May 9, 2008: Heartland Tango Festival on Mother's Day Weekend

The Mandrágora Tango Orchestra will be playing and teaching several times at the Heartland Tango Festival. On Saturday afternoon, bandleader and bandoneonista Bob Barnes will present an entertaining and informative multimedia lecture-recital-powerpoint on the history of tango music. On Saturday evening, Mandragora will perform during the festival's main event: a dinner featuring live music and dance demonstrations by all the festival's teachers witha late-night milonga to follow. On Sunday afternoon, members of Mandrágora will lead an open tango music jam session for musicians of any level. On Sunday evening, the Heartland Tango Festival will move to the Loring Pasta Bar in the historic "Dinkytown" neighborhood of Minneapolis. The Twin Cities' tango community has been enjoying Mandrágora's Sunday night Loring Pasta Bar milonga for over 6 years. We are all looking forward to showing off this unique milonga to new dancers and out-of-town guests

April 26, 2008: Tango Groove Party

On Saturday, April 26, we are throwing yet another party at Candelabra Studio from 10PM to the wee hours of the morning. 1517 Central Ave in Northeast Minneapolis, on Central Ave, 4 blocks north of Broadway, across from Diamond's Lounge. Candelabra is in a warehouse space and does not have a sign. Look for the Antique Store just north of the railroad tracks. Plenty of free parking in front. $8 wine and munchies available.

You may be wondering what a "Tango Groove Party" is. We pretty much made it up. We want to have a party where we play the music we love to play, which may or may not overlap with the music many dancers prefer for dancing. So we are going to host our own event where we get into a groove and tango our tango to places we usually don't go. Expect slow Piazzolla milongas, Flamenco-tinged tango, groovy bossas and sad Klezmer waltzes. Expect cutting edge recorded Electro Tango and Tango Nuevo straight outta Buenos Aires. Expect a laid-back party atmosphere in an dimly lit warehouse space. Expect a crowded hardwood dance floor.

When I was in Buenos Aries last July, I went to several "Milongas Ocultas" or "Hidden Milongas". The Orquesta Típica Fernandez Fierro has converted an old garage space in Palermo into a giant tango club with a live milonga every Wednesday night. Astillero has a loft space in San Telmo that where they throw a milonga/concert/happening every Thursday. They usually have 2 or 3 bands open for them and they take the stage at 2 AM. These 2 bands pretty much define the avant-guard of acoustic tango music today. We want to mix this up with Candelabra's loft-party vibe and create our own alternative tango venue in Minneapolis.

-Bob

January 21, 2008: Lecture on Tango History

On January 30 at 4PM, Bob Barnes will join U of MN musicology grad student Emily McManus for a lecture on history of tango. Emily will talk about the social history of tango and Bob will play musical examples on the Bandoneon. Room 125 of Nolte Center for Continuing Education on the main campus of the University of Minnesota. Free. Click here for more information.

Here is a player of the musical examples we will be using for the lecture. You can listen to them online by clicking the start button in the player, or you can click here to open the player in a new window. You can also download the MP3s as a 70Mb ZIP or RAR file.

January 15, 2008: A big, public "Thank You" from Mandragora to the Florencia, Surgit, the tango community and TSoM !

We would like to thank the Minneapolis tango community for coming out to see our concert on Saturday, Nauary 12 at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. We have always wanted to do a show with the lovely and talented Florenica Taccetti and we finally got our chance. She was fabulous, as usual! We got to know Somer Surgit (of Chicago) much better and were blown away by his graceful leading. He is one of the best leaders I've ever seen north of the Rio de la Plata! It was great to see them dance together. This show was our first "homegrown" tango show in the Twin Cities, and hopefully the first of many to come. About 60 people showed up for Rebbecca and Bruce's introductory lesson before the show. I love it when we can give people their first taste of tango.

Most of all, Mandrágora and I would like to thank all the dancers who came up on stage for our "La Cumparsita" finale. It was great to see how many tangueros came out to see us. On stage, there are bright lights shining on us so we can not see the audience. We had no idea how many people were there until the house lights came up.

PS: We finally found out why the audience laughed after we played Piazzolla's "Oblivion". After the final note and the applause faded away, Steve (who's last name I forgot, but he's usually seen with Sandi Uri) let out an audible sigh that got big laughs.

September 18, 2007: Mini-tour to Madison and Chicago, Sept 21-2

We're taking a little trip out of town to play Milongas in Madison and Chicago and a wedding in Milwaukee. On Friday, September 21 we're going to play at Restaurant Magnus (120 East Wilson) from 9PM to 1AM. We played there back in May and a pleasant time was had by all. On Saturday, we're playing at the American Tango Institute (325 N. Hoyne Ave.). This gig is co-hosted by Bill Duvall of Café. We played at his café/tango studio on our last tour and had one of our most transcendent milongas ever. The quality of dancing was really high and we played off their energy. We're looking forward to playing for many of the same dancers in a larger space! On Sunday, we're playing a private wedding in Milwaukee and we head for home on Monday.