Dance Pasion

Natallia and John - Tango partnership

Dance Pasion - John and Natallia have been performing and teaching Tango together since 2019 including performances at the fabulous Napier Art Deco Festival, Latin Fiestas, Mission Estate, and recently performed with AOTango at the Auckland Museum. Natallia and John recently returned from continuing their training with Tango masters in Buenos Aires

Recently in April 2024 they competed in and won the Oceania Tango Championship for stage Tango, they return in August to Buenos Aires compete in the prestigious Tango World Championship.

John Flower started life in the far north of New Zealand in rural New Zealand where the closest he came to skating was an old pair of handed down strap-on roller skates. After his family moved to Auckland, John commenced training in Ice skating where he became a New Zealand Gold Level ice dance champion. During that time he was introduced by another skater into the world of South America dance and became New Zealand’s first South American Dance Champion.  John trained and performed Lambada, Salsa and Samba firstly with Dance companies “Tierra Viva” followed by “Latin Fever”. He trained in traditional Argentine Tango, performing and teaching, later becoming NZ Tango champion for three consecutive years subsequently representing New Zealand in the prestigious Tango World championships held in Buenos Aires for those three years.  

In addition to his ice skating instructors, John credits the Tango teachers he has received instruction from for his ability to perform and instruct, some of which include Carlos Rivarola, Andrea Monti, Damien Garcia, Fabio Robles, Daniel Juraz  y Alejandra Armenti, Gato, Yuka Sato y Sebastian Bianchi and very memorable classes with Pablo Veron and the very special dance classes with the Tango Academy run by Gustavo Naviera, Fabian Salas and Chicho Frumboli

Dance Pasion was recognised for their authentic traditional style by the NZ Argentine embassy and used to demonstrate and perform for the embassy. Dance Pasion were the first dancers to perform with the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra in 1999 and continued to perform a number of times with the APO, also performing with the Australian, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. 
John enjoys sharing his love of Tango by both performing for and instructing others. Some new public workshops are planned to be announced soon.

Natallia enjoys teaching in addition to performing, is a belly dance instructor for Arabellas, Natallia also dances & performs Brazilian Samba with NZ Samba Passion – MUSAS for some years.  Participating in many festivals, events, workshops, Samba parades and shows. One of the highlights was to perform on the TV show “Dancing with the Stars” and featuring in the video for FIFA world cup and also unforgettable experience while parading and dancing at Samba Carnival in Rio de Janeiro in 2017.