1st milonga in Buenos Aires

Zapatos Rojos

Argentine Tango in Las Vegas

Will Your Dreams Come True in Buenos Aires?

Thousands of tango dancers take a pilgrimage to the birthplace of tango every year in hopes of bringing their dreams to life. Most dancers have their first trip perfectly planned to fit their utmost tango desires. The mythical creature that tango has become for American tango dancers is fascinating, surreal, and bazaar. By explaining a night at the milongas of Buenos Aires, your dreams will either come true, be falsified, or new desires will arise.

It is eleven o’clock and time to arrive at our first milonga of the night. My friend and I are dressed with our stereotypical tango dresses on, are lips are red and our eyelashes are long and black. The men we have on our arms plan to waltz us onto a perfect night of dancing. This night after all is what we have been talking about for quite a while.

As we walk down the entrance way to Salon Canning, there is a curtain in the air from cigarette smoke that hides the dance floor from us. My friend and I let our escorts pay our entrance as we strain to get a clearer look at the dance floor, but we are stopped abruptly. “Reservation?” a hostess asks. While we looked stunned and shake our heads “No,” she rolls her eyes and motions for us to follow her. Passing by many prime tables, she finally seats the four of us in the last row, four rows back from the dance floor, and directly next to the woman’s bathroom. While the sounds of the toilets flush harmoniously to the next tanda, my friend and I smile nervously at each other. The lighting was very bright and the place lacked charm and any feeling of a milonga back home.

Fortunately, our men whisk us to the floor before our pouting lips can hamper the mood. The floor is as crowded as rush hour traffic in New York. My partner and I become glued together and I hold on for dear life. People are pressed against our bodies at every angle and they seem to push us along with the rhythm of the music. As “Despues de Carnaval” comes to its close, the entire floor stops moving and talking begins. The next song starts, people stand and chatter away a full minute of the song. Finally, people embrace and we begin to crowd surf again. After four songs, the cortina is played and everyone leaves the floor as if the last man standing were to be cursed with bad sex for the rest of their life and at least one reincarnation.

My partner and I join our friends at our bathroom side table and sit for relief. We exclaim at the crowd and the style of dancing. We giggle and chat and then we notice the circulars. Circulars are men that circle the peripheral of the dance hall to find a dance partner. They walk quickly, with their head staring straight ahead and only their eyes dart from side to side as they make mental notes of whom they might ask to dance on another pass. Then to our horror a circular perches himself directly beside our table with his eyes set on my friend. He is like a Sasquatch wearing a see-through lace shirt, and pants that are too short. His chest hair spills out of the lace and his cologne and sweat waft in our direction. We keep our eyes very low because if either of us dare to make eye contact, we would be accepting an invitation to dance. Fortunately, no eyes met and the anxiety soon left our minds as the man drifted on.

While the time has been amusing at Salon Canning for three hours, we decide that we are dying to go to Club Viruta. Only a short cab-ride away, we hurriedly rush into Viruta. Again, we are asked for reservations and again we embarrassingly say no and are put in the last row of the tables, six rows back, in the corner, directly next to the woman’s bathroom. This milonga club was much more to our liking, however. The club was dark and the energy was wild. Again my lips turn down since I begin to feel as if I am destined to sit most of the night. Then I am tapped on the shoulder, “Baliamos?” I jump up and knock over my chair as I scurry through the maze of tables to get to the dance floor. The man that asks me to dance is a tourist from New York and a smooth dancer. He makes me feel very happy and fills me in on tips for the days to come. After the tanda he returns me to my table. The New Yorker becomes a familiar face at the upcoming milongas.

My regular partner and I have several more dances and begin to get the hang of the crowed dance floor. We start to dance as we have never before. Then we realize that no one is watching us or cares who we are. We are just some regular people at the milonga and then we really dance. My partner holds me passionately close and I feel as if I am being danced into the beginning of a new awakening. The dancing becomes sultry and the music pounds in our heads. The feeling was pure fantasy, because I only fantasize about dancing that way. When the music stops, he still holds me close and we smile at each other, breathing hard. Tango was never more pleasurable. Then the cortina interrupts our mojo and we reluctantly return to our table.

Now it is halfway past five o’clock in the morning. We do not want our night to end, but the new day has already begun. We must take off our new shoes and put them dearly away in their trademark bags and end our night. Before we leave, we scour through our milonga catalogue and plan the next night’s adventure hoping to only replicate Viruta’s atmosphere.

Finally, tango in Buenos Aires often starts off on a bad note because it will never hold up to the expectations that have been created about it. When tango began in the barrios and women were being kidnapped to be prostitutes, the birth of this mythical creature that we call tango came into being. As if the great Homer has passed on tango’s legend in America, we will still continue to hold tango in the highest regard with the tanguera as our goddess and perhaps the poor barrio sweetheart as our Zeus. Not in any way should it be inferred that Americans interpret tango incorrectly, on the contrary, they respect tango and all it has to offer them like mystique, cultural expansion, and a new way of life. In some ways, as the American travels to Buenos Aires and watches in horror as the song “Sonar Y Nada Mas” is talked through and dancers stop dancing before the song come to its end, they may think that the Portenos are disrespectful to talk through this beautiful song. On the other hand, it is fun to see how lighthearted the average Porteno is about tango. The laughter on the dance floor and friendliness to the tourist makes the dancing night come to a full symphonic crescendo ending.

Desiree Vittorio 2005