Tango

Tango. It’s a cliche but the sexy South American dance is first thing that often comes to mind when you hear the words Buenos Aires.

Sure came to mine and I couldn’t wait to experience the romantic and sultry dance form when we visited this famous South American City.

I was fortunate enough to enjoy it three times, three ways.

First was at a dinner theater type performance geared for tourists. In fact, large bus loads of folks were loaded into the old theater for the show. We were fortunate to be on the balcony with a terrific view of music, costumes, dancers and fabulous lighting. It was fun.

The dancers were magnificent. The show entertaining. The menu funny. If you look closely you might think we were on a safari. Nope. No lion. Somehow lamb got translated as a “ferocious beast.”

But back to Tango. It’s an athletic sexy dance described by one of our guides as “making love standing up.” The professional version is certainly that. Here are a few more images from the show taken with an IPhone.

The second way we saw it was at a Milonga, a neighbor hood gathering in a large room with the dance floor in the middle, small tables around the outside.

We went around 5 pm on a Sunday when it was gorgeous outside so it wasn’t well attended but we had a chance to see how it worked. Ladies would come in, find a table, change into sexy shoes and wait to be asked to dance. The men sat at their own tables.

Soon a man would saunter over, ask the lady to dance and off to the dance floor they’d go, joining the group circling the room, flicking their feet and gliding by. There seemed to be about three songs and then a jarring change in music—to the Beattles or Diana Ross —when everyone would separate and go back to their individual tables.

When the Tango music resumed, it would start all over again. I even saw a moment when two men approached the same lady from different directions at once asking her to dance. After a moment of awkwardness, one of them  graciously moved on.   I hope he got to dance with her later.

I learned that Tango was originally a neighborhood dance, not particularly respected, but gained favor and prestige when it reached Paris and became glamorous in the City of Light.

Our third opportunity was the night our National Geographic tour started. We met our traveling companions on a terrace behind the hotel. Soon we were entertained and enthralled with a young couple dancing the Tango beautifully for us. It was an dramatic and lovely way to start a two week tour of South America.