IN THE PARK: ARGENTINE TANGO

Img_2526Joyce Diamond, in red, leads a visitor during an unstructured social dance in the park last week.

About a year and a half ago, Joyce Diamond discovered the joys of Argentine tango.

“It captured my heart,” she says. “I couldn’t get enough of it.”

A real estate agent in Sea Bright, Diamond found she had to travel to Manhattan for lessons. But when instructors Angeles Chanaha and Michael Nadtochi learned how far she had to come, they offered to bring the lessons to her, if she could find other students.

Now, Diamond is a student/impressario, arranging classes indoors where she can rent space. Tonight, weather permitting, her Red Bank Tango kicks off a four-week series of lessons in Riverside Gardens Park overlooking the Navesink River in Red Bank.

Classes are one hour starting at 6:30 for beginners, and two hours starting at 7:30 for intermediate students. Fees for the four-week program are $70 ($135 per couple), or $20 to ‘drop in’ for a begginer’s class; the intermediate class costs $40 per session. For more information, call 732.245.1072.

Diamond also holds “milongas,” or tango social dances at which no formal instruction is offered.

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