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Dartmouth students practice tango in the summer term class, Tango Argentino

students practice Tango in Spanish 43.06, Tango Argentino, photo credit Robert Abel '24

Creating an experimental and experiential curriculum to elevate student learning in The LINK

For Noelia Cirnigliaro, Associate Professor of Spanish, to teach language is to teach culture. “Language isn’t the end point, it’s a tool and a means for culture.” Since her arrival at Dartmouth in 2009, Noelia has embodied the institution’s renowned teacher-scholar model. 

Over a decade later, she continues to explore ways to expand her curriculum to deepen the student learning experience. She offers various classes related to her field and areas of specialty: Baroque Spain and early modern Spanish and Colonial literature. Noelia also facilitates off-campus language and culture experiences abroad, including as a Director of the FSP. It was during a Buenos Aires-based experience that she discovered the world of Argentine Tango. Experiencing Tango as an ex-pat, though in her home country, sparked a deep interest and curiosity about how Tango is a critical tool to interrogate Argentinian socio-economic and cultural histories and mythos.

In 2019, she piloted an immersive and unique course that centered Tango, taking encouragement from how Dartmouth supports faculty to push beyond their teaching comfort zones. That course is Spanish 43.06, Tango Argentino. She partnered with various members of the community, Dartmouth organizations, and Tango musicians, dancers, and the Libraries to share their expertise to contribute to an immersive learning experience that pushed the boundaries of traditional instruction. This unique collaborative approach created the curricular framework for how to assess the students' outputs and outcomes.

students dancing in Tango Argentino class in The LINK

students from Tango Argentino practicing Tango in The LINK, photo credit Robert Abel '24

This year, Noelia hosted Tango Argentino in the Libraries’ newest high-tech, collaborative, and flexible teaching space, The LINK. Part of the success of faculty teaching in The LINK is having a dedicated librarian at their side. For this class, Noelia and the students worked closely with librarian Jill Baron. As one of many members of this class’ “community,” Jill expressed her pleasure in taking part.

Working with Noelia and the students in Tango Argentino has been a librarian’s dream.  Over the years, I have been curating distinctive collections of books from across Latin America, and it was gratifying to see the students make use of some of these Argentine materials. It was also exciting to help students communicate their newfound knowledge about Tango through the poster and book exhibit. The LINK made teaching, learning, accessing print materials, and developing the exhibit quite seamless. 

Jill Baron

To study Tango is to study culture. To teach culture, Noelia emphasizes, is to expose students to video, music, and poetry so they can hear and learn about differing stories from politics and society. For students to understand Tango, Noelia designed a hands-on, immersive experience combining four curricular elements: music, dance, poetry, and community. These four elements transform the traditional classroom instruction model into an embodied one. Alongside lectures and group work that expand the students’ Spanish literacy skills, the students also learn the art form’s multifaceted nature. “It’s a popular genre,” Noelia shares. “It’s poetry; it's lyrical; it’s musical and instrumental; a dance-both social and competitive; it’s a community of people.” And it’s community that truly shines in the success of Noelia’s class.

Tango dancers perform in front of a live band

the Pedro Giraudo Quartet perform as Adriana Salgado and Leonardo Sardella dance Tango, photo credit Rob Strong

Expressions of community and collaboration manifested in The LINK and out in the Dartmouth and Upper Valley communities. The LINK combined and supported conversation, lectures, library collections, Zoom, and also, of course, a distinctive dancing space. The dance floor welcomed students to practice movement, steps, and how to embrace (which is often more difficult than learning the footwork). Noelia applauds the students, “it’s a big step to put the music in your body and dance to the beat, and understand its complexity not through the intellect but through the senses.” Every aspect of this class is to practice and embody Tango. 

“Tango is about taming a complexity through movement, combining and understanding intellectual music. Through its popularity, it has spread its roots across genres. It’s a little classical, a little jazzy, a little electronic, a little pop: a soundscape you can enjoy regardless of your musical preferences,” shares Noelia. 

To show the genre’s nuances, and how it differs from hip hop or pop music, the students also attended workshops with guest performers and musicians. For Brian M., a student in the class, the guest musicians, specifically the Pedro Giraudo Tango Quartet, were one of his most memorable moments. He said that he, “instantly got goosebumps" when the Quartet started playing "Loca" by Juan D'Arienzo. 

students from Tango Argentino join the Dartmouth Parkinson's group

students join the "Dancing with Parkinson's" group, photo credit Armin Helisch

Tango has medically beneficial outcomes, too. After learning the science behind dance as therapy, Noelia’s class joined a session with the “Dancing with Parkinson's” group at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center to dance. Brian shared that what struck him about this experience was “learning about Tango’s health benefits, and how it is used to help with the mind/body connection.” 

During the term, students also curated an exhibit titled, “Argentine Tango: Dormancy to Awakening (1976-2024),” that launched on August 19 in Baker-Berry Library, which couldn’t have been possible without Jill’s expertise. As a romance languages specialist, Noelia says Jill was essential to teaching the students how to create the narrative for the exhibit. Jill’s workshop helped the students understand how “exhibits provide an opportunity for scholarship and teaching to have a public impact. Through this mechanism, curators tell a story about a complex topic through the judicious use of images and text, and, as a result, enrich public understanding of that topic.” While Noelia focused on the accuracy and depth of research, Jill taught the students how to curate their exhibit to be more accessible for a broader audience.

Jill Baron joins the Tango Argentino Class for their exhibit display

Jill Baron, left, joins the Tango Argentino class at the "Argentine Tango: Dormancy to Awakening (1976-2024)" exhibit launch, photo credit Robert Abel '24

Through their exhibit, the students explored the new movement of Tango and what it means for the genre. They focused on the tradition’s story over the last 50 years to show how much Tango has changed. In the process, they busted certain myths around the dance and demystified the music. Noelia emphasizes that this aspect of her course wouldn’t have been possible without the Libraries’ extensive collections covering Tango, from books and music composition to video and movies.

Having the books in The LINK space to easily grasp when they wanted to, having it all combined, made it easier to make a connection between all the subject-specific material. The students added to the corpus by finding more items from the stacks to deepen their research, which were highlighted in the exhibit and as source material for the posters. - Noelia Cirnigliaro

Noelia admits that she hasn’t taught a course that demands so much group work, but The LINK supports that. Because of its flexible spaces and layout, there’s plenty of room to delineate distinct and separate areas, allowing students to work in groups while still being together.

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students join the Dartmouth Argentine Tango Society with professional dancers, photo credit Beam Lertbunnaphongs '25

To ensure the students had an embodied learning experience, Noelia also connected to in-house resources and welcomed experts into the space. Having guests dancers, musicians, and artists, including the Pedro Giraudo Quartet and dancers Adriana Salgado and Leonardo Sardella, take part in the curriculum was thanks to the Leslie Center for the Humanities. The students also partnered with Rafe Steinhauer, Assistant Professor of Engineering, DIAD, to help Dartmouth’s Tango community. Rafe and the students used design-thinking and human centered design strategies to address a real need the group had: increasing brand awareness. The LINK lent itself to prototyping, interviewing, and doing the design activities required to create a product that meets a community need. As a result, the Dartmouth Argentine Tango Society has a new logo and website. 

Dartmouth community listens to music by the Pedro Giraudo Tango Quartet as people dance Tango

community event hosted by the Hop, featuring the Pedro Giraudo Tango Quartet, photo credit Ben DeFlorio

She’s proud to have created such an experimental and experiential curriculum for the students. All the on and off-campus activities were crucial for the students to understand, critique, and embody their learning. 

It is an enlightening and enriching experience that shows the connection between language and culture.

Tango, Noelia muses, is a microcosm of society: a space to learn and unlearn about our place in the world. The spaces created by Tango are as human as they get. There are no phones or AI tools to help you understand what’s going on. You are in the moment with other people, embracing the music, the movement, and each other. 

It’s a complexity that reflects the complexity in everyday life. You have to show who you are and what you can bring to the table.

Noelia Cirnigliaro

Thank you to all the Dartmouth partners, guests performers and musicians, and collaborators from the Libraries who helped bring the beauty, poetry, music, and dance of Tango to Noelia’s students, the Dartmouth community, and beyond. These partnerships enabled the students to enhance their study of Argentine Tango,

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