On 11, 12 and 13 October 2024, Tipo Tango celebrated its 25th anniversary with a big party.
Tipo Tango History
Tipo Tango started 25 years ago as an initiative of some passionate tango dancers and was founded on 25 November 1999 by means of a notarial deed (Stichting Tango Nederland).
These dancers wanted to create more opportunities for lessons and dance evenings. Soon they found a place of their own in the refectory of the old Augustianum in the city centre. That atmospheric space behind the ‘Paterskerk’ – better known among dancers as Scala (dance hall of the student union) – was a real ‘tango temple’ for many years and this still evokes warm memories. This monastery complex has since been converted into today’s Mariënhage hotel. Nowadays, Tipo Tango can be found on the Kardinaal de Jongweg in Eindhoven, where the volunteers have single-handedly transformed the first floor of a former school building into their new tango home. Dancers from all over the Netherlands and neighbouring areas in Belgium and Germany often know the way to this place.
One of these passionate tango dancers was Jacob van Kokswijk and he further explains the origins of Tipo Tango in a letter addressed to us:
In the years 1995-1999, I learned to dance tango, but the offer was minimal and very private. You had to dance the way the dance school offered and like the music played by the teacher. Dancing anywhere else was not appreciated, and if you commented, you were cancelled. It was a very closed scene. Discussing this situation, the late Jan van Amelsvoort, Jan’s wife Marijke and I sat on a bench during a dance evening at El Corte, the tango spot in the Netherlands. ‘Shall we organise something together?’ I asked them.
The name the Stichting ‘Tango Nederland’ and its broad objective fitted, when established, with the goal Jan van Amelsvoort and I had in mind: to enjoy Argentine tango, unconnected to and influenced by tango teachers or specific dogmas (such as Remy and Jan Dirk’s ‘tango police’ in Amsterdam). In other words: the milonga as a dance venue is separate from the dance school, and can be held anywhere there is a room with a suitable dance floor. Just like in Buenos Aires.
Ask a Foundation with that objective, we have been able to collaborate with Footloose and Dynamo to ‘attract’ young people to Argentine tango, with the municipality/VVV, Effenaar, Plaza Futura and Schouwburg to organise the 4d festival, and with companies (Super Jan Linders, Hotel Cocagne, and others) for financial support.
In the beginning, the foundation tried with Rob Nuijten and a tango-dancing ICT person from Amsterdam to set up an umbrella website tango.nl, where you can find everything about Argentine tango, including an up-to-date overview of milongas and walk-in workshops. That initiative did not succeed. Rob did set up that overview on his own website (www.torito.nl).
I also had another plan to set up a dance partner-dating website, www.ocho.nl but that didn’t complete that tango-dancing ICT guy. I didn’t have time then to pick it up again and realise it online.
Scala was the name of the Tue student centre in the convent complex, and it was on a signpost in the front of the chapel on Kanaal Street. Therefore, it became a designation for dancers for ‘our’ hall in the chapel.
Tipo Tango was coined by me as an easy-to-remember name for our Eindhoven ‘dance club’ in initially ‘t Rozenknopje.
Eric and the late Komala were supposed to give the first workshops, and that was last minute Stefan and Komala, soon taken over by Birkit and Muzaffer.