ERIC nijmegen netherlands
- Almost nobody knew about the transfer to come.

SAMANTHA cambridge england
- There were men dancing together like whirling dervishes.

FREDRIK braunschweig germany
- I have been waiting a long time in front of the toilet door waiting for that man to get out!

MELIN instanbul turkey
- I stood in front of the building and asked myself where my home was.

TILLA frankfurt germany
- I met a lot of people I have already met around Europe and I found out that they are all frequent guests.

TOVE lund sweden
- So even if I was impressed by a lot of things I mostly wanted to leave.

HENRY nijmegen netherlands
- My friends had a very good time because they noticed that something happened to me.

STEFAN nijmegen netherlands
- I finally dared to ask one of the 'local heroes'. What an energetic explosion!

MAX dortmund germany
- He welcomed me with my name without having seen me before.

THORSTEN düsseldorf germany
- At this point I wonder if El Corte is a regular dancing school.

SINAN valletta malta
- I felt myself disappointed at the very first impression.

RUTH totnes england
- This is very hands-on peace work, so badly needed in a world full of fighting and disconnection..

GREG seatle usa
- I can't begin to describe the truth of that prediction.

ELISABETH bologna italy
- I survived though, and have
lived to tell the tale.

GUIDO & MY moers germany
- Wir alle suchten dann noch seine Socken (auf denen My saß...)

JO london england
- I had never seen such a beautiful dance floor.

JESSE los angeles usa
- It's like I've came back home to old friends that I haven't met yet.

CHRISTIAN rotterdam netherlands
- Some other tangueras y tangueros immediatly guided me where to store away my belongings - 'regulars' as I later learned.

JOHN totnes england
- The collective excitement was filling the space to bursting point, threatening to build to a lighting strike...

PASCALE lille france
- Et quand ils quittent la piste, c’est dans le silence, dans le recueillement de la danse...

ALEX portland usa
- and I left after the week's dancing was done with the tango-junky's needle still in my arm wanting more.

STELLA berkeley usa
- We had to stand in the cold in our light tango clothes until the doors opened.

NITIN washington usa
- I liked the absence of any sign except the street number, 108: a little frisson of anxiety, is one at the right place?

RENÉ & CHANTAL roosendaal netherlands
- The decision to leave was an easy one;
no, we were not ready for El Corte.

KATIA moscow russia
- I can speak El Corte’s tango-language! Well… may be with some accent :)

 

MAX 56 times since 1995

When I came to El Corte for the first time, I had already heard as many good things about it as possible. I still lived in Dortmund then, and everyone of the admired "first generation dancers" in Dortmund had told me about this place as a 'must go'. So I went. But not without the help of a friend from Kassel, Petra, who suggested that we should do the first International Week together (was it in 1995?).

I came with sleeping bag and mattress but was very short of fresh T-Shirts after two days. Anyway: What happened was:
Everything became true. El Corte became a home nearly instantly. There were some more newbies, we had the whole week to meet (and dance and dance and dance...), and become
a little family, and Eric did what I admire so much:
He welcomed me with my name without having seen me before: "You must be Max." Yes, indeed.

And even my fears about not being able to dance with all the good ones went away very easily with all the "change partners" in the workshops, and for the first time we created this atmosphere of working, showing, learning from and with each other, without competition but with a lot of tenderness, that I like so much and which makes me come back until today, because to me this is one of the essentials of Tango.