Lexa Roséan, an extraordinary person and dancer!

For some reason in my first post on Steemit, I didn't name my 2008 tango championship partner and long-time friend Lexa Roséan so this post is going to amend that omission by introducing you to her!

In 2006 after being a ballet and modern dancer for 32 years, I started dancing Argentine tango. In 2007, while still very young in tango, I met Lexa Rosean in a tango event called Tango Intervention where a group of us danced tango from the lower east side in Manhattan, over the Manhattan bridge, and into Williamsburg Brooklyn (basically intervening regular places with tango). It was an incredibly fun event and I met lots of people, including Lexa. Lexa had been dancing tango for a long time. At the present time she's been dancing for at least 20 years so she had been dancing tango for at least 10 years at that time. Here are some pics from that event:

Lexa began tango as a follower but then started learning how to lead early on. She became extremely good at leading and has been called the best tango leader in New York by major tango dancers from Buenos Aires.

Shortly after we met, Lexa asked if I would like to compete in the US tango championship. I thought it would be a good opportunity to practice since we would need to practice a lot. I also liked the idea of 2 women competing together in such a macho dance form as tango. We decided to compete in both the stage (choreographed) and salon (improvisation) categories. We started taking private lessons from Alicia Cruzado, a well-known and respected Argentine teacher who lives in NYC. After working hard for months, we competed and we won in the stage category! Here are some pics from that event, from both categories:

Lexa is also a Wiccan high priestess, an initiated neo-Gardnerian Minoan witch and writer. She has authored and published eight books on spellcraft, Wicca, astrology, and Tarot (four of which have been translated into German and Russian); she has written special articles as well as a monthly astrology column for publications such as CosmoGirl, Seventeen and ReporTango. Her plays were produced and she performed in several downtown venues in NYC such as the WOW Café, La Mama, Dixon Place, and P.S. 122. Her writing has been included in the anthologies Celebrating the Pagan Soul (Citadel Press 2005), and Women on Women 2 (Plume 1993). A Kosher Megila, an excerpt from her novel-in-progress, Spinoza’s Daughter, was included in Women on Women 3 A New Anthology of American Lesbian Fiction (Plume/Penguin1996). Her poetry is included on The Knitting Factory 100 Greatest Poets cd. Michael Musto reviewed Lexa’s poetry in the Village Voice. You can read more about her on her website: http://www.lexarosean.com/

In addition to all of these amazing activities, Lexa completed her Master’s degree in Modern Psychoanalysis in 2014 and we have continued to dance together throughout the years in many different places, both choreographed and improvisational, inside and outside, and even in Buenos Aires:

...in Union Square New York City:

Last but not least, here are some videos of us through the years:

Here is our winning choreography in the 2008 championship (apologies for the video quality - it was back in the day when good videotaping wasn't as common!):

Here is a video of us improvising tango. To be extra clear - we are making everything up as we are dancing - nothing is planned ahead. It takes many years to reach the level where you can do this well but it is an incredible feeling!

This is a fun choreography we made called "Drunk Tango" where Lexa tears off my dress at the end!

You can find us dancing socially on Monday nights at the Ensueño Tango Salon event in the East Village, NYC. I teach at this event too, so please come try learning tango sometime! Beginner class is at 7:30pm every Monday. You can check out the Ensueño website for more info: http://ensuenotango.com/Home.html

For all things tango-related in NYC including events, classes, teachers, etc, check out the New York tango calendar (I am the webmaster!): http://newyorktango.com/