Coronavirus update, July 2020
A summer update for our current and prospective tango students
A summer update for our current and prospective tango students
ATSE usually closes in August, with most tango schools, for the summer break. Usually, in these last days of July, we'd be running our final sessions of summer term, revising some moves, maybe throwing in something fun and a bit edgier than usual, to round off our weeks of dancing together. This year, we've been closed since early March.
We shut down our classes a couple of weeks before the venues that we use were closed by the government. We had to make our decision in the absence of any specific guidance from health professionals or dance organisations. Our view was that partner dancing constituted an unacceptable level of risk. We believe we made the right call, but it was a very tough call to make. We've sustained our tango classes over 16 years, through serious illness, redundancy, recessions, bereavements and the vicissitudes of the market. But not through Covid-19. Anyone who runs a small business, is self-employed or freelance, is a member of the precariat and/or finds themselves now suddenly unemployed knows how hard this situation is, and how uncertain the future looks.
At this point, even though venues have reopened, it is not possible to run our tango classes whilst maintaining appropriate socially distanced, 'no touch' practices. We enter this August 'break' hoping that the situation will be different by September. We can only wait, and hope.
We miss our tango classes, and we know many of you feel the same. We've been heartened by a small number of enquiries from potential new students, who are keen to seize the day and learn to dance tango, as soon as it's possible to do so. We've also appreciated our regular dancers who have kept in touch over the past few months.
Once it is viable for us to begin teaching again, putting reasonable precautions in place that do not detrimentally affect your experience, or the kind or quality of teaching you expect from us, we will be in touch.
In the meantime, we hope you have a good summer, and we look forward very much to seeing you soon. We will dance tango with one another again.
Hasta luego,
Jon, Sarah and Sue
We shut down our classes a couple of weeks before the venues that we use were closed by the government. We had to make our decision in the absence of any specific guidance from health professionals or dance organisations. Our view was that partner dancing constituted an unacceptable level of risk. We believe we made the right call, but it was a very tough call to make. We've sustained our tango classes over 16 years, through serious illness, redundancy, recessions, bereavements and the vicissitudes of the market. But not through Covid-19. Anyone who runs a small business, is self-employed or freelance, is a member of the precariat and/or finds themselves now suddenly unemployed knows how hard this situation is, and how uncertain the future looks.
At this point, even though venues have reopened, it is not possible to run our tango classes whilst maintaining appropriate socially distanced, 'no touch' practices. We enter this August 'break' hoping that the situation will be different by September. We can only wait, and hope.
We miss our tango classes, and we know many of you feel the same. We've been heartened by a small number of enquiries from potential new students, who are keen to seize the day and learn to dance tango, as soon as it's possible to do so. We've also appreciated our regular dancers who have kept in touch over the past few months.
Once it is viable for us to begin teaching again, putting reasonable precautions in place that do not detrimentally affect your experience, or the kind or quality of teaching you expect from us, we will be in touch.
In the meantime, we hope you have a good summer, and we look forward very much to seeing you soon. We will dance tango with one another again.
Hasta luego,
Jon, Sarah and Sue
Page updated 29 July 2020