About Us
I started dancing tango in 2009, and immediately became immersed in it. My pursuit of dancing and studying tango has never stopped, and I consider myself first and foremost a student of this exquisite and complex dance. During these years, I also obtained a PhD in Critical Dance Studies, with my research focused on the “popular milongas” of Buenos Aires. I find the endless potential for learning that this dance offers most inspiring, and I am always trying to improve myself. My main teachers have been Carlitos Espinoza and Moira Castellano, and Carlitos is the one I look up to as my inspiration.
I experience tango as a moving meditation. However, it is a very unique kind of meditation, because the process involves another person as well. A meditative experience that is possible only with the cooperation of the other. To be more precise, what makes this experience unique is that it requires a constant embodied awareness of the other. When you are tuned into the finest details of the presence and movement of your partner, you have arrived.
I have a passion for teaching tango, and have taught in both community and university settings during the past decade. In more recent years I have mainly taught with my partner Oldřiška, with our focus not only on teaching movement, but sensitivity and awareness as well. We consider the exploration of ways to transmit the nuances of this dance a rewarding challenge.
Oldřiška started dancing Argentine tango in Prague in 2012. One day she accidentally appeared at a milonga. As she arrived to the underground dance floor, the scene that opened in front of her eyes amazed her. Each couple had a different style, the dancers were moving together in embrace. Their connection seemed intimate and they were completely focused. As she learned shortly afterwards, the dance was improvised. It was different from what she had thought dancing was about. It was much more than that!
After taking a few classes in Prague, Oldřiška took off for her international university studies. She found her temporary home in a tango community in Catania, Sicily, which warmly welcomed her. Her relaxed school schedule allowed her to go dance every night. Then, she kept social dancing in Budapest in Hungary. In summer 2014, Oldřiška met Radi at a milonga in Prague. They went for their first date to a milonga in an outdoor pavilion immersed in vineyards. As their relationship progressed, she moved to Los Angeles, USA. They formed a tango partnership and started learning and working together.
Radi took Oldřiška to Buenos Aires, where they spent altogether about 6 months social dancing and studying between 2016 and 2018. Oldřiška found her first real teacher there, the tango legend Moira Castellano. Thanks to Moira’s patience and skills, Oldřiška was able for the first time to really deep dive into tango technique. Moira has been Oldřiška’s main female role model, teaching her authenticity and elegance of the movement, freedom in her body and powerful self-expression. Another breakthrough in Oldřiška’s understanding of tango was in 2019 when her and Radi started intensely studying with Carlitos Espinoza in Lyon, France and worldwide. Oldřiška’s embrace, presence, subtlety and musicality are highly influenced by Carlitos’s teachings.
Oldřiška’s formation comes mainly from the environment of the milonga. Her greatest skills and passion lie in the subtleties of connecting with others. Sometimes, when one dances, present in the embrace and in harmony with their partner and the music, something magical happens. Such moments are healing for the body and soul of both partners involved. Therefore, Oldřiška’s purpose as a teacher is to give her students tools to facilitate these moments and support their own process of finding their authentic expression through the dance. She believes that tango is a never-ending journey of learning – learning about the body, the music and the culture, as well as the self and relationships.
In 2015-2018 Oldřiška and Radi taught dance classes at the University of California, Riverside and in the tango community of San Diego where they co-created and co-organized a weekly event called Practica La Vie. After taking a break in teaching to focus on their own learning, they have recently started to teach again. They have performed multiple times in Southern California as well as in Buenos Aires, Argentina and they are looking forward to sharing their passion in Europe.
Photographs by Marcelo Di Rienzo