Happy Birthday!

18th May 2009

It's one year today since we launched Jivetango.co.uk. So I thought it'd be good to acknowledge that milestone with this article.

When we started

My original concept was to create a site which would provide help and support, to members of the Modern Jive community who wanted to migrate into doing a bit of Tango. Mainly because the AT scene was (rightly or wrongly) perceived as an insular community, and the dance itself was perceived as difficult to break into.

So, alongside setting up things like the "Let's Go To Negracha's" group, to promote physical visits to milongas, this would complement the learning process for us poor MJ-ers, trying to figure out the wonder that is Argentine Tango.

So if we were anal enough to have a Mission Statement, it'd be something along those lines. Although "sloppiness" is part of our ethos also...

What we've done

Well, we've written a lot of articles.

We've written Serious guides, Jive / Tango fusion articles, fun stuff, poems, Blogs and Social dancing articles.

We've done Class listings, Music listings and and Reviews.

We've got approximately 250 articles at the last count. That's a lot of content to do in a year.

Some highlights

I'd like to pick out a few areas which I think Jivetango does well, or uniquely, compared to other sites.

I'd like to thank...

Without making this an embarassing Gwyneth Paltrow-esque Oscar-winning speech, this site is a truly collaborative effort; I think it's appropriate to thank the following:

  • Christopher O'Shea - for, basically, writing half the site. And for thinking so much.
  • Ken Royden - for the poems and the support
  • Bloggers - the gorgeous Disputanda, the lovely La Dulce, and the wonderful Jacqui.

New site: LearningTango.com

Many of the articles on Jivetango are pure tango - probably a majority now, in fact.

So, what I'll be doing in the future is creating a sister site, www.learningtango.com, and moving / creating the pure articles on that site.

I hope to also add some more functions - search engine, interactivity, and so on - to the new site.

I'll aim to get this site up and running over the summer. Sorry I can't be more precise, but then I return to the "Sloppiness is our business" ethos...

- David Bailey, 18th May 2009