2026 Contango Summer Intensive Innsbruck (Austria): “Freeing the Embrace” | 20.6.2026
Innsbruck (Austria), 20 June 2026.
“Freeing the Embrace”: Two intensive workshops followed by JaMilonga.
A full day of exploration between tango and contact improvisation, where breath, touch, and movement unfold as a somatic dialogue of trust, rhythm, and transformation. Join a single workshop or immerse yourself in the full intensive, culminating in the JaMilonga — a shared space where tango and contact meet and form becomes flow. Throughout the day we focus on Freeing the Embrace: softening the body, especially the spine, to restore fluid movement; releasing the emotional tensions and fears that shape how we touch and relate; and learning to enter and exit contact with continuity, so the connection stays alive and dynamic. Through simple, progressive explorations, the embrace becomes more open, responsive, and truly inhabited.
💫 Open to all levels — for movers, contact dancers, tango lovers and beginners who wish to explore dance as transformation, between structure and surrender, listening and play.
You can join alone or with a partner. No prior experience required.
📍 Venue: Jugendheim Saggen, Falkstraße 26, Innsbruck
📞 Info & Bookings: Cilla Lundberg — +43 699 17143114
Workshop #1 – 10:00–13:00h
Embodying the embrace — inhabiting a shared space of connection
Listening, Contact, and Trust
A workshop to explore the quality of contact, weight, and presence in an embrace through simple, slow and progressive movements.
Workshop #2 – 15:00–18:00h
The embrace in motion — evolving connection into a shared dance
From Connection to Dance
A workshop to evolve the embrace into movement: moving together, entering and exiting contact, allowing dance to emerge in a fluid and playful way.
JaMilonga: 19:00–22:30h
TEACHER’S BIO
Raffaele Rufo is a dance pedagogue, choreographer, and researcher based in Rome with over twenty years of international experience. Over the course of two decades of training, performance, teaching, and community work, he has developed TangoSomatics, an integrative method that combines tango, contact improvisation, and somatic movement to cultivate relational awareness, presence, and creative transformation. His workshops are open to dancers of all backgrounds and invite each participant to rediscover movement as a space for connection, curiosity, and play. He holds a PhD from Deakin University (Australia) with research focused on touch in tango as somatic listening, and he regularly teaches at major festivals of tango, contact tango, and contact improvisation across Europe.
🌐 For more info: www.tangosomatics.com
