Sri Sri Tango: A new Art of Living workshop for the family
Marco Di Giano is travelling worldwide to deliver a new way to experience yoga and meditation. In a new workshop called Sri Sri Tango, the magic of the Argentinean tango is bringing the whole family together to experience stress relief through dance and yoga.
“In the Sri Sri Tango class, I create the atmosphere for all the family. The family comes and enjoys and shares with all the people. It is an amazing thing,” says Sri Sri Tango teacher Marco Di Giano. In the workshop, students learn to dance tango salón,the authentic dance from the heart of Buenos Aires. Tango, meditation and Sri Sri Yoga, a natural way of moving into yoga asanas, are woven together over three sessions.
Sri Sri Tango was recently offered in Italy. Jaya Speranza describes her experience. “It is a mixture of fun, knowledge, yoga, and meditation with tango music.”
“It is different than a normal tango class, there is a lot of energy,” says Alessandro Trotta, a university student in Italy.
Often, participants are pleasantly surprised by the effects of meditation. “We get a good response,” notes Marco. “Students will often say, ‘Oh, I cannot believe how I can feel such rest, like sleep, in 20 minutes! After meditation, the students are smiling. When I ask them what happened they say, ‘I don’t know!’”
As a youth in Argentina, Marco Di Giano’s dance through life started by chance. After a friend caught his arm to teach him the tango, Marco studied dance at the National University of La Plata in Buenos Aires. He received another lucky break when the opportunity came up to teach international diplomats in Havana, Cuba.
When a career in law brought him back to Argentina, Marco found The Art of Living. In 2007, he stayed in The Art of Living International Center in Bangalore. A new inspiration for dance developed after he joined Natya Yoga, the course that combines Indian dance with meditation. Marco realized his long-held interest in tango was being rekindled. “I started thinking about combining tango dance with meditation and knowledge. One day, I started talking about it with Krishanji, my Sri Sri Yoga teacher. He inspired me and supported my enthusiasm, saying, ‘Yes, you can do it.’
Marco eventually left his law practice to become a full time Art of Living teacher in Latin America. Marco was teaching The Art of Living programs in universities when a friend had nudged him toward including tango dance in his programs. He describes how the popularity of Sri Sri Tango surprised him early on. Marco described, “We started to organize tango dance lessons on Sunday evenings. People just started coming and coming, 20 to 40 people were there regularly.”
Marco plans to continue bringing Sri Sri Tango to more countries, including to India where the inspiration began. A Sri Sri Tango course is in the plans, timed just after the Navratri festivities at The Art of Living International Center.
For participants of Sri Sri Tango, the celebrations continue after completing the workshop. In Argentina, there is a weekly milonga,or tango dance gathering, where the dance shares space with meditation. Like a satsang, the group gets together to celebrate spirituality, sing and meditate, gaining a rich experience of the Divine. The Sri Sri Tango group from Argentina recently had the chance to perform at The Art of Living’s 30th Anniversary, in Berlin, Germany. “Maximiliano (a Sri Sri Tango teacher) choreographed the dance. These people who have never danced before, danced in front of thousands of people in Berlin. There were so many of them, maybe half of the people who took the course with me in Argentina. This was amazing,” describes Marco.
For more information on Sri Sri Tango and other introductory programs of The Art of Living, visit Art of Living Course (Part 1, Art of Breathing).
