Tango is like a Latin lover

October 24, 2:39 PMDC Art Travel ExaminerMarsha Dubrow

Previous Next

5 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the DC Art Travel Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Tango is like a Latin lover. So seductive, enticing, often addictive. 

I flirt with tango, immerse myself in it, get frustrated with it, decide it isn’t worth it, and drop it. But I return – for the moment. Today, I’m a tango school drop-out. But manana?

Tangomania is so widespread that tango dances or milongas can be found every night in many cities including Washington, Baltimore, New York, Moscow, Tokyo, Berlin, as well as Buenos Aires. And in Moscow, PA a canine dance competition reportedly included the tango. 

Tango cruises sail through the Panama Canal, and also across three continents along the Mediterranean.

And tango trips to Buenos Aires proliferate. The next one from the DC area is May 13-19, for about $4,800 per couple or $3,000 if you're going solo. It's organized by Jennifer and Fabio Bonini, of Forever Dancing, an association of ballroom dancing instructors who teach students to dance socially, and also to perform, even compete in ballroom competitions.  

Just outside DC in Northern Virginia, Forever Dancing is one of many places to learn tango around the nation’s capital. Lessons are offered often at venues ranging from the Argentine Embassy, to the Washington DC Jewish Community Center and the World Bank, to the historic art deco Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo Park, MD.

I’ve taken tango lessons at the above, on and off for a decade. I’ve taken ballet for decades, ever since I was three years old; ballroom lessons from the age of nine; tap and jazz since I was thirteen. I’ve taken hula in Hawaii; belly dancing in Basra, Turkey; and yes, tango in Buenos Aires. 

From no less than Juan Carlos Copes, star and choreographer of films and shows like “Tango Argentino” that captivated audiences around the world in the 1980s. For me, it was Tango Apocalypso.

Copes threw a surprise birthday party for me as a journalist visiting Argentina. But I was mortified when guests demanded that he and I perform. No escape.

The world’s top tango dancer whispered as softly as a paramour, “You’re choking me.” I released my death grip and confessed, “I’m terrified, like my first ballet recital.”

Almost kissing my ear, Copes intoned, “This is tango. You must give yourself to the man.” My feminism and my tango confidence have never quite recovered.

After applause as cool as Iguazu Falls, Copes commented “When a man and woman understand each other dancing tango, it's the closest thing to an orgasm -- but sensual rather than erotic.” Like an Argentine version of George Bernard Shaw’s description of dancing, “a vertical expression of a horizontal desire.”

Copes and fellow tangueros so inspired film star Robert Duvall that he, like most except me, became addicted to the Argentine tango. Duvall wrote, produced, directed, and starred in his 2002 film “Assassination Tango”. If you missed it, like most, you might see him dancing tango at various clubs around the Washington, DC area. He hosted master classes occasionally at his farm in the Middleburg, VA area. I wasn’t on his A list or any list.

Other tango films over many years inspired me to try again. After all, a blind man learned in “Scent of A Woman”. Al Pacino’s character says, “The tango is the easiest dance. If you make a mistake and get tangled up, you just tango on.” Well, “Whoo-ah” as he also said. Even Arnold Gov-enneger learned tango for “True Lies” so why oh why can’t I?

So I started at the top again, taking from Pablo Veron who starred in the film “The Tango Lesson”.  No flying down to Argentina this time; I walked down Washington, DC’s Connecticut Avenue from my home to a studio where Veron taught one weekend with local teacher Sharna Fabiano. I would’ve paid the $140 fee just to look at Pablo, who epitomized the Latin lover on film. But then he entered, unshaven, tangled long curls. Served me right for indulging in a sexist thought. 

Pablo and Sharna began with an intimidatingly intricate step. I felt as if this was the sequel to “The Tango Lesson” and I was about to be fired as an extra,  a subnumerary rather than a supernumerary. 

We were all stumbling with the step when suddenly, Pablo extended his mano to me to dance. Copes and ballet recital redux. No whisper this time, Pablo bellowed at me, “Don’t hesitate. Be clearer.” 

Flashback to “The Tango Lesson” when Pablo told actress-writer-producer-director Sally, not Harry, Potter, “You should do nothing when you dance — just follow!”   Later that day, somehow I stepped on Pablo while standing next to him. At least I wasn’t dancing with him. I didn’t injure his talented feet because he hopped agilely. Dios mio. Only two hours into the class, how could I survive two days?

Pablo and Sharna demonstrated another exquisite, complicated move. We all tried again. One man complained about the difficulty. Pablo replied, “It is difficult. It is tango.” 

After class, I considered dropping out. But I persisted, and the next day seemed more like fun. At the end of our second six-hour class, Pablo asked whether anyone had a question. One man ventured, “Would you go over everything you taught us?”  Pablo's look squashed him like a cicada.

I gathered up my courage and ego, and thanked Pablo. He asked, “You were a dancer?” I laughed and said yes, “but obviously not tango.” He added, “Classical? I thought so.”

I tangoed on air out of there. Emboldened, I took occasional classes with many excellent instructors like DC's pre-eminent teacher Leon Harris. His townhouse, La Casa de Baile or House of Dance, is also the scene of Washington’s best Latin dance parties – tango as well as salsa, meringue, cha-cha, bachata, etc. Each party has a different theme of décor, food, and dress like Turkish Baths, Havana Nights, even Chinese New Year and speak-easy.

In class, Leon breaks down the steps, demonstrates the leader’s part and the follower’s part several times, then re-demonstrates with several students, even me. I was a poco less nervous with Leon than with Pablo or Juan Carlos. 

Leon is so beloved that one dance couple invited him to their wedding in Sri Lanka – and their honeymoon. It took three to tango. 

During my final lesson, Leon said, “You just need more time on the dance floor.” I could write a paean to Leon for lifting my ego off the floor. Still, I dropped out again.

Sure, I can do the “American” tango (Latin America isn’t “American”?). But there’s an ocean of difference between the exquisitely complex Argentine tango and its watered-down gringo version. Ditto the Valentino version.

“The real tango – Argentine, certainly not Valentino -- is very sensual for sure and in some ways erotic,” Argentine Embassy Minister Gustavo Torres told me.

Tango originated in the late nineteenth century in Buenos Aires’ barrio La Boca -- danced only by men waiting their turn at brothels. Argentine poet Leopoldo Lugones had termed the dance “that reptile from the brothels.” 

Tango was forbidden as immoral until it spread to Europe and gained respectability in the early twentieth century. It got an additional boost in the 1940s in its native land when dictator Juan Peron ordered radio stations to play at least 50 percent Argentine music. The dance’s popularity waned around the world in the 1960s and 1970s when disco became the rage. 

But the reptile from the brothels surged anew in the 1980s when tango musicals like “Tango Argentino” captivated audiences around the world. Argentine Embassy Minister Torres said, “From that moment, everybody fell in love with tango.”

Most tango aficionados say all it took was one of these tango musicals like “Forever Tango” whose run was extended for months on Broadway recently, or one film, and/or one lesson, to decide to tango forever. 

So I will return, as Evita had promised before she died. And after more lessons, I too will agree with Argentina’s greatest writer Jorge Luis Borges who said, “The infinite tango takes me towards everything.”