It’s 11:34 on a Tuesday night, and Club Almagro is packed.
Through the glare of red and blue stage lights and the haze of cigarette smoke, couples clasp each other and sinuously swirl about the parquet floor. Their eyes are closed, their legs twined about each other.
And mixed in with the traditional dark slacks, ties and elegant dresses are more than a few glimpses of leather miniskirts, bare midriffs, T-shirts and blue jeans.
Tango, Argentina’s melancholy music and dance, is making a comeback, especially among the young.
The kids flock to dance halls, or “milongas,” around the country, learning a dance and a style of music that, until just a few years ago, appeared to be in danger of dying out. Its greatest fans were entering their 50s and 60s, and young people seemed more interested in the rock of such Argentine musicians as Charly Garcia and Fito Paez.
But, perhaps prompted by Al Pacino’s sensual turn on the dance floor in the 1992 film “Scent of a Woman” and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s somewhat clumsier efforts in the more recent “True Lies,” that has begun to change.
A new cable station, called “Solo Tango,” or “Only Tango,” broadcasts 24 hours a day to about 3 million subscribers, featuring instruction, interviews and shows.
Clubs offer nightly tango lessons, and new milongas catering to the young have opened in Buenos Aires. Even Madonna, who was in town to film the movie version of the rock opera “Evita,” dropped into a few clubs to show off her steps, which weren’t bad at all, according to tango aficionados.
“This is just the start–it’s getting bigger every day,” says Juan Fabbri, the impresario who owns Club Almagro and runs the tango cable network.
“In the beginning, the old people were a little bit reluctant, but now you’ll see old dancing with young, and the old people are starting to teach the young some of their secrets.”
Juan Carlos Quintana, a 64-year-old mechanic who still tangos three nights a week, says the renaissance is nothing less than “enchanting.”
“If the young people can capture the music in their heads, they can dance very well,” he says. “It’s the young who’ll keep this going on, and it must.”
Some believe that beyond the Hollywood glamor, there are more earthy reasons for learning to tango. “All young people have a problem with physical contact,” Fabbri says. “They’ll go to a disco and one partner will be dancing on one floor and one on another floor. Tango obliges you to get in touch.”
Indeed, tango may be the most sensual dance for this or any other generation. A good tango couple seems nearly welded at the hips; their legs move as if fused. Their eyes, if they are open, are locked, and the dancers seem as if they are in another world.
“It attracted me because I could have a woman in my arms,” said Sebastian Misse, 17, who dances several nights a week with his companion, Andrea Reyero, 23, and also gives tango lessons.
The tango was born at the end of the 19th Century, in the slums of Buenos Aires. At the time, the city’s poorer areas were a melting pot for Spanish and Italian immigrants, along with former Argentine soldiers discharged after fighting civil wars.
The immigrants, most of whom were men, would gather in barrooms and bordellos and sing songs of loneliness and heartbreak, playing traditional instruments like the guitar, concertina and violin. The combination of several musical heritages created a sound that is uniquely Argentine.
By the early 1900s, the tango was all the rage in Europe, especially in France. This gave it respectability among the Argentine upper crust, which had snubbed tango as music and dance for the common people.
Today, the tango might well be considered Argentina’s most popular export, even surpassing beef. A leading computer software dealer is known as “Tango Software,” and President Carlos Menem cruises the globe in a jet called “Tango 1.”
In fact, a sense of pride in Argentina seems to be the motivation for many of the young dancers. “I was living in Switzerland and went to a party,” explained Joaquina Santiago, 20, who recently began taking tango lessons. “Someone said, `Let’s put on a tango record and have the Argentine girl show us how to do it,’ and I couldn’t.”
Her friend Luciana Ogando, 18, is thinking about moving to Europe, and “that makes me want to have something Argentine to take with me.”
Fully half of the people taking classes at Club Almagro are in their teens or 20s. “Some young people think it’s for old folks only,” Luciana says. “You have to have courage to come for the first time. You think it’s only old people and you think you’re never going to learn something so difficult. But it’s great.”
