Tango Pride Weekend Celebration
Join us and invited guest artists Andrés Ozzuna, Mira Barakat, Ray Sullivan, and Elly Fernandez for a weekend of queer tango classes, practica, a book talk and panel discussion on queering tango, and a milonga with performance. Jointly hosted by DC Queer Tango Collective & Tango Mercurio.
OPEN to ONE and ALL.
This event is partly supported by a grant from DC Commission of Arts & Humanities.
All Events at
La Cosecha
1280 4th Street NE, Washington DC 20002
Parking in La Cosecha Parking Garage is free for the first 3 hours and $15 thereafter.
SCHEDULE
Friday, June 7
7:00pm - 8:30pm Workshop
”Embrace, Walk, Connect” (All Levels) w/ Andrés Ozzuna
In this tango class we will explore the fundamentals of the embrace, walking, musicality and connection with your partner. The instruction focuses on teaching the fundamentals of walking and partnering connection. We will develop a walking technique in a close embrace to create your own experience of artistry and self-expression.
8:30pm - 10:00pm Guided Practica w/ Andrés Ozzuna
Saturday, June 8
2pm Tango: Connection (All Levels) w/ Mira Barakat
In this workshop we'll dive deep into connection, embrace, and partnering through a series of exercises, games, and movements designed to help us explore and deepen connection.
3:30pm Tango: Musicality (All Levels) w/ Mira Barakat
Step up your dance in this workshop with both accessible and nuanced ways to approach dancing the music with more easy, variety, and fun!
Sunday, June 9
1:30-2:00pm Book Talk w/ Ray Sullivan
”Changing the World One Tango at a Time”
Free and Open to All
2:00-3:00pm Panel Discussion, Moderator : José Otero
Free and Open to All
3:00-6:00pm Milonga w/ DJ TBA
Performance by Mira Barakat & Elly Fernandez
4:30pm Community Mixer Tanda
About the Artists
ANDRÉS OZZUNA
Andrés Ozzuna grew up on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, baking alongside his grandmother and dancing and singing tango with his grandfather. When Andrés immigrated to California, he found queer community centered around tango and his identity as a transgender man.
Andrés regularly teaches and DJs at Abrazo Queer Tango in Berkeley, CA, and has been a featured teacher at the Paris International Queer Tango Festival. His teaching focuses on close embrace, milonguero style tango, and prioritizes connection, quality of movement, and community care.
RAY SULLIVAN
Ray Sullivan is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning artist who has performed works by more than 50 choreographers in North America, South America, Asia, and Europe and choreographed 52 world premieres in the USA and internationally. He danced 5 years with el Ballet Contemporáneo del Teatro San Martín in Argentina, where he now lives half the year and has formed strong ties over the last three decades.
He created Sullivan Technique of Contemporary Movement™ and holds a BFA in Dance from State University of New York at Purchase. He taught for 4 years on the faculty at Miami City Ballet School and was the artistic director of Miami Contemporary Dance Company for 15 years. In addition to concert dance, he is the artistic director and co-creator of Tango Out and has performed, taught or spoken at international queer tango festivals in the USA, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Mexico, Canada, Italy, France and Germany. He is the Artistic Director of CONEXION Miami’s International Queer Tango Festival, presented annually in April during Pride, Miami Beach.
He is the author of Changing the World One Tango at a Time. He speaks passionately about the philosophy in his book using Tango as a metaphor to focus on how we can consider ourselves and others in the world, how we are never alone, always creating, and how all 8 billion of us are connected. Mr. Sullivan is continually developing his body of work, receiving invitations to stage his pieces, choreograph, teach master classes, and lecture nationally and internationally. He believes in the connection of cultures for social change and his goal is to connect artists and cultural leaders globally through his art. He works internationally with a special focus on connections throughout the Americas while based in Miami, Santiago, and Buenos Aires.
www.RaySullivanDance.com
MIRA BARAKAT
Mira Barakat is a tango teacher, performer, and singer based in Oakland, CA. With a dance background in Modern dance, Contact Improv, Swing and Blues dance, Mira took quickly to tango after attending her first milonga in 2006 and felt especially drawn to the connection and embrace. A few years later, she moved to Buenos Aires to study intensively, dance, sing and soak up tango in its birthplace. She returns to Buenos Aires every year where she co-hosts a tango immersion program, BA. Tango Evolution.
A queer artist herself, she works regularly with the queer tango community, teaching frequently for Abrazo Queer Tango in Berkeley, and she has taught and performed at the Berlin, New York, and Miami Queer Tango festivals. She was a member of the all women’s tango company Tango Con*Fusión from 2016-2019 and toured internationally with the company. mirabarakat.com
ELLY FERNANDEZ
Elly Fernandez is a queer tango dancer and teacher raised in the strength and love of the Philadelphia Tango community, studying both roles from the get-go.
She has taught queer tango in Philly, Boston, DC & and the San Francisco Bay Area queer tango communities. She teaches from a lens of agency, choice, community, and belonging, exploring the questions we don’t yet have answers to, knowing that bravery exists in the small, slow steps. Expect an impish look when she supports you turning a dance constraint into a feature, helping make this dance your own unique expression. www.ellyfernandez.com
