Along with the sheer fun of learning to improvise, tango is also an amazing opportunity to shed some of our usual caution and hesitation around others. Instead, by showing up with generosity and openness, we sometimes get to experience the kind of trust, intimacy, and belonging that is otherwise scarce in the competitive, hyper-capitalist culture we are living in.

Tango is indeed beautiful, both because of its elegant footwork and also as an invitation to personal growth, creative expression, and community building. Many of the incredible people I met through tango are now my closest friends and colleagues, and my life has been greatly enriched by those connections, both on and off the dance floor.

Sharna has been involved with tango since 1997, when she received her first lesson in the corner of a dance hall from a fellow beginner. Her early and most influential teachers include Brigitta Winkler, Daniel Trenner, and Rebecca Shulman. She was also fortunate to study with such tango legends as Mingo, Esther, and Pablo Pugliese, Nito & Elba Garcia, Juan Bruno, Pedro “Tete” Rusconi, Mariano “Chicho” Frumboli, Gustavo Naveira, Omar Vega, Aurora & Jorge Firpo, and Pablo Veron.

In addition to tango, she has also trained in an abundance of other modalities including contact improvisation, contemporary and postmodern dance, yoga, Pilates, and Laban/Bartenieff Fundamentals. She has an MFA in Dance from UCLA.

Sharna performed as a member of the all-woman dance company TangoMujer between 2003-2006, and then directed her own performing company until 2011. She founded and directed the nonprofit organization Tango Mercurio in Washington, D.C., spearheading the DC community tango orchestra and outreach programs to youth and senior groups, as well as establishing a curriculum-based tango school.

Throughout her career, Sharna has been an outspoken advocate for learning both leading and following roles independent of gender, an approach that cultivates empathy, inclusion, and creativity. Between 2011-2018, she produced a series of workshops and extended retreats for women to study the leading role.

Over the past twenty years, she has taught guest workshops and master classes for dozens of community organizations across North America and Europe, and by special arrangement in Havana, Cuba and Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Between 2014-2017, she designed original partnering courses for dance and theater undergraduates.

Sharna is praised for her ability to both articulate and demonstrate the subtle details of tango movement and improvisation. Her approach is holistic and exploratory, informed by both the anatomy and the poetry of the body.