Dancers at last year's Tango at the Museum of Glass. Photo courtesy Mark Anderson.

Swishing skirts, sultry music, sexy footwork, and – a 90-foot-high steel cone. Yep, it's tango time at the Museum of Glass this Saturday night, as the tangueros and tangueras from Tango Puget Sound get together for their annual milonga on the plaza outside the museum. If you add in a backdrop of water, mountain and architecture to one of the world's sexiest dances, plus live music, you end up with a pretty romantic evening.

Tango Puget Sound organizes weekly Tacoma classes and indoor milongas, or tango dance sessions, and they've been dancing outdoors every summer for years. Their Tango by the Fountain at Heritage Park in Olympia on July 31 saw around 50 dancers, the most in 12 years of outdoor milongas there, and organizer Mark Anderson says he's expecting twice as many dancers this weekend at MoG.

The milonga runs from 6 p.m. until sunset on Aug. 22, and features tango duo Bandemonium (playing the bandoneon, a tango instrument similar to a small accordion and made famous by tango master Astor Piazzolla.) There's no charge, but donations will be gladly accepted.

If you're interested in dancing more tango, TPS holds weekly milongas every Sunday from 5:30-8:30 p.m. (future venue to be determined - see website) with an Olympia practica every Tuesday from 7-9:30 p.m. Tango classes are held Thursday nights at 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the Tacoma Tai Chi center, 508 6th Ave., Tacoma.

For more information, see www.tangops.com or call 253-222-0105.

The Equus Project combines dance with horses. Photo courtesy Karl Cronin.

And here's one for those who've seen it all in the dance world: New York's Equus Project is coming to Vashon this weekend for two performances of contemporary dance with horses.

Yes, horses. Live horses. The performances will be held outside at Heart of the Horse Arabian horse farm, and will feature newly created choreography to the live music of cellist/vocalistJami Sieber. So how do you dance with horses? Judging by The Equus Project's website, dancers in flowing attire sweep gracefully around the horse while the animal (with a rider, naturally) responds with echoing footwork and head-tossing.

If this seems like quite a collaboration, it is. From the press release: "The company's work emerges from ongoing research into the development of a kinetic language that bridges the world of human and equine. As highly perceptive herd animals, horses respond to physical intent, motion, and shaping in very particular ways. Our work investigates the movement associated with this behavior, which we then document and integrate into a performance practice."

So there you go. The Equus Project's director JoAnna Mendl Shaw, who began her career in the Pacific Northwest dancing with Danceworks Northwest and teaching at Cornish College, has recently selected the Seattle area as a pilot community for the non-profit, which means there'll be other dances with horses coming back soon.

"An Evening with Equus" shows at 6 p.m. August 9 and 10 at Heart of the Horse Farm, 21901 Vashon Hwy SW, Vashon Island. There will be a post-performance Q & A with light refreshments. Arrive early, as overflow parking is a short walk from the performance site. Advance ticket purchase only: $25 from Books by the Way, 9923 SW Bank Rd. Vashon, or by contacting equus@karlcronin.com. Rehearsals are open to the public August 5-7 for $10 / day. To attend a rehearsal, call 718-916-3528.

I went along to the Joel Show on Saturday night full of high expectations, with a bit of uncertainty thrown in. Joel Myers, as blogged above, is an incredibly powerful dancer (Spectrum, DASS Dance etc) with some choreographic talent that could go far. His Joel Show is a self-produced evening of his own dance and his own choreography with an eclectic mix of professional and student dancers of the ballet-contemporary type. This show, held at Tacoma City Ballet's ballroom, was the fourth of the annual shows.

The only trouble is, with a self-produced show there's not a whole lot of standard control, and what starts out as a cozy Tacoma-ish friends-and-family vibe can easily become an excuse for artistically dubious self-indulgence.

Myers, as the beginning, end and middle of the show, danced as terrifically as ever. "The War at Home," set to a violent Prokofiev piano sonata played with clarity and force by Monty Carter, showed Myers' phenomenal physical control. Alternating between extremes of slow tension and rapid muscle movement, Myers created a frantic ballet vocabulary, 10 fouettes becoming desperate staggers, or grand jetes becoming punches.

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Dancer Joel Myers. Photo: Victoria Cooley.

For the fourth time, Tacoma contemporary dance whiz-kid Joel Myers is putting on the Joel Show - an evening of his own and others' choreography. Myers, a principal artist with Seattle's Spectrum Dance, is filling out his rising career with other top-notch companies like Seattle Opera, Bellevue Opera and DASS dance in New York, and his moves manage to combine terrific eye-candy with intense expression.

Until now the Joel Shows have been at the School Of The Arts theater, but with the recent space collaboration of Tacoma City Ballet and BareFoot Studios, other dancers are getting in on the act. Myers is one of them: His Joel Show IV will happen this weekend in the Tacoma City Ballet ballroom.

So what's in the show? "The show will have five brand spanking new works, all choreographed over the past few weeks," says Myers. "Two will have live music, one by Motopony's Daniel Blue and the other with pianist Monty Carter playing Prokofiev." Also dancing will be Danny and Sylvian Boulet, who danced with Spectrum Dance Theater last season, incoming SOTA sophomore Kimberly Frankle and TCB's own Heather Arneson.

The Joel Show is presented by MOVE!, the event series from MLKBallet, which runs tuition-free dance classes at Urban Grace Church and where Myers also teaches. A portion of all proceeds will go to support MLK Ballet programs.

The Joel Show IV will be at 7 p.m. July 25 and 2 p.m. July 26th at Tacoma City Ballet, 508 6th Ave., Tacoma. Tickets are $10 adults/$5 for 18 and under, from www.Brownpapertickets.com/event/70101
For more info email thejoelshow@gmail.com.