San Telmo, Argentina, 2012.

If you can walk you can tango. These were the seductive words that I saw in an ad for a dance studio in Richmond, Melbourne, and which had enticed me into learning the tango. But they were wrong. So wrong. They could have said: if you can walk you can climb Mount Everest. Both activities require putting one foot in front of the other – except, of course, as a woman you would be required to put one foot behind the other and climb up backwards. In high heeled shoes.

The tango (or Argentine Tango to be precise) is deceptively simple … but challengingly complicated. It is also sexy, addictive and frustrating.

My tango journey had started in 2010 and had danced me from Melbourne to its birthplace in Buenos Aires, Argentina two years later. It had brought me to this dimly-lit dance hall in San Telmo, one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the city with cobblestone streets,  faded grand old houses and a thriving tango scene. And where I sit like a heroine in a Jane Austen novel waiting to be asked to dance.

Let me fill you in on tango’s history. Argentina in the mid 19th century was a young, huge and vastly wealthy country desperate for young fit men to come and work. So they came …  from Italy and Spain and Africa and America, with men outnumbering women by something like 100,000. In the dimly lit dockside bars and brothels of Buenos Aires, lonely men far from home found fleeting enjoyment with a woman in their arms. They moved together in a dance that was a mixture of African rhythms and formal dance moves from Europe. The tango was born.

The dance spread from the slums and displaced people on the edges of society and was taken up by the rich Argentine upper classes: from there it was introduced to Europe and by 1914 it had shaken off its shady past and was the rage of Paris.

Here I am sitting on one side of the dance floor with the other women; the men cluster together on the opposite side. I am waiting for a man to give me a cabeceo – this is a ritual where a man eyeballs a woman and imperceptibly nods his head. She accepts this subtle invitation to dance with a smile, a nod and stands waiting for him. Thus the macho Argentine male does not risk the humiliation of a public refusal by walking across the floor and actually asking her.

Yes … a likely partner has given me the cabaceo, leads me on to the dance floor and clutches me firmly to his chest. I place my left hand over his shoulder and onto his back and my right hand in his – this man, who I do not know and have never seen before, is cheek to cheek with me, heart to heart, hip to hip.

The music for the first set starts: La Cumparsita, a traditional tune. Tango music is distinct with a 2/4 timing and played on the bandoneon – a strange sort of instrument, the love child of a piano accordion and a concertina. My partner skilfully navigates the crowded floor and kindly doesn’t throw too many complicated moves into the mix.  We dance for three minutes and the music stops. The stop is called a cortina (curtain) and after a while the music starts again. The set of four dances is known as a tanda and lasts for about 12 minutes – a 12-minute love affair.

When our tanda is finished, my partner gallantly escorts me back to my seat. He leaves me with a smile. The older Argentine women have no compunction in hiring a taxi dancer for the evening, but I am happy to have had just this dance, one chance to practise the moves I learnt in Richmond.

From my position in the gloom at the edge of the dance floor, I sit and watch the expert dancers execute their beautifully precise and elegant steps. Tango is not a choreographed dance, rather the man interprets the music and by subtle pressure of his chest or hand, can smoothly lead his partner, allowing her to shine in an elaborate display of kicks and pivots.

I realise I will never master this dance.

I leave the dance hall and outside in the cobbled street of San Telmo I hear the strains of music, the bandoneon playing a melancholy lament – and I imagine the ghost of a worker far from home and loved ones, finding 12 minutes of joy in a warm embrace in a backstreet bar.

Stereo Story #756

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Ann Banham retired from the corporate world where she wrote corporate-type material (website content, brochures, newsletters etc). She found her tribe in U3A Williamstown and enrolled in a creative writing class. She is now happily exploring the creative side of her brain with short stories, non-fiction pieces and the occasional stab at poetry.