Mountain Milonga Retreat 2017 Team

Mountain Milonga Retreat 2017
DJs, Teachers, Musicians, Organizers

 Diego Blanco & Ana Padron of Tango For All Dance Company
John Miller & Jesica Cutler * Jamie Lynn Figure * Mike Eblen * Trista Brophy
Grisha Nisnevich * Brian Salisbury *Joni Roco * Chris Neville * Serena Lembach
Tommy Smith *Alexandra Mason * Guadalupe Sandoval * Phonograph Blue Band

Diego Blanco and Ana Padron from New York (website)

New for 2017: Please welcome our amazing principal instructors, NYC-based and internationally renown Diego Blanco & Ana Padron.
After winning the Talent Show in Miami in 2001, Diego and Ana were awarded a scholarship from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts to attend the Alvin Ailey intensive summer course of dance in 2002 in New York City. They won numerous awards in the US and toured Europe and Asia beginning in 2008. 

Cheers for Tango For All Dance Company's first ascent of the Rocky Mountains on July 14-17, 2017!

John Miller and Jesica Cutler from Denver (website)

John Miller is one of the most popular DJs in Colorado and nationwide, and he plays an average of 140 nights a year. He has DJed across North America at many festivals and milongas, including the UTango, Wasatch Tango Exchange, SLTF, and M2 in Utah, Burning Tango in California, the Albuquerque Tango Festival, the Denver Tango Festival, the Natural Tango Festival, the Boulder Tango Festival, Mala Leche in New York City, the Toronto Tango Experience, the Midwest Tango Festival, the Chicago Mini-Festival, the Austin Spring Tango Festival, and the Baja Eco-Tango Festival in La Paz, Mexico. Jesica is a master of anatomy, John is a whiz at structure, and together their classes present a clear and integrated understanding of Tango, both in movement and in composition. They have been teaching together since 2013, and work extensively with college students to bring Tango to the younger generation. Their style incorporates both the earliest elements of Tango and the most modern developments. Jesica massage skills and couple massage classes are a legend in their own right!
Jesica and John brings to Mountain Milonga years of experience in tango festival organizing. MMR 2017 is their first foray into Utah event organizing. Let's all keep our fingers crossed, and our eyes wide open for pleasant surprises and friendly cabeceos!

Grisha Nisnevich from Denver (website)
Grisha Nisnevich is an internationally renown tango musician, band leader, and instructor, who discovered Argentine tango in 2001, and studied with Julio Balmaceda and Corina de la Rosa. As concert-level musician, and professional dancer and teacher, Grisha strives to share his knowledge of the “secrets’ of music taken from music scores and music performance with dancers in addition to sharing the dancing experience with musicians, both in North America and across Europe and Asia, teaching and sharing this original unique material with tango teachers and dancers, giving musicality classes, concerts and lectures as well as technical classes

Mike Eblen (Oregon / North Carolina) and Trista Brophy (Tampa)

New for 2017: please welcome our superhuman kitchen crew leaders, Mike Eblen & Trista Brophy, battle-tested at the festivals in Colorado and Oregon, and now starring at 9,000 ft elevation! Yet even with the help of Joni Roco, these amazing team leaders may be no match to the Grand Asado, so you can be sure that we still need volunteers!!! (We are also trying to bring you a special unique opportunity of getting a cooking class with Mike & Trista!)


Jamie Lynn Figure from Colorado Springs Jamie Lynn teaches both dance and yoga. She specializes in integrating the movement concepts of both arts to enhance each other and fine tune balance and stability in the body.

Brian Salisbury from Salt Lake

Brian Salisbury played violin all his life, and began dancing tango in 1996 with the purpose of finding a social dance situation that didn’t involve standing out most of the evening with a violin under his chin. Sue Jones, Theresa Shultz, and Lynn Butler introduced Argentine Tango at Micky Cassalino’s dance studio which lead to working with Andre Solomon, Christopher Nassapolis, Florencia Tacetti and Alberto Paz. Tango study travels to Seattle, Portland, and Denver lead to a long 2002 trip to Buenos Aries, studying with Claudia Bozzo at Escuela del Tango, then assisting various teachers in BsAs with complete beginners at “tourist” classes. Early influences of tango music included 78 rpm classics - La Cumparsita, El Choclo, Jealousy, and various “gypsy” records purportedly, “Tango Tzigane” in addition to sound tracks to tango episodes in films. Applied study of tango music began with Dan Diaz and continues with transcription and performance. Annual classes at the Reed College Tango Music Institute since 2013 helped clarify specific style elements of tango from styles used in other passionate music for dance. (i.e. csardas, rembetica, hot swing, tsigane). A seminal 2008 jam with Homer Ladas lead to the creation of Tango Quinteto Noir, many more festival tango jams, and, since 2012, multi-city orchestras convening to play live music at the events such as Mountain Milonga Retreat, Sun Valley Tango Retreat, and Missoula Tango Marathon.
Joni Roco 
Jurni Roco says: "I believe in creating an environment that fosters connection and growth. I do this by hosting Tango and Blues events, DJing, and, most of all, through teaching. I teach in Portland and Tucson and DJ both traditional, and fusion at events in the western US. Join us as we explore the dance." Jurni studies tango with Lizelot de Stigter.

Tommy Smith from Boise Tommy discovered tango in early 2012. Since then his love for Argentine tango has grown into an obsession as he seeks ever increasing depths of knowledge. His skills and interests run the full spectrum: teaching, DJing, performing, and organizing. To educate and motivate beginning DJs, progressing DJs, and those interested in tango music, he offers semi-regular DJ workshops. Festivals he has DJ'd at include Montana's Tango Uprising and the Salt Lake Tango Fest.
With a long history of teaching and tutoring engineering and math, Tommy brings his analytic and organized teaching style into the tango classroom, striving to present concepts that both reinforce each other organically and are accessible to students of all levels. He teaches comfortable and connected social tango, emphasizing versatility, thoughtfulness, and musicality.
Mark Christensen from Salt Lake Mark Christensen. one of the founders of Salt Lake City tango and a past president of Wasatch Tango Club, has been and continues to be instrumental in the development of a tango community in Utah. Mark frequently functions as DJ for local tango events and has DJ’d, taught, participated in workshops or danced socially in Buenos Aires and in communities across the United States, including communities in Albuquerque, Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC and other locations. Mark advocates socially responsible, conscious, connected, improvisational, musical dancing—acquiring concepts and skills that enable each individual to develop and through dance share with others their own authentic and unique expression, way of moving, and personal interpretation of the passionate, emotive and structurally rich music of Argentine tango.

Alexandra Mason from LA
New for 2017: please welcome our new invited DJ Alexandra Mason, elevating the Golden Age music all the way from the beach-side promenades of Santa Monica to the summits of the Rocky Mountains!

Christopher Neville from Salt Lake 
Christopher is an incredibly passionate and talented dancer, who has done everything from DJing, teaching classes, running milongas, to organizing UTango festival. His DJing is always bright and energetic, and incredibly responsive to the crowd.

Serena Lembach from San Diego
Anibal Troilo said "El tango siempre te espera" (Tango always waits for you.) This is surely the case for Serena Lembach, who first stumbled onto tango during a BsAs visit with a soccer group in 1986. A single couple all in black on a tiny stage. The music grabbed her soul. The connection and passion was palpable. Returning home; no tango in sight, sick kids; life got in the way. Fast forward decades. Once she started she never looked back, classes and milongas several days a week. always the music driving the quest. Serena took the love of the music to djaying, and is busy in San Diego being house DJ for Toca Tango Milonga, as well as guest DJing at other milongas and practicas across the Western US and Mexico. Just as you only know a people when you know the language, you only know tango when you know the music. She finds joy in seeing dancers embrace the music and grow in their ability to be one with the music.



  Guadalupe Sandoval Rodriguez
Many Moons ago Guadalupe Rodriguez found the elixir of music of Tango-in the golden age of Tango to the Neo Classic and the alternative of today. Music connects us across the universe-if there ever will be peace on Earth-music, will certainly have a positive say in it. Guadalupe found himself in the Tango world since 2008. He has been Immersing himself in the music, culture and dance and currently teaching beginning tango and hosting a practica for the last 3 years at Mestizo Café. The love of the music then and now motivates Guadalupe to continue to refine, play and discover the perfect playlist for the Milonga. He began DJing the last few years in Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and Sun Valley. “The trip has only begun.” He adds. Listening to the music of Tango always impresses his sensibilities as a dancer and shares that exuberance with his fellow dancers. He spends hours perfecting the tandas, and seeing the results fully appreciated by dancers on the floor. The music, he says, “can’t be improved, but we can surely improve our interpretation of it with our dance throughout our lives!” He also is an accomplished visual artist that shares his joy of the dance in film and stills with others in the community, having done one man shows in Utah and California. “Tango is such a connectivity passion! It’s no wonder it’s all over the world, Thank God for that!” He exclaims with a big smile.
  Phonograph Blue band, Salt Lake City The Phonograph Blue is a fantastic music project combining the Krikov family and their international friends, interpreting tango, jazz, and folk classics from many countries and in a variety of languages. We are blessed to have them play at some local milongas! An instant hit with Mountain Milonga dancers, we are happey to see them perform again in 2017