There is no better way to experience authentic porteño life than to go to a milonga to watch the locals tango. I wish I could describe this place: on some non-descript street just off Avenida 9 Julio, we walked into a grande tea room that was probably something magnificent in its height during the 1910’s. Dark wood walls and furniture, ornate gas lamps hanging off tall marble columns and old fashioned fans hanging from the walls. It was like traveling back in time into an old Italian mob movie. I half expected men in fedora hats, joints in their mouths, to walk down the winding staircase.
The band played. And couples old and young tangoed counterclockwise on the low lit dance floor, swaying and swishing their way across the marble. I couldn’t help but feel goosebumps. This was hardcore. Where else do you find 80 year old men partying away at 2am on some dodgy street in the center of town? This was passion, tradition, pride, talent. Being there felt somewhat intrusive, like I was a fan at some spectator sport who didn’t belong. Even after our two hour tango lesson last week, I felt like I didn’t know enough about the history and technicalities of the dance to have earned the right to watch, like a voyeur, this very private expression of courtship.
People have always described tango as the vertical expression of the horizontal desire. Ahem. I never quite understood what this meant until now. It really is the most sensual dance ever. Each culture has some form of mating ritual, originating in dance. This is Buenos Aires’ version. And in my opinion, it tops all others. I’ve salsa’d and samba’d and forro’d my way across many dance floors before. Sexy and provocative, these dances are fun exactly because they are so open and carefree in structure and technicalities. But compared to tango, they feel like the cheap streetwalker’s version of vertical courtship. Whereas salsa oozes sex, tango implies it. It’s the tension and the tease, the hard and the soft, the sweet affection and bitter frustration all at once. And I couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable watching these couples, cheek to cheek, so lost in their own worlds. It felt like being privy to a private moment that I really had no right to observe, let alone enjoy. Like a shared form of foreplay, being in the huge, dimly lit room, band playing, couples swaying, was hot and heavy and sensual. Phew. I need a cold shower. =)
