About Florentino Guizar and Isabelle Kay

Contact Information

Email:

florentino
isabelle
Phone: 858-453-9680

Isabelle Kay Dance Resume

Background

I have received tango training in various locales, including San Diego, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, and at various workshops around the U.S. over the past 5 years. I have danced in milongas in San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland (OR), Washington, D.C., New York, London, Barcelona, Madrid, and Buenos Aires. I have performed tango locally in various events, including the Del Mar Fair, the Coronado Library, Balboa Park, and the Theatre Le Vaudeville. I have been an instructor at El Mundo del Tango since 2002, teaching introductory classes, Salon I and Salon II. I helped to develop and teach a course for followers (Tango Essence). I hold Bronze and Silver Amateur certificates, and a Bronze professional certificate in Argentine Tango from the Argentine Tango Masters Association (ATMA).

My goals in teaching tango at the introductory level are to use my broad-based dance training and experience to give students the best foundation for dancing tango, i.e: to give students the tools to allow them to move with balance, fluidity and confidence; to enable them to effectively connect with their partner; to make them familiar with the fundamental rhythms of tango; to introduce them to the common etiquette of tango; and to give them a vocabulary of movements to allow them to create their own dance.

Dance training

Tango

Ballet

Modern

Post Modern

African, Afro-cuban

Other training

Yoga:

Qi Gong

San Dieguito Adult School

Massage

Pilates

Alexander Technique

Feldenkreis

Sharon Moyano

African Drumming

Flamenco

 

Florentino Guizar Dance Resume

I have danced since I was five when I did my first public performance. I started learning Mexican folk dancing at eight, took dance classes for five years including a summer in Mexico City and actively performed for 16 years. I studied with Ramon Martinez and Susan Cashion in in Northern California and with Tizoc Fuentes at the Ballet Folklorico de Amalia Hernandez in Mexico City. I became the co-director of a high school Mexican dance group and later, co-director and head instructor of Harvard's Ballet Folklorico de Aztlan.

Besides folk dancing, I have been a social dancer all my life. I've had the opportunity to watch, learn, and dance bossa nova, axe, danzon, boleros, cumbias, salsas, rancheras, Tex-mex, and merengue at fiestas, family get-togethers, quinceñeras, weddings, and dance halls; the latter, because I had to accompany my older sisters to the dances. Growing up, I danced to rock & roll and disco. Later, while traveling, I learned to dance axe and samba. Previous to discovering how wonderful and challenging Tango is almost ten years ago, I started learning Country dancing.

I've had the pleasure of social dancing with the locals in Switzerland, Rio De Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Sydney, Singapore, Mexico City, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Tahiti and, of course, rural Michoacan, Mexico which, like many other parts of Mexico, has its own unique form of Tarascan Indian based social and religious dances.

I started dancing Tango in 1998 with private lessons from Alberto Paz and Valerie Hart. I quickly became a Tango addict taking 3-4 classes a week, dancing practically every night for a year and traveling 90 minutes to the San Francisco milongas and classes.

In San Diego, I studied with Ive Simmard, Linda Garwood, Susan Lake, Mike Markov and Marizabel Arango and Todd Martin among others. I've taken lessons from some of the best dancers and teachers including:

In 2003, I started teaching with Isabelle Kay for UCSD's Recreation Program, which allowed us the opportunity to share our passion for Tango, develop, and refine an approach to teaching Tango based on Isabelle's extensive formal dance training and my varied social dancing and teaching experience.

We have taught

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Tango Classes Milongas & Shows

You can learn to dance tango and you don't need a partner!

About the Tango Dance

Tango is sweeping the world- learn about this passionate sensual dance, its history and music:

San Diego Tango Scene

Published articles and links to Florentino's blog on Tango and on San Diego's Tango scene:

Photos and Videos

Pictures of our argentine tango classes, our performances, our tango friends and tango wedding dance moments.