The Foxtantino Creators
Foxtantino Creators Ted Ross and Karen Lile Photography by Lewis Smith
The Foxtantino was created by Ted Ross and Karen Lile in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2005. Here is its beginning.
Karen's Story
The Foxtantino sprang from a need. My best friend Michael and I started to dance Argentine Tango to Foxtrot Swing music at a Ballroom party one evening in 2005, just because the night didn't seem complete without an Argentine Tango and the DJ didn't have any Argentine Tango music to play. Then, later I noticed that when leading Foxtrot, Michael accidently slipped into Argentine Tango, and I followed without even thinking about it.
I decided to talk to Ted Ross about the lack of opportunity to dance Argentine Tango at ballroom parties. I have known Ted for many years. He has been one of my teachers, a mentor and a co-creator with me on various projects in the past. But, the real reason I turned to Ted was because he also dances and teaches both Ballroom Dances and Argentine Tango. He was the only other teacher I knew, besides myself, who danced in both communities and understood them.
That first conversation with Ted went from casual talk to sizzling enthusiasm. We started to discuss the possibility of making up a fusion dance that could be danced to ballroom music and would include Argentine Tango footwork. Then we just began to dance, trying Argentine Tango in Waltz, Quickstep and Foxtrot. Foxtrot seemed to be the easiest and most logical choice for a dance fusion between Ballroom and Argentine Tango.
We decided that this new dance would need a name. After discussing several possibilities, Ted came up with the name Foxtantino.
For several weeks after, Ted and I met to create a Foxtantino Syllabus. Initially, Ted was the leader in the syllabus creation process, coming up with ideas while we were dancing, which we would then discuss, play with and then either accept or reject. I was the organizational leader, writing out principles and rules we had taken into consideration in order to fuse the two dances together seamlessly and make it simple and easy for Ballroom dancers to learn. I also typed up the figures into written syllabus form, with notations on footwork, alignments, foot positions, rise and fall, timing etc. I would bring these to Ted and he would edit them, making sure that they communicated the details of the figures he had created.
By November 2005, we had created the first 8 figures of Foxtantino Syllabus and the dance had its shape, form and technique. We then set the idea aside for awhile.
Throughout the next year, I continued to think about the Foxtantino. I started to notice other couples dancing Argentine Tango to Foxtrot music in the Ballroom parties. I began to see couples practicing Foxtrot and accidently slipping into Argentine Tango, just like Michael and I had done.
Then one day, I was dancing on the ballroom floor with a student and Ted danced by with his student and said as he passed, "What about the Foxtantino?" And somehow it just seemed the time to do something. Within a month, Ted and I entered into a formal agreement to develop, teach and promote the Foxtantino together.
We picked up where we left off in 2005 and continued, this time, both of us contributing our own Foxtantino creations to the syllabus.
And that is how it began...
