Sasha’s Tango Story, and the wisdom of Dance For Executive Coaching

Current tango status:  Currently dancing between Providence, Buenos Aires, and Montréal. Find me on the dance floor, or if you are a dancer interesting in life or leadership coaching for women at mid-life with the reference point of tango included, tell me about you here.

Sasha’s Tango Story (all of this will be told in much greater, juicier detail in my memoir Wet)

I discovered tango in 2010 while I was in the midst of a year of solo travel in South America. I stumbled on tango in Colombia. In Cali, Colombia, the world capital of salsa, to be exact.

One night when I was hanging out at my hostel, planning to call it a night, a new friend invited me to join her at a nightclub called La Matraca. A tango club. I had never even seen tango performed before and had no idea what it looked like.

Mesmerized, I sensed that tango was different from salsa from the start. Tango was more introverted and also more connected than salsa. I could feel the sense of connection in my own chest as I watched. 

The very first time I saw tango in Cali, Colombia at La Matraca

A week later I did my first tango lessons in a garage in Cali. My friend and I became obsessed  and immersed ourselves in Cali’s small tango community.

In the garage. One of my first tango teachers in Colombia adjusts my tango posture

Within weeks, I convinced my teacher Oscar to perform a show with me at the club where I had first seen tango. I had been dancing for six weeks. Asking Oscar to perform a tango show with me was the most audacious thing I had done in my life. And now that I have been immersed in tango for fifteen years, it seems insane. Hey, as I tell clients, you have to ask for what you want. 

Here’s a video of that night in 2010, when I gave a tango show with Oscar after having danced exactly six weeks.

At the time I was 36 going on 37, a burned-out tech founder and author from San Francisco who had gotten lost in the Silicon Valley machine, and this dance was showing me something new: that bold moves made from pure pleasure gave me incredible confidence to do the unthinkable. Pleasure was making me confident. Learning to dance was transforming me in ways that I didn’t realize were possible. 

I was enganchada. Hooked. From then on tango has been a huge part of my life. I moved to Buenos Aires for six years to pursue my passion for tango. 

Seven years at the source

From Cali, I went to Buenos Aires — my friend and I spent two deliriously fun months in the the world capital of tango, where lovers of the dance from all over the globe come to learn, dance, and be transformed.

I call myself 20% porteña (Buenos Aires person) because Argentina has influenced me so much. How I live, make decisions, work, and relate to other people.

In Buenos Aires, I found my way into the Psicotango community — dancers and tango teachers who share a conviction I have come to hold deeply: that tango carries tremendous healing potential. This set of ideas came to shape my coaching practice when I integrate dance and movement into our work.

A few curious ladies try out Psicotango. That’s me, one of my clients, and a friend.

Tango as a tool for life and leadership coaching

The close connection with a partner in tango requires you to find your axis first — your own line of balance in your body — before you can connect fluidly with anyone else. And then it asks you, again and again, to fall off balance and keep going.  

Since 2012, I’ve worked as a life and executive coach for women leaders in business and politics, with a focus on body-based strategies to help women command respect and build their confidence as an antidote to burn out. Leadership starts with the way you walk into a room.

Tango brings a set of reference points about how we inhabit our bodies, how we lead and how we follow. For clients who are interested in a body-based approach, I bring the deep wisdom of tango into our work together, through posture, breath, and how you walk through a room and take up space.

What I have seen, over and over, was that the lessons tango teaches — about posture, presence, improvisation, and the courage to take a step before you know exactly where you’re going — are precisely the lessons my clients need in their professional and personal lives.

My Tango Adventure team in Buenos Aires just before the pandemic hit!

For six years, I led a transformative tango program in Buenos Aires that taught women (and some intrepid men) the lessons that tango had to teach them on the dance floor and off. Here’s a video depicting a night out with a Tango Adventure group at Bar Los Laureles, a very special place…

We even hosted Sue Aikens, star of National Geographic’s show Life Below Zero, who came to learn what tango had to teach her about life. You can see that interview I did with Sue here.

in 2026, I continue to dance tango and to travel to Buenos Aires annually to study and dance. Here you can see a goodbye dance with some of my favorite dance partners.

Are you a tango dancer (or a dancer of another dance) who is curious about my tango-infused approach to life and leadership coaching for women at midlife? Do you want to find out what tango has to teach you for your confidence, relationships, or sensuality and pleasure? Tell me about you and what you would want to explore through coaching.