TANGO 1

A window to a weekly social gathering on Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo, Buenos Aires

The tango I experienced on the streets of Argentina´s capital Buenos Aires, was quite different from the tango I had imagined. Instead of passionate movements, complex footwork, expressive poses, which I had seen in movies or post-cards sold here in nearly every city kiosk, these dancers walked in a close embrace, taking little elegant steps.

They danced on the street, their misty eyes looking into their inner selves; two souls moving in unison with the sensual tango – nobody else existed: he was the first man and she the only woman. Carried on the breeze of a melody, one wondered if they could actually walk in a different manner, live without one another, move without music. Was that not true love between two people who had searched for so long and then finally found that one breath, one motion, inspired by the music, taken up by the man, passed on to the woman? The Dance had been conceived upon their meeting, born when they had made their first step and was now growing and living a life of it’s own.

“I think they danced before they walked. And that is also how their parents met”, I said after having watched the pairs for a while. They just did it so casually; one would think it was to them the regular way to move.

I followed the couples for several dances without saying a word. We were waiting for a fellow known as “El Indio” to give his Sunday performance. For now he was the D.J. of the social gathering choosing the tunes for the dancers.

-“You know what seems to be the hardest thing in tango to me”, I asked Tiiu.
-“What?”
-“Not to step on his feet.”
- “You are wrong.”
-“And you know what seems just as hard?”
-“What?”
-“Not to fall down.”
- “Wrong again”, laughed Tiiu, who had come to Argentina fifteen years ago to learn to dance Tango.
- “What then?”
- “The hardest thing in tango is to follow the man”, she said.

I focused on the dance, and picked out several couples I really liked. There was a man and a woman, perhaps in their early forties. Both wore casual clothes and sneakers. I imagined they had been married for a long time, probably had children. And just like that they would dance every morning in the kitchen waiting for the water to boil, then make mate, then go wake up kids to send them off to school, then go and do their everyday things and live happily ever after.

Then there was another couple, a bit older, yet in a completely different (dance-) relationship. The woman had done her hair, wore make-up, the man was attentive and courteous; the woman enjoyed his touch – something only they knew was happening.

Smiling dancer - is she Argenitine?

All of the couples looked concentrated as if in a deep state of meditation, I picked out one woman, different from the rest – she was smiling and playful. I guessed she wasn’t Argentine, had learned the steps, learned them well, and that apart from tango she danced also salsa…at least.

I found out that this style was called "milonguero" – the name comes from how they call Buenos Aires tango dancehalls or milongas. When later that night sitting behind one of the tiny tables of a milonga “Canning” I understood why: the dance floor got so crowded already by nine o’clock that there was just no other way…

It was a wide hall, with a dull light, little tables set around the dance floor. Women and men, most of them aged well over forty, moved in a close embrace in a circle. Nearly all men wore formal clothes, women had high-heels and many of them were in elegant dresses. I looked at the first dance, recognizing the same style I had seen on the street – the couples moved cheek to cheek in the rhythm of the music.

The melody ended, the gentlemen guided the ladies to their seats, but then came back a little later already with a new pair. The women they had danced with previously also had formed other couples. I was frustrated. I had been sure they were all couples also in life. Could they really dance in such a way with a stranger?

At home I listened to tango music, and found a short comment written on a CD cover; an Argentinean tango composer Enrique Santos Discefolo (1901-1951) defined the music as “a sad thought that you can dance at.”

I could not perhaps understand it fully, coming from too far away, I perceived only its’ form, but not the feeling: many things ran through my head: the man and the woman, did they actually see each other? What were they looking for then, if not the other? Did they stand close or did it only seem so? Did they even know the name of each other? Did they care? Were they alone or together? And was that then not ultimate loneliness, as they in fact stood so very close?

“It is not about the pair, but about the dance," explained Tiiu.

I wondered. So if the dance was a sad thought, then who or what that thought was about? A dream that was not meant to come true, a search that was not bound to find... I do not know if Enrique Santos Discefolo had meant the same, yet somehow somwhere, and for sure in my own way, I understood.