It was a successful Women’s Weekend in Berlin filled with leading, 
following, dancing, laughter and great enthusiasm.
When Daniela (Feilcke -Wolff) and I spoke about doing A Women’s Weekend there was no hesitation for either one of us. She has been doing Tangueras workshops as I had done the leading ladies evenings in Phoenix. The bigger questions were about how to make it different or special. One thing we did was to add our Women’s Only milonga to it. I’m not completely sure, but it does seem like it was the first one in Berlin (hard to believe, so the fact finding on that is still open).
Daniela and I have similar and yet, very different Tango background stories and therefore our pedagogical approaches are also differently flavored. Our goals were to give these varied insights into learning how to lead as women. With mixed experience levels the women in attendance took 12 hours of tango class which included laying a foundational structure that included in general walking, turning, embrace, and ideas for being creative and musical in your social dancing.
On the heels of a wonderful women’s weekend of Tangueras – leading, following, dancing – Sharna Fabiano and Mitra Martin of Oxygen Tango both posted great blogs around the theme of women only events in Tango. How timely and how supportive! In Sharna’s Blog she addresses one of the biggest questions that I get from men (and some women), WHY? She mentions 3 reasons as to WHY: the Happiness Quotient, Practical Skills, and Stress Busting. Which I totally agree with. And probably falling under all 3 of these categories, came a message from a young man who shared that young women are sometimes bothered by men who come to events and milongas to meet women or to take them home. An all woman’s event takes this pressure and worry off of the women; busting the stress factors!
Women are natural nurturers and empathic givers. It is vital for them to receive and be nourished as continual giving out ends in depletion, an increasingly common health problem. Women instinctually know how to nourish each other, and just being with each other is restorative.
– Tanja Taljaard and Azriel Re’Shel in Why Women Need a Tribe
The All Women’s milonga had 35 women in attendance. We were so happy to have this many women at the first one of these events. We had a lovely young up and coming DJ Deborah Maus, who did a fantastic job of keeping us dancing tanda after tanda the whole night! And the feedback was immensely positive: “Can’t wait for the next one”, “Fantastic!”, “Nice relaxed atmosphere”.
All the ladies danced and of course chatted as when you get women in a room, we must chatter! I was overwhelmed by ALL the smiling faces!!!! Honestly, there was so much presence and joy in the room!
The women came from all different groups of the Berlin Tango scene and really, everyone danced with practically everyone!!!!
What are your thoughts on Women’s Events and Milongas? Would love to hear your feedback.
When’s the next one you ask? Stay tuned!!!!
(In respecting the privacy of the dancers in attendance, I posted pictures with the permission of the dancers.)