Sitting at the edge of a dance floor in an elegant salon in Argentina I watch, mesmerised, as couples spin past, each locked in an embrace, their feet sweeping the polished teak floor, lost in their own private drama. I'm in central Buenos Aires, the birthplace of tango, and 7,000 miles from the Irish community hall in south London where I have been learning this complex dance every week since May. But it bears no resemblance to this.
It was my husband's idea to take classes and since my knowledge of tango was restricted to Jack Lemmon's comic turn in Some Like it Hot and the high kitsch of Strictly Come Dancing I thought it would be a laugh. But it's more difficult than I ever imagined. So much can go wrong - the direction of gaze, position of arms, back and hips, angle of feet - before you even get to the steps, which are a complicated series of twists, spins and sweeps. Following the man's lead was also a revelation - it's not easy being passive. My excellent teacher would remind our eclectic group of enthusiasts that tango is the 'horizontal expression of vertical desire'. It felt more like an exercise in humiliation. Yet the opportunity to dance in Buenos Aires was a prospect as exhilarating as it was terrifying.
I had no idea how central it is to the city's culture and history. If tango is the soul of Buenos Aires then its melancholic music of bandoneon (concertina) and violin runs through its veins. It's played everywhere from taxis to shops and bars. It's possible to dance tango in milongas (dances), take a group or private lesson, watch a show, visit one of the tango museums, hang out in one of the cafés and even stay in a tango hotel.
A fusion of dances brought over by immigrants from Europe (mostly Italy and Spain) and Africa, tango originated in the 1880s and by the turn of the 20th century had gradually made its way out of the brothels and bars of the slums to the higher echelons of society, who took it abroad. Buenos Aires has remained the 'tangopolis' although the dance has suffered peaks and troughs - banned by military dictators and usurped by rock'n'roll. But in the past decade it has enjoyed a renaissance among both the younger porteños (residents of Buenos Aires) and foreigners who flock to the city each year in search of the perfect dance.
With its wide, open boulevards and American-style grid system Buenos Aires reminds me of both a typical European city and New York. Even the language is hybrid - Spanish with a distinctly Italian accent. For the first two nights, I stay at the Mansion Dandi Royal, an Art Nouveau tango hotel with its own dance floor and milonga, in San Telmo, a district of decaying grandeur with cobbled streets and mansion houses with rickety balconies and peeling façades. It's full of antique shops, restaurants, cafés and tango venues, and a great base from which to explore the city.
But first I have to experience my first milonga. My teacher back home had warned me that some milongas aren't kind to beginners, but I'd blithely assumed that as long as I could translate 'Oops, sorry' I'd be OK. Little did I know that Niña Bien (+54 11 4483 2588) was one of the city's most established and respected milongas where only the most serious tangueros dance. Held in a large, high-ceilinged hall with tables arranged three-deep around the floor, it looks, at first, like a sedate tea dance. I'm struck by the contrast in couples - young with old, tall (women) and short (men), the beautiful and not so attractive - as they follow each other anticlockwise around the floor. Elderly moustachioed gentlemen in sharp suits dance with pretty young girls with flirtatious feet in vertiginous heels. Some of the women have their eyes closed, lost in ecstasy. Some of the men look in pain. Flaco Dani, a whippet-thin Italian in his seventies, is the best dancer in the room. 'Tango keeps him alive,' says Jorge Juanatey, an accomplished teacher with whom I've booked a class later in the week. A young couple glide past, cheek-to-cheek, chest-to-chest, and I'm captivated by their skill and beauty. This is tango as it should be - formal but passionate, intimate and sensual.
