The dance of Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – At the School of Tango’s weekly practice, couples dance their way across a wooden floor as music blares from loudspeakers and spectators sip mate, a bitter South American tea.

As an American in Buenos Aires, I’m learning to dance the tango. I’ve been at it for more than a month, taking lessons in the mecca of tango, but I’m still hesitant when a tall Argentine man asks me to dance.

Steps later, I’m adjusting to my partner’s dancing style when he pauses and asks me where I’m from. When I tell him I’m an American, he nods self-assuredly and advises: “You Americans are always so tense. Relax.”

Tango is quintessentially Argentine, like the mate tea sipped through a metal straw, the caramelized ice cream known as dulce de leche and even the national pastime, soccer.

Inspired by lonely immigrants who first sailed to Argentina in the 1880s, tango is a seductive and enduring dance that has weathered rock ‘n’ roll, economic crises and turbulent military dictatorships of yore.

Between 1925 and 1955 – the so-called “Golden Age of Tango” – a dancing craze swept the country’s bars and ballrooms as live tango orchestras proliferated.

“It was all about the tango. All the great avenues had tango. All the people listened to tango on the radio,” said Laura Fernandez, a curator at World Museum of Tango.

My curiosity to learn the tango was piqued after seeing proud “portenos,” as Buenos Aires natives are called, showing off their tango steps just about anywhere from airport lobbies and tourist sites to shopping malls and stages.

Never mind that tango fell out of popularity for a time. In the 1980s Broadway shows sparked a resurgence and today tango is very much in vogue among generations discovering the dance of their grandparents.

After a deep economic crisis in 2001, the worst in Argentina’s history, many began searching for their roots. A searing devaluation at the time made Buenos Aires overnight an affordable destination for foreign tourists who flooded the country and discovered the dance anew.

Tango classes advertised on posters beckon visitors to nightly tango shows and Broadway-style revues, while dance fiestas, called milongas, also pack in tourists and locals alike. There’s even an Argentine School of Tango in a local shopping mall and a tango hotel for guests who want to learn without stepping outside.

“After the crisis, the tango was kept alive not only because of the people here in Buenos Aires. There were many who came from all over the world searching for tango,” explained Octavio Maroglio, executive director of the Argentine School of Tango.

Watching men in black suits and women in sleek dresses move gracefully across any available floor space made the dance look effortless. But after taking my first classes, I soon found learning the tango is anything but easy.

Standing in an unfamiliar embrace only a breath away from my dancing partner, I practiced the “ochos” – Spanish for the “figure eights” that constitute the basic step. All the while, I tried not to step on my partner’s feet as I did the steps over and over until I could do them in my sleep.

I was learning, awkwardly at first, how to shift weight from one foot to the other and keep my balance in high-heeled shoes.

As I gradually added more complex steps, I also found out a thing or two about learning to tango. There is no limit to the Argentine enthusiasm to pass on the dance, and there’s also no set format for learning tango the right way.

From one class to the next, I learned completely different moves, usually with the advice that I needed to keep my chest always parallel to my partner’s and let my feet follow my heart.

Still, stumble I did. And I quickly decided more practice was the only remedy.

By joining the School of Tango’s weekly practice session, I soon became acquainted with Julio, a middle-aged Argentine instructor.

Barking tips, Julio followed my figure eights up and down the dance floor. Finally, after he was satisfied I was getting the steps down right, he stepped away to sip mate tea while I continued to practice.

Eager to move beyond the basics, I soon began attending a variety of classes, from the old cobblestoned San Telmo district not far from where the tango originated to the Confiteria Ideal, a charming hall in the city center.

At the Confiteria Ideal, locals regularly dance tango to live orchestras against a backdrop of crystal chandeliers dangling from ornate ceilings and a dance floor set under a gilded dome.

On a Saturday afternoon at the Confiteria Ideal, a five-hour class attracts all kinds, from the Argentine beginner to the foreigner cramming in classes to wow friends back home.

After watching the instructor and his partner demonstrate a maneuver, I find myself dancing with Remi Trichaud, a 25-year-old visitor from Lyon, France, who has been taking classes for just a week.

We struggle, fumbling our steps.

“I take classes for four hours a day, sometimes more,” he said, laughing.

But even after one woman walked away from him in the middle of a dance at one class, Trichaud said he kept dancing anyway: “I like having a nice time with a girl I didn’t know two seconds before and completely forgetting about it two seconds later.”

For Argentine Nestor Garello, 60, learning to tango is a matter of pride. Embarrassed for being unable to dance the tango when asked on a trip abroad, Garello has spent an entire year learning.

“It requires a lot of time to learn to dance the tango,” he admitted, saying it was harder than Argentine folk dancing. “The tango is more a dance of the embrace, more passionate.”

After mastering the basics, I soon set out to find the dance and its enthusiasts in their most passionate, natural form: at a milonga.

On a Saturday night, the atmosphere is charged in a downtown club called El Beso – Spanish for “the kiss.”

The mood contrasts sharply with the casual, anything-goes attitude of the classes. Women are wearing colorful dresses and elegant high-heeled shoes. The men dress darkly in formal attire, ready to go.

Grouped around tables facing the floor, the men invite the women to dance with a stare from across the room. Once a woman accepts the man’s advances, she is his for that set of songs.

As couples pair off and head to the floor, soon they are circling beneath mirrored disco balls that throw off a dim, sparkling light. All seems so graceful and in synch with the music.

I quickly notice that the style isn’t the elegant dance form I’ve practiced in class. Now it’s the “milonguera” form, characterized by a closer embrace and smaller foot movements.

Seated next to me is Lisa Przuntek, a 25-year-old student from Bochum, Germany, who hopes to learn enough in an eight-month-stay to teach tango back home. She took her first classes at a German university and confided: “I’ve listened to tango music for a long time, for 10 years, and I’ve always loved the music.”

But neither of us is prepared for the fast “milonguera.”

We each take turns dancing with partners, but find the skilled dancers rapidly pair off among themselves. Still, even from the sidelines, the energy of the tango is intoxicating.

As the night creeps into morning, we both get up to leave as newcomers still stream into the club. Yawning on the taxi ride home, I can’t help but feel I’ve had a quixotic tango experience, one impossibly hard to sum up in words.

Aurora Lubiz, who travels the world teaching the tango, said the interplay between two partners makes it one of the most alluring of dances.

“The roles are defined: The man makes a move, the woman makes a different one,” said Lubiz. “It’s exclusive to Buenos Aires. And I believe that that’s what seduces people all over the world.”