Me Tango Long Time

Saturday night we went to a tango show in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires. While this is not the neighborhood known for high quality tango, we were pretty sure we wouldn´t notice. The locale, Cafe Homero, resembled an old classy jazz show place with a small stage downstairs and a balcony spanning three sides of the small room. The show started an hour late just to remind everyone of the Hispano-Italian roots of the country and the dance. But just to remind everyone that we live in a new globalized world, the female tango dancer was Asian.

The music and the dancing went just as you might expect, except the dance looks really difficult in person. Since I certainly do not understand (or practice) artful dance, I will only venture to say that all the moves in the tango involve crossing your partner´s steps, a feat which seems much more challenging than moving in unison. This might be why the dancers appeared to have a level of concentration more suited for, say, landing an airplane, than recreational dance. Then again, the tango probably isn´t recreational, which brings me to my next observation: the tango is extremely overtly sexual. Every dance was meant to look like a seduction and always finished perfectly with the Asian-tinian woman "surrendering" to the handsome suitor. If only it were that easy.

Phil´s tango conclusions: Like porn, it is sexual, looks difficult, and is best left to professionals.

Off to Rio! Happy 4th of July!