Maja PETROVIĆ & Marko MILJEVIĆ
Croatia
Maja and Marko started dancing tango in Zagreb, Croatia in 2002 in a small group of enthusiasts curious about this “new” dance. Some five years later they began giving regular lessons at the Tango Argentino Zagreb dance school.
Their first and most influential teachers were Pablo Rodríguez and Noelia Hurtado. Later they continued to study with Noelia and Carlito Espinoza. They also studied with Federico Naveira and Inés Muzzoppapa, Bruno Tombari and Mariangeles Caamaño and Chicho Frumboli and Juana Sepúlveda, among others.
How they teach: While their performances are always improvised, their lessons are carefully planned. Each lesson has a defined structure which allows them to guide the students step by step through the topic. They always begin with the technical execution of a movement, explain the role of leader and follower and finish with tips on musicality. In this way dancers of all levels can incorporate a few or all elements of the lesson and continue working on their own. They try to approach each student and couple individually, as there is no magic formula that fits everyone.
What they teach: They rarely teach figures, preferring to focus on basic techniques (walking, stepping, pivoting, keeping posture, finding balance, embracing, quality of movement, etc.) and musical elements (phrasing, change of dynamics, interpreting different orchestras, etc.).
Their teaching philosophy: Their philosophy is based on 3 ideas: feeling good, looking good and connecting with our partner to the music. One of the things they like the most about tango is the close embrace. They see it as a living, changing thing that enables them to transmit the movement that interprets the music. They like to play with the possibilities and limits of close embrace and encourage their students to do the same!
Maja
MAJA was passionate about dancing since she was very little. Her background is in contemporary dance and ballet, as well as Latin and ballroom dances. She attended music school for ten years, where she played the piano and flute. She studied Spanish and German language and literature at the University of Zagreb and worked as language teacher and translator. In Karlsruhe, she worked in different departments of the Center for Art and Media Technology (ZKM).
Marko
Marko was more into sports and almost went pro in basketball. Instead, he decided to study Electrotechnics and later Physics in which he obtained a degree at the University of Zagreb. He later continued his education and in 2014 received his PhD in Nanobiotechnology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).
