A weekly tango practica is offered every Sunday, at Contemporary Art Center of Peoria in the 2nd floor art gallery. Traditionally, a Tango Practica is offered for dancers of all levels who have received instruction and have desire to practice.

Admission is $5.00 per person. Please bring cash and exact change. Leaders and teachers volunteer their time. Money collected is a donation to Contemporary Art Center, located at 305 SW Water Street, in Peoria, Illinois. To enter, use the rear Commercial Street entrance. 

A short, complimentary lesson is included. The lessons are primarily dedicated to beginners who want to make progress. Since lessons build on the previous week’s material, missing one or more lessons may prevent an attendant from keeping up with the rest. No makeup instruction will be offered for those that miss sessions.

We depart from practica tradition in that we accept absolute beginners on the condition that they would be willing to attend our meetings regularly. Participation in the practica is a token of commitment to the organizers and instructors to a level that Argentinian tango requires when danced socially.

What to wear:

Beginners should wear comfortable leather or suede dress shoes that fit tightly and enable the dancer to easily pivot on the ball of the foot. If a woman is comfortable in heels, they may prefer them. If one is not accustomed to wearing heels, then beginners may wish to wear flats. Sticky soled shoes, flip flops, rubber soled sport or running shoes or slipper-like shoes should not be worn. Light weight clothes that are tighter around the torso and loose below are best.

About the instructors: 

Constance Estep is an established fine artist (painter and printmaker) and a professor of Fine Arts at Wesleyan University in Bloomington Illinois. She has a rich experience in West Coast Swing and Ballroom, to which she has added an already considerable and still growing familiarity with tango.

Vlad Niculescu is an instructor of philosophy at Bradley University. After dancing social salsa for 15 years, he has pursued and is now developing his interest in Argentinian tango.

Constance and Vlad have been (and continue to be) the students of seasoned tango maestros and community builders Joe Grohens and Carlota Bullard from Urbana Champaign. Vlad has also taken classes at the Tango Tangent School in Bucharest, Romania under the instruction of Cozmin Stamatoiu and Amalia Iscu, and very recently but, for now, rather briefly, with Dan Măndiță (the founding master and principal of Tango Tangent). Constance and Vlad have been dancing together since 2016.

For more information, contact: William Butler or Darlene Jones, 309.674.6822 or contact us.