In an unprepossessing sports hall called Club Villa Malcolm, in Buenos Aires’s Palermo Soho district, the lights are dimmed and the floor is filled with coolly competent dancing couples locked in firm embraces. The cold night outside is forgotten; in here the young tango aficionados glide insouciantly to the unmistakable syncopated sway of bandoneó and violin, oblivious to everything outside their moment of intimacy.
‘Who are the best dancers here?’ I ask my companion. He spends a long time considering the question, then points out a couple I had barely noticed, moving subtly, perfectly in tune with each other. I’m hooked and I haven’t even tried dancing yet. Once you’ve started a tangled, torrid love affair with tango, it seems there’s no turning back.
The tango scene in Buenos Aires is flourishing, with milongas (tango dance parties) catering to all tastes, from die-hard traditionalists to those who prefer the further reaches of neo-tango, with its clubby, electronica influences.
This latest wave of enthusiasm was, apparently, born of a crisis. In December 2001, when the shaky Argentine economy finally went into freefall, people turned to tango. Theories touted to explain this include that they saw it as an escape, a comforting connection with their roots and as answering the need for a warm embrace.
In the midst of all this, in January 2002, a show called Tanguera, billed as the first ever ‘tango musical’, opened at the city’s Teatro Nacional – it played for 18 months to packed houses.
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