First Tango in Buenos Aires

Before last night, I’d never been to a tango show. I’m reasonably sure I’d seen an individual tango dance, maybe in a television show or movie. However, I say this only because the word tango conjures up a vivid image for me. I can’t remember when I might have seen one.

In my mind’s eye, tango was a relatively deliberate dance, but passionate, athletic, sexy, and seductive, danced to moderately slow music.

But before last night, it was just an image summoned from I don’t remember what source, but certainly not a full tango show.

I’m in Buenos Aires. Tango originated here. It’s iconically associated with this city. How could I not take in a tango show here? (That’s a rhetorical question. Don’t feel the need to answer it.)

Before I take a trip, I’ll usually look at a tour booking platform (Viator) and see if there are any tours that look interesting. Even though most of them are cancelable up to 24 hours in advance, I hate planning things too far off. (Hey, I’m old. What if something, such as death, happens that renders me incapable of undertaking the activity or cancelling it? I won’t get my money back.)

So, rather than booking during the research phase, I set up a wish list folder for that city on the booking engine and drop the tour in there. Then, later, usually not until I get to the city, or a day or two before, I look at the usually small wish list and see if any tours in there that still interest me and if so, I might book one or two. (Impulse shopping can be ruinously expensive. I try to avoid it.)

If I’m in a a city for several days, once I get a better sense of my time, I might consult the list again looking for something else I want to do if I think I’ll have the time)

When I looked for activities in Buenos Aires, one of the ones I put in my wish list was a dinner and tango show, including hotel pickup and drop off.

After I took the Food Tour in Buenos Aires earlier in my time here, the guide texted me, and I assume, everyone else who took the tour, a list of things to do in the city, including a list of the tango shows that he thought were the most authentic.

The show on my wish list was one of the three. I had already followed a couple of the guide’s suggestions, including ones that no one would make any money from. So I decided to book that dinner-and-show package.

(Before continuing, an apology. I usually post these entries on the same day I experience what’s in them. However, the show ended too late for me to write this up without risking damage to my laptop when my head crashed face-first into it. When I got back, I hadn’t yet finished my post on yesterday afternoon’s activities. I stayed up to publish, but that was as much as I could do before I required sleep.)

And I had a tour booked for this morning (a post on that coming soonish) so it took me a while to get around to publishing this. Sorry about that.)

The Pickup

The instruction from the tour operator was that I’d be fetched from my hotel lobby between 7:30 and 8:00 in the evening.

A few minutes before 7:30, I went downstairs. Apart from any emergency exits that I’m sure exist somewhere in the building, there’s only one, not particularly wide, entrance to the hotel. To save time for the driver, I decided to stand just in front of the door, where I could spot anyone walking in looking officious and they could spot me, someone who was looking anxious.

While outside, I eyed the driver of every vehicle driving by in a vehicle that was large enough to possibly be my pickup, considering it probably also had other hotel pickup stops.

At 7:45, a small minibus drove slowly by. I eyed the driver trying to telepathically ask him if he was there for me. Rudely, he didn’t answer and just drove by without pulling over in the unoccupied lay-by in front of the hotel or even stopping.

Damn! Not my guy.

A couple of minutes later, a man came running up to the hotel, spotted me, pulled out his phone, pointed to it, and asked in rough English if that was me.

I looked at his phone, saw my name on the screen and indicated that yes, indeed, it was me.

He then beckoned me to follow him and he took off, walking at a fast clip that I had trouble keeping up with.

We kept up this pace for about two blocks. We then came to the same minibus I saw earlier. There, it was peacefully parked beside the curb.

The driver invited me aboard. There were already some passengers on board. We made a couple of stops to pick up more passengers before arriving at the restaurant for dinner.

Dinner

Dinner was at a nice restaurant with attentive servers. They seated people in groups as they had booked. So I had a table to myself.

The meal was included in the package so it was off a three-course, fixed-price menu, with two or three options for each course.

I started with a very tasty chickpea, tomato and green matter salad and finished with a flan.

I could have had a steak for the main course, but I’ve already had steak a couple of times in Buenos Aires and each time the serving was probably more steak than I normally eat in a year. And those couple of times didn’t include the steak stop on the food tour. I’m trying to leave Argentina with at least enough room in my arteries for a trickle of blood to flow through. I’m not sure I’ll succeed.

The package included two glasses of wine. When I sat down at my table, there was already an unopened regular-size bottle of Malbec on the table. (Malbec is the most widely produced wine in Argentina.)

The server came by and asked if Malbec was okay. I said it was. He uncorked the bottle, poured me a healthy glass, and took my food order.

During the main course, when my wine glass approached empty, the server came by and refilled it again with a healthy, or should I say unhealthy, portion of wine.

That’s all the wine I had at dinner. Being the sort of person I am, I couldn’t help wondering what they do with the remainder of the bottle.

Maybe they use it for people who order wine by the glass. They also have independent customers in addition to the dinner and show package trade. Maybe those people get served the leftovers if they order just a glass.

Or perhaps the server takes the bottle and guzzles the leftovers to help fortify him to get through the rest of the dinner traffic. (The restaurant wasn’t overly busy when I was there so, if so, that would have just been a convenient excuse.

After finishing dinner, it was time to go to the tango theatre, which was directly across the street from the restaurant.

Tango Show

The theatre was not set up with theatre-style seating, but, rather, cabaret-style. There were small tables and chairs in a grid pattern. That is to say, the tables were small. The chairs easily accommodate normal-size adults. Those chairs were set up on only one side of each table, facing the stage.

The tables were all reserved and preassigned. I was given a table off to the side, with a narrow post between me and one side of the stage. So my view was partially obstructed, but not much. When I took a picture, if I zoomed in, the post was out of the shot.

The image I had of the tango that I described above was not accurate. There wasn’t much of the slow, but powerful dancing that I pictured.

The dance was mostly frenetic, although highly synchronized. However, consistent with my mental image, it was indeed sensual and suggestive, just much more vigorously so. And it was exceptionally athletic, with lots of impossibly high kicking, particularly by the women, and lifting up of women by the men, including some twirling in the air of the women by the men.

The show started with a short video in Spanish with English subtitles about the history of the theatre. Then the live portion of the show started.

There were eight dancers, four women and four men. There was also a singer. She sang one number at the beginning of the show while some of the dancers were on stage. During the show, she also sang some numbers without the dancers present.

A five-piece live band was up on the stage for most of the show. I probably would have walked out in disgust immediately if they put a dead band of any size up there.

The band’s instruments included a piano, a cello, a violin and two accordions. They got a lot of loud, lively sounds out of their instruments.

Some of the dances involved a single couple, others more than one, and the opening and closing dances involved all of the dancers.

When dancers came back on stage after dances they weren’t a part of, they usually returned in a different costume.

One of the dances was not something I associated with tango. For all I know, maybe it wasn’t classically tango. It was danced by just one couple. They were wearing shoes with very solid bottoms. They weren’t tap shoes, but their soles were hard enough that they made loud percussive sounds when the couple rhythmically stomped.

Then, the woman picked up a large drum and started beating it rhythmically. The man then joined her.

After that, they each pulled out two cables, or maybe shiny-wrapped ropes, one in each hand. The cables had metallic balls on one end. The couple each started rapidly twirling their cables along a vertical plane. As the balls hit the hard floor, they made an even louder, sharper percussive sound. When they sped up the twirls, it sounded like machine gun fire. (Which, fortunately, I’ve heard only in movies.) At times, they did crossovers of their hands and slowed down or speeded up their twirls to create interesting sounds. It was impressive.

As the show was reaching its end, the screen on which the opening video was projected rolled back down from the ceiling. They then played another video that I think was about major figures in the tango world. That video had no English, either spoken or subtitles. It consisted primarily of pictures and videos of people with their names superimposed.

Or at least I think they were the names of the people pictured in the video. For all I knew, they could have been unassociated names drawn at random out of an old telephone book kept from the time when there were still phone books. Probably not. It was likely the tango celebrity thing.

After the video, the screen rolled up and a post-middle-aged man dressed in a light grey suit and a black bow tie came out. I think I recognized him from one of the pictures in the video. He sang some songs and did some talking. It was all in Spanish, so I didn’t understand a word.

At one point, he consulted some index cards he had on top of the piano and called for the house lights. With them on full brightness, he addressed a specific woman in the audience, I think he was talking about some event happening in her life, but I don’t know what.

Then he addressed someone else in the audience. Unless they use the melody for the happy birthday song for some other occasion here, I do know what event that person was celebrating.

The man then sang a couple more numbers and there were a few more dance segments.

The man then came back and wrapped up by introducing all of the members of the cast and the band and calling them up to take bows. Needless to say, that ended the show.

The tango show was a new experience for me and one I very much enjoyed. I was amazed that any human could execute some of the moves of the tango dancers made, while also being so expressive.

Oh, I forgot to mention. The package I bought also included two free drinks during the show. When I came in, they asked me if I wanted beer, wine, or sparkling wine. I chose sparkling wine. When I emptied my glass during the show, they brought a refill.

Would I have enjoyed the show as much stone-cold sober? How would I know? But I’m pretty sure I would have enjoyed it at least somewhat, at a minimum.