Sunday 2 May 2010

Tango and George Bernard Shaw, Malvern

Back home in Malvern, having left behind the frenzy of Buenos Aires, and surrounded now by soft greens of our English countryside, I find a new interesting historic connection. For some inexplicable reason I have always maintained that although Malvern is a small town, tango could still happen , being a place rich in art and culture, music and literature with Edward Elgar and George Bernard Shaw being perhaps two of our most famous associations.
Now we are getting ready for a new phase in our young tango club's development, as we have found a new venue for milongas. A beautiful Victorian gothic mansion in Great Malvern called "The Grove" has presented itself which lends itself perfectly to intimate tango soirées - it has a magical atmosphere within a private house and gardens, and the concert hall itself has known both Elgar and Shaw perform there. Thrilled to find out this romantic history I couldn't believe my eyes this weekend when at Birmingham attending the International Dance Festival at the Gallo Ciego Tango club, where I picked up some flyers and other tango papers by the door which I later read this morning. In " The 400 club" paper, an article titled "Tango and the man" Tom Keenes writes how George Bernard Shaw, author of 63 plays including Pygmalion (1913) actually did learn to tango in his later life and referred to this as "the only discoverable dance" - he apparently took tango lessons while on holiday for 6 weeks in Madeira and attributes his teacher Max Rinder as being "the only man who ever taught me anything!"
Maybe, when we dance tango in the dimly lit Grove concert hall perhaps with a fire crackling in the fireplace should the chilly weather so dictate, we'll be thinking of Sir George hoping he smiles on us too.
Our first milonga and tango workshops in a series of "summer tango soirées" will be next Saturday May 8th at The Grove, Avenue road, Malvern with teachers Loyd Vidal and Sandra Bernard who will also do a performance during the evening. (full details on the website at Tango Malvern.)




Tango Malvern web site is http://www.tangomalvern.com

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