Our story
Jon was introduced to tango in 1997, and in 2002, he started teaching weekly tango classes in Canterbury, Kent. Sarah began tango in the late Autumn of 2003. We discovered a shared passion for and commitment to this beautiful dance, and quickly became dance partners. In 2004, we started teaching together as ATSE.
During the first ten years of our tango school in Canterbury we developed our own pedagogy (philosophy and method of teaching), about which you can read more here. We created unique, ATSE-exclusive tango classes, including Tango Superboosts, Technicas & Rhythm Sessions and bailandos. We brought tango milonguero and tango nuevo to Canterbury - and we are still the only tango school in Kent to offer tuition in all styles of contemporary tango, at all levels. Between 2004 and 2011, we also taught weekly tango classes in Hastings, Rochester and Leeds. We now focus our attention on our tango school in Canterbury.
During the first ten years of our tango school in Canterbury we developed our own pedagogy (philosophy and method of teaching), about which you can read more here. We created unique, ATSE-exclusive tango classes, including Tango Superboosts, Technicas & Rhythm Sessions and bailandos. We brought tango milonguero and tango nuevo to Canterbury - and we are still the only tango school in Kent to offer tuition in all styles of contemporary tango, at all levels. Between 2004 and 2011, we also taught weekly tango classes in Hastings, Rochester and Leeds. We now focus our attention on our tango school in Canterbury.
It has not all been plain sailing. We each gave up established careers to teach tango full time in 2007, only for Sarah to discover she required emergency brain surgery. During her recuperation, Jon and Sarah's mother, Sue, a gifted tango dancer in her own right, kept ATSE going. Sarah's experience of 'relearning' tango (albeit at an accelerated rate), though stressful, proved also valuable, enhancing her appreciation of what is required from the body and mind as one acquires the necessary skills for dancing tango.
We are lucky to have found a partnership in which each of us brings a different approach and personality to the creation of our dance and the formulation of our teaching, yet we share a common vision of what we are aiming to achieve. In 2014, as we celebrated ten years of tango in Canterbury, we paused to reflect upon our tango philosophy - how and why we dance and teach tango as we do. You can read that philosophy here.
We are lucky to have found a partnership in which each of us brings a different approach and personality to the creation of our dance and the formulation of our teaching, yet we share a common vision of what we are aiming to achieve. In 2014, as we celebrated ten years of tango in Canterbury, we paused to reflect upon our tango philosophy - how and why we dance and teach tango as we do. You can read that philosophy here.
Into the future
Crucially, we continue to develop our own dancing, attending classes, specialist workshops and festivals, taking private tuition, and dancing as often as we can. In particular, we continue to study in Europe and Argentina with some of the very best dancers and teachers in the world, especially Gustavo Naveira and Giselle Anne (for more information about our training, please click here.
To raise awareness of and interest in real Argentine tango, we participate in local festivals, give tango performances, and teach workshops and give demonstrations to other dance groups. We also continue to develop this website, offering an up-to-date, inside perspective on the world of authentic, 21st-century Argentine tango.
Crucially, we continue to develop our own dancing, attending classes, specialist workshops and festivals, taking private tuition, and dancing as often as we can. In particular, we continue to study in Europe and Argentina with some of the very best dancers and teachers in the world, especially Gustavo Naveira and Giselle Anne (for more information about our training, please click here.
To raise awareness of and interest in real Argentine tango, we participate in local festivals, give tango performances, and teach workshops and give demonstrations to other dance groups. We also continue to develop this website, offering an up-to-date, inside perspective on the world of authentic, 21st-century Argentine tango.
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Beyond ATSE
Sarah took up her academic research again in 2011. She is currently Honorary Fellow in the School of Arts at the University of Kent, where her enduring passion for analytic aesthetics informs her research on literary adaptation and television aesthetics: https://kent.academia.edu/SarahCardwell https://www.kent.ac.uk/arts/people/honorary-visiting-emeritus/cardwell.html Alongside his tango, Jon is pursuing his studies with the Open University, in the fields of quantum mechanics and astrophysics, building on his background in mathematics. We have been dancing tango together since 2003. We were married on 20th March 2011. |
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Page updated 28th May 2022