Tiny Footprint Tango Tour

Bandoneon player Ben Bogart and Pianist Winnie Cheung explore the expressive range of Argentine tango music on their Tiny Footprint Tango Tour.  Aiming to transport the audience to a different time and place, the duo performs pieces from tango’s formative years in 1920s Argentina through the Golden Age to the global art form that it is now.

Leading the music intentionally shoeless is one of the many little choices that Ben and Winnie have made to spark conversations on big global issues.  From collecting for carbon emission offsets to outreach performances, the Tiny Footprint Tour keeps true to the spirit of tango by drawing attention to the most urgent concern of today:  to save the planet that we love, one tango at a time.

Why Tiny Footprint, and what does it mean?

The Tiny Footprint Tango Tour is about awareness and mindfulness of our environment and the effect we have on it. The question we are addressing with this tour is:  How can we use our art, beyond its intrinsic value, to make the world a better place?

We know these are small steps, and that the footprints we leave behind may be seen as negligible to some, but we feel strongly that if we use our voice to create a positive social and environmental “footprint,” even a small one, we can encourage others to do the same.

200% Carbon Offsetting – We are net carbon negative.

We thought about going carbon neutral with our touring, but we didn’t feel that was good enough.  We don’t just want to avoid a negative impact. We want our impact to be positive.  In addition to working to reduce our CO2 output on out tours, we are also committed to offsetting double what we produce.  This means that if we produce one ton of CO2, we will invest in projects that prevent two tons of CO2 from being created elsewhere.   Our net carbon production in the above example would be a reduction of one ton of CO2 from the atmosphere.  The more we play and travel, the more we reduce.

Read this explanation of how carbon offsetting works to learn more.

1:1 Concert to Outreach performance

For every public concert we play, we will do an outreach performance in a nursing home, school, jail, homeless shelter or another place that is underserved by the arts.  By bringing a little happiness and art to these communities, we believe that we leave the world a little better than we found it.

Excellence in Tango

Ben Bogart spent years in Argentina studying with masters of the living tradition.  He is a founding member of Cuarteto Tanguero and the Tanguero Workshop.

Before she came to tango, Winnie Cheung earned a doctorate in composition from the Eastman School of Music. Now she is a tango fanatic who travels regularly to Argentina and a performing member of Cuarteto Tanguero.

Tango is our voice. While it is a tradition that started at the beginning of the 20th century, we use it to tell our story today.