heyni), and NYC (Teagan). All of the musicians also produce their own music. 

Catch them for the rest of their tour!
🔸10/20 (Thur) 10pm, World Folk Jam concert w/ ten other world music groups, Oakland
🔸10/21 (Fri) 7pm, Sebastopol Center for the Arts
🔸10/22 (Sat) 7:30pm, Sunset Music and Arts, San Francisco
🔸10/23 (Sun) 3:30pm, houseTango Community Milonga @ Alameda Elks Lodge, Alameda
.
.
.
#tango #concert #milonga #specialevent #onenightonly #tangomusic #contemporarymusic #contemporarytango #womenintango #womeninmusic #travelingmusician #heynibando #tour #beautifulwomen #musiciansofinstagram #sanfrancisco #california #berkeley #oakland #bayareatango
Load more Follow us

Connect with us

RSStwitterfacebookinstagram

Get updates to your inbox

Subscribe to SF Loves Tango

* indicates required

Categories

  • Guest Post
  • Interviews
  • Learning Tango
  • Live Tango Music
  • Milonga Spotlight
  • Musings
  • SF Festivals
  • Special Events
  • Tango Clothes
  • Teacher Spotlight
  • Visiting teachers

Recent Comments

  • xiaomin on Saying Hello
  • Jeffrey on Saying Hello
  • maika on Saying Goodbye
  • Gigi Jensen on Saying Goodbye
  • William Ward on Tango Festival Survival Guide
  • Randall Crane on Tango and the Feminist

Privacy Policy Copyright © 2023 SF Loves Tango